Hasta La Gadget!

Notorious facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to permanently halt sales of its massive biometric database to all private companies and individuals in the United States as part of a legal settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, per court records.

Monday’s announcement marks the close of a two-year legal dispute brought by the ACLU and privacy advocate groups in May of 2020 against the company over allegations that it had violated BIPA, the 2008 Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. This act requires companies to obtain permission before harvesting a person’s biometric information — fingerprints, gait metrics, iris and face scans for example — and empowers users to sue the companies who do not. 

“Fourteen years ago, the ACLU of Illinois led the effort to enact BIPA – a groundbreaking statute to deal with the growing use of sensitive biometric information without any notice and without meaningful consent,” Rebecca Glenberg, staff attorney for the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement. “BIPA was intended to curb exactly the kind of broad-based surveillance that Clearview’s app enables. Today’s agreement begins to ensure that Clearview complies with the law. This should be a strong signal to other state legislatures to adopt similar statutes.”

In addition to the nationwide private party sales ban, Clearview will not offer any of its services to Illinois local and state law enforcement agencies (as well as all private parties) for the next five years. “This means that within Illinois, Clearview cannot take advantage of BIPA’s exception for government contractors during that time,” the ACLU points out, though Federal agencies, state and local law enforcement departments outside of Illinois will be unaffected. 

That’s not all. Clearview must also end its free trial program for police officers, erect and maintain an opt-out page for Illinois residents, and spend $50,000 advertising it online. The settlement must still be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect.

“By requiring Clearview to comply with Illinois’ pathbreaking biometric privacy law not just in the state, but across the country, this settlement demonstrates that strong privacy laws can provide real protections against abuse,” Nathan Freed Wessler, a deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in Monday’s statement. “Clearview can no longer treat people’s unique biometric identifiers as an unrestricted source of profit. Other companies would be wise to take note, and other states should follow Illinois’ lead in enacting strong biometric privacy laws.” 

Monday’s settlement is the latest in a long line of privacy lawsuits and regulatory actions against the company. Clearview AI was slapped with a €20 million fine by Italian regulators in March and £17 million in November by the UK, both for violations of national data privacy laws. Australia has been investigating the company’s scraping schemes since 2020 and, currently, a small group of US lawmakers are lobbying to ban Federal agencies from using Clearview’s services entirely.  

Developing… 

Costa Rica is pulling out all the stops to beat back a vicious ransomware attack from last month as it has publicly announced it will be doing everything it can prevent giving Russian hackers the $10 million they’ve demanded.

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On Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Instagram would start experimenting with NFTs on the social network with a small group of U.S. creators and collectors this week. Throughout the test, Instagram will allow these users to share NFTs they’ve created or bought on their profiles for free, setting it apart…

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Designed for use in workshops and garages by people who are all too familiar with their hands being covered in grease and/or fresh wounds, Vyper Shop Chairs are a high-end line of chairs designed with both comfort and functionality in mind. I can already see myself racing around the office on one, only to get an email requesting a meeting from HR a short time after.

The chairs are available in tall and short models, and with or without backs. I’m a tall, with back kinda guy, but to each their own. Optional upgrades include a tool tray or a sidekick with two cup holders (or one cup holder and one small dog food bowl) and a tool holder for your cordless drill or whatever you might be working with. Me? I only need a hammer.

The chairs start at around $550, so they aren’t the cheapest shop chairs on the market, but they sure beat sitting on a couple of stacked cinder blocks as I do now. My back hates me. Honestly, from all the stiffness and popping I hear when I get up in the morning, I’d say most of my body hates me.

[via The Awesomer]

Lincoln College says it will close this week in the wake of a ransomware attack that took months to resolve. While the impact of COVID-19 severely impacted activities such as recruitment and fundraising, the cyberattack seems to have been the tipping point for the Illinois institution.

The college has informed the Illinois Department of Higher Education and Higher Learning Commission that it will permanently close as of May 13th. As NBC News notes, it’s the first US college or university to shut down in part because of a ransomware attack.

Lincoln says it had “record-breaking student enrollment” in fall 2019. However, the pandemic caused a sizable fall in enrollment with some students opting to defer college or take a leave of absence. The college — one of only a few rural schools to qualify as a predominantly Black institution under the Department of Education — said those affected its financial standing.

Last December, Lincoln was hit by a cyberattack, which “thwarted admissions activities and hindered access to all institutional data, creating an unclear picture of fall 2022 enrollment. All systems required for recruitment, retention and fundraising efforts were inoperable,” the college said in a statement posted on its homepage. “Fortunately, no personal identifying information was exposed. Once fully restored in March 2022, the projections displayed significant enrollment shortfalls, requiring a transformational donation or partnership to sustain Lincoln College beyond the current semester.”

Barring a last-minute respite, the one-two punch of the pandemic and a cyberattack have brought an end to a 157-year-old institution. Lincoln says it will help students who aren’t graduating this semester transfer to another college.

Over the last few years, ransomware hackers have attacked other educational facilities, as well as hospitals, game studios, Sinclair Broadcast Group and many other companies and institutions.