Random Post

Latest Post
Thursday, June 18, 2020
no image

The government has been forced to abandon a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pounds on technology that experts had repeatedly warned would not work.

In an embarrassing U-turn, Matt Hancock said the NHS would switch to an alternative designed by the US tech companies Apple and Google, which is months away from being ready. At the Downing Street briefing, the health secretary said the government would not "put a date" on when the new app may be launched, although officials conceded it was likely to be in the autumn or winter. The idea behind the NHS app was that it could trace anybody that a person with coronavirus symptoms came into close contact with by using the Bluetooth connectivity on a standard smartphone, and notify them to self-isolate. Ministers had insisted on using a centralised version of the untested technology in which anonymised data from people who reported feeling ill was held in an NHS database to enable better tracing and data analysis. This version was not supported by Apple and Google. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Work started in March as the pandemic unfolded, but despite weeks of work, officials admitted on Thursday that the NHS app only recognised 4% of Apple phones and 75% of Google Android devices during testing on the Isle of Wight. That was because the design of Apple's iPhone operating system is such that apps quickly go to sleep when they are not being used and cannot be activated by Bluetooth – a point raised by experts and reported by the Guardian in early May. The Department of Health and Social Care refused to say how much had been spent on the effort, although official records show three contracts worth £4.8m were awarded to the developer VMWare Pivotal Labs for work on the app. Silkie Carlo, the director of the privacy charity Big Brother Watch, said: "This just shows what a mess the centralised data-hungry approach was. Government was wrong to waste precious time and millions of pounds of public money on a design that everyone warned was going to fail, and now we're back at square one." Hancock had been particularly enthusiastic about the NHS app and had at one point said it would be "rolling out in mid-May" across England. Officials had denied the Apple-Google alternative was being evaluated, although on Thursday it was revealed that in fact work was going on to assess it from 6 May. On Thursday, Hancock said the alternative was not ready either because it could not measure distance accurately. In some cases it cannot distinguish between phones 1 metre and 3 metres away – even though one is inside and one outside the current 2-metre physical distancing limit. Experts say an app would be useful to track the potential spread from an infected person on public transport or in any other situation where they come into contact with people they do not know. But the distance measurement problem means it cannot be relied on to make decisions about who should self-isolate. In the press briefing, Hancock tried to shift the blame on to Apple, saying: "So as it stands, our app won't work because Apple won't change their system, but it [the NHS app] can measure distance and their app can't measure distance well enough to a standard that we are satisfied with." When asked whether he had unwisely stuck to the wrong approach, Hancock said: "I'm from Newmarket, we back both horses." He went on to argue that testing the Apple–Google alternative for several weeks meant the government could make the leap from one system to another with confidence. Q&A What is contact tracing? Show Hide Contact tracing is one of the most basic planks of public health responses to a pandemic like the coronavirus. It means literally tracking down anyone that somebody with an infection may have had contact with in the days before they became ill. It was – and always will be – central to the fight against Ebola, for instance. In west Africa in 2014-15, there were large teams of people who would trace relatives and knock on the doors of neighbours and friends to find anyone who might have become infected by touching the sick person. Most people who get Covid-19 will be infected by their friends, neighbours, family or work colleagues, so they will be first on the list. It is not likely anyone will get infected by someone they do not know, passing on the street. It is still assumed there has to be reasonable exposure – originally experts said people would need to be together for 15 minutes, less than 2 metres apart. So a contact tracer will want to know who the person testing positive met and talked to over the two or three days before they developed symptoms and went into isolation. South Korea has large teams of contact tracers and notably chased down all the contacts of a religious group, many of whose members fell ill. That outbreak was efficiently stamped out by contact tracing and quarantine. Singapore and Hong Kong have also espoused testing and contact tracing and so has Germany. All those countries have had relatively low death rates so far. The World Health Organization says it should be the "backbone of the response" in every country. Sarah Boseley Health editor Was this helpful? Thank you for your feedback. Apple did not immediately comment but in a statement on Thursday night, Google said: "We welcome the announcement from the UK government today. We have developed an Exposure Notification API with Apple based on consultation with public health experts around the world, including in the UK, to ensure that our efforts are useful to authorities as they build their own apps to limit the spread of Covid-19, while ensuring privacy and security are central to the design." Earlier this week Italy and Germany launched their own apps nationwide based on the Google-Apple model. The Italian app has been downloaded 2.7m times, while the German app was taken up 6.5m times on Tuesday, its first day. Speculation about the fate of the NHS app had been circulating for weeks after Hancock's mid-May deadline was missed. On Wednesday, James Bethell, a junior health minister responsible for the app, told MPs it would not be ready until the end of the year. "We're seeking to get something going for the winter, but it isn't a priority for us," he told a parliamentary committee. At one point it had been hoped that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would also use the app, which is intended for England in its revised form. But the repeated delays had prompted the other nations to reconsider. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: "This is unsurprising and yet another example of where the government's response has been slow and badly managed. It's meant precious time and money wasted. "For months, tech experts warned ministers about the flaws in their app, which is why we wrote to Matt Hancock encouraging the government to consider digital alternatives back in May." Sal Brinton, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson in the Lords, said: "Lord Bethell and Dido Harding [who is in charge of the test-and-trace programme] have already said it will be some months before England has that full service, probably winter. We need it now, and changing to an app that still has technical issues with Bluetooth distracts from the importance of fast, effective tracing by experts." Topics Coronavirus outbreak Infectious diseases Apple Google Mobile phones Bluetooth Apps news Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content

