Facebook’s 10 Year Challenge is Just a Harmless Meme – Right?

* Recommended by Simon Légaré from Quebec City. * Kate O’Neill on Wired Tweeted, “Me 10 years ago: probably would have played along with the profile picture aging meme going around on Facebook and Instagram.  Me now: ponders how all this data could be mined to train facial recognition”. Tweet gained notice.* Counterpoint – People already have access to your face from profile pictures (aren’t private and time stamped).* Point – If you were doing a study, you could mine the information looking for timestamps (not always taken near the date posted, sometimes profile pictures are not even human) or you could just ask people to do it for you. * “Thanks to this meme there’s now a very large dataset of carefully curated photos of people from roughly 10 years ago and now”.* Facebook denies being behind the 10 year challenge.  It is, “a user-generated meme that went viral on its own”.* The big question, How has our data been used?* Cambridge Analytica – 70 m facebook users.* Facial recognition (Apple & some Android “will be more”).  How can it be used?* Good – Help with finding missing children.* Mundane – Targeted Advertising (age, ethnicity, gender guessing).* Coupled with other metadata (Location, purchase history, political responses) creepy.  Remember Minority Report?* Bad? – Insurance assessments, health care.* Amazon introduced real-time facial recognition services to law enforcement, government agencies.* Privacy issues.  Not only track people with records, could track others (protesters).  * American Civil Liberties Union asked Amazon to stop and so did many shareholders.* “The broader message… humans are the richest data sources for most of the technology emerging in the world… our data is the fuel that makes businesses smarter and more profitable”.

Update on Huawei, Meng Wanzhou’s arrest & Canada China Relationship.

* Background* Meng Wanzhou CFO of Huawei was arrested in BC in December at the request of the United States for violating sanctions against Iran.* China responded by arresting two Canadians (one a former diplomat working for a non profit group looking at Human Rights violations in China) for “security reasons”.* China also quickly retried a Canadian sentenced to 15 years in jail for drug trafficking.  He now has been sentenced to death. * This week:* Chineses Diplomat threatens Canada for going to allies for support.* Hua Chunying – Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman:* Canada’s allies can be counted on 10 fingers.* What if they are the largest economies in the world?* EU has 28 countries alone. * Personal attacks on Justin Trudeau, “Laughing Stock, irresponsible”  Only Canadians can say that about our PM!* China Threatens if Canada bans Huawei from 5G* Lu Shaye China’s Ambassador to Canada warned of “repercussions” if Canada banned Huawei.* Accuses Canada of White Supremacy. * 140 former diplomats, scholars and Scientists send open letter to President Xi (shi)  Jinping. Calling China’s actions “extremely concerning”* Jan 30th deadline for the US to submit extradition paperwork.* This morning, “Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said, * “Both Canada and the US are abusing the extradition system”.  * “Canada has made a grave mistake”.* “China will respond to US actions” (if the US files extradition papers)..* Canadians are not impressed.