7:31 PM

The government has been forced to abandon a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pound...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

Police are extracting "excessive amounts of personal data" from the mobile phones of victims and witnesses during investigations and are in danger of discouraging the public from reporting crime, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has warned.

In a critical study of data extraction policies, the ICO concludes that procedures are inconsistent across forces in England and Wales and calls for a new statutory code of practice to provide "greater clarity".The report follows criticism of the criminal justice system over the fall in rape convictions and the introduction of a new police digital consent form.The information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, said: "Current mobile phone extraction practices and rules risk negatively affecting public confidence in our criminal justice system."Police data extraction practices vary across the country, with excessive amounts of personal data often being extracted, stored, and made available to others, without an appropriate basis in existing data protection law."People expect to understand how their personal data is being used, regardless of the legal basis for processing. My concern is that an approach that does not seek this engagement risks dissuading citizens from reporting crime, and victims may be deterred from assisting police."The report notes that individuals see mobile phones "as extensions of themselves; they have become unique repositories of our personal information, generating huge amounts of data and often hold the most intimate and private details of our everyday lives".Police data extraction methods "appeared excessive in many cases, with little or no justification or demonstration of strict necessity and proportionality", it adds. Claire Waxman, London's victims commissioner who raised concerns with the ICO, said: "Major changes are needed in how the criminal justice system gathers and uses the personal data of victims and how this is being communicated to victims … Current practices around how police collect mobile phone data, how much data they request and how it is shared with others, are damaging public confidence in our criminal justice system, and can deter victims from pursuing the justice they deserve."We still need to understand how these requests from the police and the CPS for excessive personal data are fuelling high levels of victims withdrawing from cases," she said."Whilst I welcome the work … the recommendations have not gone far enough to provide the clarity the police urgently need to ensure a consistent approach that not only complies with data protection laws but is needed for victims to feel confident when reporting a crime that their data will not be used to discredit them and will be handled securely and with respect throughout the criminal justice process."But Claire Howell, a barrister at Drystone chambers, London, tweeted in response to the report: "I have had several cases where the complainant refused to hand over their telephones and were compelled to do so by the judge. In all those cases the material on the phones resulted in the case being dropped, because my client was innocent."Dame Vera Baird QC, the victims' commissioner for England and Wales, said: "In the 15 months since the notices were introduced, charities have reported hundreds of rape complainants who have been forced to hand over personal data in fear of otherwise being denied justice. Hundreds more will have shrunk from the intrusion demanded into their privacy, and that of their families, and as a result there have been instances where otherwise 'strong' cases have been dropped."Kate Ellis, a solicitor at the Centre for Women's Justice, said: "We are constantly being referred cases where victims of serious sexual offending are extremely distressed that they have been asked to agree to a full or very extensive download from their mobile phones, whether or not it's proportionate to the facts of the case. Victims are frequently being told that they have no choice, or the suspect will not be prosecuted."

7:31 PM

Police are extracting "excessive amounts of personal data" from the mobile phones of victims and witnesses during investigations ...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

The US government wants a high-capacity undersea data cable system proposed by Google and Facebook to bypass Hong Kong, citing potential national security concerns following China's moves to exert greater control in the territory.

The Pacific Light Cable Network, pending approval by the federal communications commission (FCC), should connect the US, Taiwan and the Philippines but not go through Hong Kong as planned, a US Justice Department committee has recommended.The high-capacity, low-latency fibre optic cable backed by Google and Facebook would "encourage" US communications crossing the Pacific Ocean to land in Hong Kong before continuing on to other parts of Asia, the DoJ reasoned.The recommendation to the FCC contended that the cable network's "proposed Hong Kong landing station would expose US communications traffic to collection" by Beijing.The concerns have been heightened by the Chinese government's "recent actions to remove Hong Kong's autonomy and allow for the possibility that [Beijing's] intelligence and security services will operate openly in Hong Kong", the DoJ said in a release.Google and Facebook four years ago announced plans to work with a China Soft Power Holdings subsidiary to connect Los Angeles and Hong Kong with a high-capacity internet cable.The Pacific Light Cable Network was to stretch 12,800km (8,000 miles), crossing beneath the Pacific Ocean in a first-of-its-kind direct connection between the two locations, according to companies involved with the project.The PLCN is expected to handle some 120 terabytes of data per second, enough for 80 million high-definition video conference calls at once between Los Angeles and Hong Kong.Lifestyles and work practices increasingly centred on access to cloud-based online services, as well as to video, pictures and other content on the internet, have increased the need for quick and efficient digital data infrastructure.The FCC in April granted Google's request for temporary authority to operate the segment of the cable network connecting the US and Taiwan.

7:31 PM

The US government wants a high-capacity undersea data cable system proposed by Google and Facebook to bypass Hong Kong, citing potential na...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

The other day I was in a Zoom meeting with colleagues I don't know that well.

The tone was serious and formal when suddenly everything changed. The door behind the man chairing the meeting burst open and his toddler ran in, jumped on his lap and smeared Vegemite all over his computer screen.It reminded me of the video that went viral in 2017. Prof Robert Kelly was being interviewed live by the BBC when his small daughter strutted into the room behind him. His toddler spotted the open door and followed his sister in with great delight. The clip ends with a frantic mother removing the kids.We may not be seeing each other at work these days but in some ways we're seeing a lot more of each other than we anticipated. That revelation is making me think that screens might be perversely better at connecting us than face-to-face workplace life.A postgraduate researcher, Rebecca Lellie, told me a wonderful story about why she decided to write her thesis on screen cultures. She was babysitting a seven-year-old girl whose 10- and 12-year-old brothers always hogged the TV. One night they disappeared upstairs and Rebecca told the little girl she had the big screen all to herself. The girl looked at her, picked up her iPad and said: "No thanks. I like it closer."Televisions are usually housed in a public part of the house. People come and go and observe what we are watching. Tablets and laptops allow us to wander into a private space and watch unobserved. As Rebecca observed in her research, they encourage a more intimate mode of viewing.I've been thinking about that seven-year-old girl in the endless Zoom meetings we've all been in. What does her comment tell us about our relationship to screens? What is the difference between being face-to-face and meeting in a virtual environment?One of the things virtual meetings do is put us all in each other's homes. We try to look professional from the waist up. But when that two-year-old bursts in the boundaries between the workplace and the domestic space collapse.It's a feminist shibboleth that women have historically borne the burden of being the keepers of the domestic domain. That we are the ones who have done most of the cleaning up, the cooking and the emotional labour. Just ask any woman who's gone to work with Weet-bix in her hair.These days, of course, many men do more of their share too. But until now a lot of the invisible labour that we all do at home was absent from the workplace.There has been a lot of lip service paid to flexible work practices. But the reality is that a lot of us are still obliged to do the commute and turn up to the office.Covid-19 has plunged us all into a gigantic experiment in working from home. We are physically disconnected but, perversely, we are more connected to our colleagues' lives. On the screen we are all seeing each other in close-up. We are framed by the stuff of our personal lives.Could the pandemic have an upside? Will we be better at balancing work and life?Feminist demands for flexible working hours and practices that are not built around the needs of the traditional male breadwinner have made little inroads in mainstream corporate culture. If anything, the online and mobile era has resulted in us being more tethered to work than ever before.What if it took a virus to reboot our workplace cultures and humanise them? To give our leaders and managers confidence that people can be trusted to deliver without having to put on suits and judged on what time they leave the office.Maybe it's time to reflect on what we have learned from the vast working-at-home experiment thrust upon us.We hear a lot about how screens disconnect us and separate us from "reality'" Yet I suspect many of us have found just the opposite by looking into each other's lounge rooms and bedrooms. Seeing children wandering in and out of the frame.I was in a virtual meeting the other day when a man who is famous for his relentlessly pragmatic demeanour paused and asked everyone to explain what was behind them. We talked about our paintings and photos and books and what they meant to us.That, I thought, right there is the glimmer of the breakthrough that women have been hoping for. A crack in the ceiling of corporate culture. Catharine Lumby is a professor of media studies at Macquarie University and the director of the Centre for Media History

7:31 PM

The other day I was in a Zoom meeting with colleagues I don't know that well. The tone was serious and formal when suddenly everything...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

The government has abandoned its efforts to build a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after nearly three months, announcing it will instead switch to the model preferred by the technology firms Apple and Google.

The move is another embarrassing U-turn for the government in its management of the pandemic, but what is it all about?What is a contact-tracing app?Contact tracing is a crucial part of a "suppression" strategy for managing Covid-19, in which the health service tries to keep new cases as low as possible for as long as possible. By tracking down everyone a newly infected person has been near and advising them to self-isolate before they too potentially become infectious, the chain of transmission can be broken, preventing further infections.A contact-tracing app attempts to automate some of that work by using the technology in smartphones to automatically record who you have been close to. The advantages, if it works, are clear: the app can track contacts who you may not know personally, eg, those you came close to on public transport, in bars and restaurants, or in shops; and it can speed up the work of notifying tens or hundreds of people at once that they may have been exposed to Covid-19.How does it work?All major approaches to contact tracing have used the Bluetooth wireless radio to try to track nearby phones. By constantly sending out a unique, anonymous signal, and listening to other signals being sent out, a phone can build a sort of address book of all the other people it has been near. Then, if its owner comes down with Covid-19, the app can send a warning to every phone it recently heard from.But there is one major split in approaches, about whether that warning should also be sent to the health services of the country. Under the approach the UK government had been trialling until Thursday, the NHS would have acted as a centralised body, receiving the warnings and passing them on to all other phones. That would have given the government much more visibility on the spread of the disease, and allowed it to implement tighter security to prevent malicious use of the system. However, the potential overreach of this approach concerned privacy campaigners.What went wrong with the government app?Always sending messages over Bluetooth chews up phone batteries, and can, if done maliciously, prove a major security hazard, so both Android and iOS, the two main operating systems, limit what apps can do with it. That means that, in the first version of the government's app, contacts were only successfully recorded 75% of the time for Android phones, and just 4% of the time for iPhones, which have a much stricter set of restrictions.How did Apple and Google get involved?Apple and Google worked together to build a new set of tools that governments around the world could use to avoid those restrictions, which they announced in April and released a month later in May. But apps built using those tools have to operate in a "decentralised" way, giving up access to the data which the NHS hoped to use, leading to two months of standoff.Are the problems all fixed now?One major issue remains, which has plagued not only the UK's tests, but other contact-tracing apps around the globe: the Bluetooth signal on which the app depends is a very unreliable way of estimating distance. This means that two phones kept in pockets on a crowded train can "think" they are very far away from each other despite being within 2 metres, while two phones in active use outdoors can "think" they are very close, even if they are in fact well out of the danger zone.Unless that problem is solved, contract-tracing apps will give far too many false results, either advising people to isolate who are at no risk of spreading coronavirus, or allowing people to think they are virus-free when they may in fact be spreading it.

7:31 PM

The government has abandoned its efforts to build a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after nearly three months, announcing it wi...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

Designed to be a key component of the test, track and trace programme to forge a way out of lockdown, the NHS Covid-19 app has been beset by problems from day one – despite repeated claims to the contrary.

After a trial on the Isle of Wight at the start of May, the contact-tracing app was meant to be rolled out to the rest of England by the middle of the month. That soon slipped to some time in June. Then on Wednesday it emerged that we would have to wait until the winter. Now – after much behind-the-scenes scrambling, and head-scratching in Westminster – officials have decided to ditch the app entirely in its current form. How did this calamitous state of events unravel so spectacularly? Inspired by Singapore's perceived early success in releasing TraceTogether, the first government-backed contact-tracing app, NHSX – a digital unit run jointly with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) – set about developing its own version at the end of March. The following month, Apple and Google announced an unprecedented collaboration to leverage smartphone technology to help trace and contain the spread of coronavirus. But divisions between the UK's approach and that of the two tech giants – denied at the time by NHSX – began to show later that month. A group of nearly 300 experts condemned the UK's plans, citing privacy concerns over the centralised model. In the same week, France – one of the only other countries to pursue a centralised app model – publicly attacked Apple and Google for not loosening privacy protections. In early May, with a trial already under way on the Isle of Wight – where questions were raised about glitches on some phones and the potential lack of take-up among the island's older population – it emerged that the government had left open the prospect of ditching the app in its current form. It was revealed that a feasibility study into moving to a "decentralised" model was under way. By mid-May, with the promised nationwide rollout nowhere to be seen, the Guardian reported that the app's advisory board was split over whether it had the authority to tell the government to ditch its version and switch to a decentralised model. Members told of concerns that a lack of transparency and a rush to deploy the technology without proper testing risked compromising the project. As the days passed, ministers were accused of "misstep after misstep" when the Guardian revealed that applicants to become contact tracers were told recruitment was on hold while the government considered an alternative app. At the time, a DHCS spokesperson said: "The NHS contact-tracing app is not on hold and it would be completely wrong to suggest otherwise. There is no alternative app and the NHS continues to work constructively with many other organisations that are helping to develop and test the NHS Covid-19 app." That statement has not aged well. Eventually, as cracks continued to emerge with the app, the "track" element of the government's three-pronged approach was quietly dropped. Instead, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, unveiled the "test and trace" plan in England at the end of May. Now, in an embarrassing U-turn, it has been confirmed that it will switch to the model preferred by Apple and Google. At the crux of the matter has remained a key question: why did the UK government, unlike many others, continue to pursue a centralised model in the first place? The NHS app works by using Bluetooth technology on smartphones to register when people come into close contact with each other. Relying on users to flag up when they develop symptoms, it then uses a centralised database to alert others with whom they have come into contact that they are at risk of infection so they should isolate and get tested. Under the "centralised" model, information about who people came into contact with would be shared in an anonymised form with the health service, enabling tracking of both the data and the spread of Covid-19 but prompting privacy concerns. In the "decentralised" model, favoured by Apple and Google, no data is held in a single official database. Germany, Italy and Denmark are among other nations to have switched to a decentralised approach. Northern Ireland has already announced its intentions to develop a separate app to ensure compatibility with the one being developed by the Republic of Ireland, in order to aid cross-border travel. On Thursday, startling details emerged about the NHS app which help explain why it has finally been dropped in its current form. The app only recognised 4% of Apple phones and 75% of Android models. The alternative Google/Apple model can identify 99% of phones, but has problems distinguishing between whether somebody was 1 metre or 3 metres away. Given the problems, officials hope to find a "third way" by working with the two firms to create a tracing app that would work accurately. Officials refused to say how much money has been spent on developing the failed app, but an official database records three contracts worth £4.8m awarded to the company asked to develop the app, Pivotal VMWare. Without the help of the app's technology, the government has relied on human contact tracers to get in touch with those falling ill and trace the peop0le they have come into contact with. The app has been recast as "the cherry on the cake" and deemed "not a priority". However, early signs show that the human-only contact-tracing method is not working as smoothly as the government might hope – with figures showing approximately a quarter of people are not being reached. With no new launch date officially confirmed, many may be questioning whether precious time has been squandered. People will also be wondering how much longer they will have to wait until the app, which could prove crucial in tackling a potential second wave of coronavirus, is finally out. Topics Coronavirus outbreak NHS Matt Hancock Apple Google Bluetooth Apps analysis Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content

7:31 PM

Designed to be a key component of the test, track and trace programme to forge a way out of lockdown, the NHS Covid-19 app has been beset...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
no image

Protests over police violence and racism have amplified calls to re-examine police budgets in the United States, with several large companies announcing they are re-evaluating their commercial ties with police departments.

But a new report sheds light on the myriad other ways corporations engage with police forces, including by donating to police foundations that don't face the same scrutiny as police departments.The report was released on Thursday by the Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit corporate and government accountability research institute, and its research database project LittleSis. It details how more than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations – industry groups designated as nonprofits that provide additional funds to police forces.Police proponents say the foundations have emerged as police departments face budget cuts and are a means to supplement the force with top-of-the-line technology and weaponry. But critics argue police departments are already overfunded – they receive 20% to 45% of discretionary funds in cities across the US – and that funding through foundations allows police to operate with little oversight. Foundations, according to a 2014 report from ProPublica, "can be a way for wealthy donors and corporations to influence law enforcement agencies' priorities".Legally, police budgets are typically public documents that must be approved by elected officials. But designated as private charities, police foundations are not subject to the same public information laws that apply to law enforcement agencies.These foundations receive millions of dollars a year from private and corporate donors, according to the report, and are able to use the funds to purchase equipment and weapons with little public input. The analysis notes, for example, how the Los Angeles police department in 2007 used foundation funding to purchase surveillance software from controversial technology firm Palantir. Buying the technology with private foundation funding rather than its public budget allowed the department to bypass requirements to hold public meetings and gain approval from the city council. Police move through the streets during demonstrations over the death of George Floyd on 1 June 2020 in Los Angeles, California. Photograph: David McNew/Getty ImagesThe Houston police foundation has purchased for the local police department a variety of equipment, including Swat equipment, sound equipment and dogs for the K-9 unit, according to the report. The Philadelphia police foundation purchased for its police force long guns, drones and ballistic helmets, and the Atlanta police foundation helped fund a major surveillance network of over 12,000 cameras.In addition to weaponry, foundation funding can also go toward specialized training and support programs that complement the department's policing strategies, according to one police foundation."Not a lot of people are aware of this public-private partnership where corporations and wealthy donors are able to siphon money into police forces with little to no oversight," said Gin Armstrong, a senior research analyst at LittleSis.A variety of companies – including financial institutions, technology companies, retailers, local universities and sports teams, provide funding to police foundations. Donations may be, in part, to curry favor with a force that exists primarily to protect property and capital, the report said."Police foundations are a key space for orchestrating, normalizing and celebrating the collaboration between corporate power and the police," the LittleSis report said.Among the companies with ties to police is Amazon. The online giant last week implemented a one-year moratorium on the use of its artificial intelligence software Rekognition by police departments after extended criticism from human rights groups.But the company still has a number of less-direct connections to the police, according to the LittleSis report. A representative of the company currently sits on the executive committee of the Seattle police foundation's board and Amazon has been an official partner to the police foundation, donating at least $5,000 according to the foundation website.It also donates to police foundations across the US through its charitable program, AmazonSmile and still partners with more than 1,000 police forces through its smart doorbell product Ring.Amazon declined to comment on its continued ties with police and police foundations.Bank of America has seats on both the Chicago and New York City police foundation boards. According to tax filings examined by LittleSis, it has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to police foundations, including $200,000 to the NYC police foundation, $51,250 to the Atlanta police foundation, $25,000 to the Boston police foundation, $10,000 to the Los Angeles police foundation, as well as smaller donations to police foundations in Yarmouth, Massachusetts; Sarasota, Florida; Abilene, Texas; Duluth, Minnesota; Bellevue, Washington; and Sacramento and Glendale, California.Bank of America announced on 2 June a four-year commitment to support economic opportunity initiatives to combat racial inequality accelerated by the global pandemic.Seattle-based Starbucks is an active donor to the Seattle police foundation and has a representative on its board, according to the report. The coffee retailer also recently donated $25,000 to the NYC police foundation.Bank of America and Starbucks did not respond to requests for comment. Critics argue police departments are already overfunded – they receive 20% to 45% of discretionary funds in cities across the US. Photograph: Kenneth Martin/ZUMA Wire/REX/ShutterstockTarget has made major contributions to police foundations across the country, according to the report, including the NYC, Atlanta and Seattle police foundations. A $200,000 donation from Target in 2007 helped the LA police foundation purchase sophisticated surveillance equipment for the LAPD, the report found.Currently, Target is a sponsor of the Washington DC police foundation and has a representative on the board, the report notes. In addition to funding police foundations, Target offers additional funding to local agencies through its "public safety grant" program.A spokesman for Target said the donation to police foundations is a "very small portion of the 5% of annual profits Target gives back to the community".Facebook, Google and Microsoft are also all partners and donors to the Seattle police foundation, and Microsoft sits on the foundation's board, the report found. Microsoft and Facebook declined to comment on their donations to police foundations. Google did not respond to request for comment.Microsoft has publicly stated it will ban police from using its facial recognition technology.Evan Greer, the deputy director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, said the report highlights companies can't claim to stand for human rights while funding government agencies accused of violating them. "Corporations who cozy up to police, build surveillance software to them, or funnel them money through shady donations are actively propping up systemic racist violence and oppression."

7:31 PM

Protests over police violence and racism have amplified calls to re-examine police budgets in the United States, with several large compani...

Read more »
Posted by sw at 7:31 PM 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
 
Google Analytics Alternative