Top Stories

  • Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai called for regulation of artificial intelligence during a speech at a Brussels-based think tank, saying that “there is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated” and that regulations should balance both the harm and benefits of such technologies. Pichai’s comments came the same day he was set to meet with the European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager, who is drawing up rules on ethical AI use. (The Associated Press)
  • Uber Technologies Inc. is testing a new feature starting today at California airports in Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Sacramento that enables drivers to set their own prices, part of an effort to give them more autonomy as the company builds its case that drivers should not be classified as employees under the state’s new gig-economy law, Assembly Bill 5. The new tool follows other changes made in response to the law, including caps on ride commissions and a feature allowing drivers to pick which trips they take. (The Wall Street Journal)
  • Roughly two years ago, Apple Inc. abandoned plans to encrypt iPhone users’ iCloud storage, including back-ups of the devices, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation objected, according to six sources familiar with the matter. At the time, FBI officials argued that end-to-end encryption on iPhones would remove one of the agency’s most effective tools for learning about suspects who own the phones, according to one current and three former FBI officials; a year later, the company had nixed the plans, the six sources said, although it’s unclear why exactly it did so. (Reuters)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

01/22/2020
NIST’s Identity Management & Access Control in Multiclouds Workshop and Conference
MobilityTalks International
Senate Commerce hearing on 5G workforce and broadband deployment 10:00 am
FTC closed commission meeting 3:00 pm
01/23/2020
NIST’s Identity Management & Access Control in Multiclouds Workshop and Conference
MobilityTalks International
Next Century Cities’ second annual Opportunities for Bipartisan Tech Policy event feat. FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks 9:30 am
Hudson Institute’s “America’s Global Leadership in Advancing Next-Generation Tools for First Responders” event 11:45 am
CSIS’s “Cities of Tomorrow” event focused on safety, smart technology and surveillance 1:45 pm
01/24/2020
NIST’s Identity Management & Access Control in Multiclouds Workshop and Conference
View full calendar

Special Report: The State of Consumer Trust

As the new decade begins, Morning Consult’s The State of Consumer Trust report is the first look at how today’s societal forces are shaping a new era of trust. Based on interviews with thousands of consumers, the report provides actionable intelligence into how companies can earn and deepen trust with customers.

Download the full report.

General

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It
Kashmir Hill, The New York Times

A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.

Draft Bill Proposes Commission to Determine Section 230 Immunity
Ashley Gold, The Information

Online sites who rely on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to shield them from lawsuits over content would need to adhere to guidelines on fighting child exploitation online set out by a 15-member commission to keep their immunity, according to a draft of legislation from Sen. Lindsey Graham seen by The Information.

Macron and Trump declare truce in digital tax dispute
Michel Rose, Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he had a “great discussion” with U.S. President Donald Trump over a digital tax planned by Paris and said the two countries would work together to avoid a rise in tariffs.

Trump’s China Deal Creates Collateral Damage for Tech Firms
Ana Swanson and Cecilia Kang, The New York Times

Among the corporate titans recognized last week by President Trump during a White House signing ceremony for his China trade deal was Sanjay Mehrotra, the chief executive of Micron Technology, whose Idaho semiconductor company is at the heart of Mr. Trump’s trade war. Micron, which makes memory chips for computers and smartphones, is precisely the kind of advanced technology company that the Trump administration views as crucial to maintaining a competitive edge over China.

Tech groups dominate Davos but focus shifts from giants to unicorns
Rana Foroohar, Financial Times

Antitrust, privacy issues and ‘technology for good’ feature on World Economic Forum agenda. 

Yes, even Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would get $1,000 under Andrew Yang’s plan
Richard Nieva, CNET

Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur running for president as a Democrat, has repeatedly talked up his plan to give every American $1,000 a month if he’s elected. But does that really mean everyone?

France is making start-up friendly reforms to lure tech talent and take on Silicon Valley
Ryan Browne, CNBC

France is bringing in new rules on employee stock options to lure in talent and compete with the U.S.′ top tech hub. President Emmanuel Macron will on Monday announce the government’s plans, which look to expand its stock options scheme to include foreign companies with staff in France, among other rule changes.

US-China tech dispute: suspicion in Silicon Valley
Yuan Yang, Financial Times

Chinese engineers who have made their careers in the US are beginning to question their place in the country. 

U.S. Futures Decline With Stocks; Treasuries Rise: Markets Wrap
Sam Potter, Bloomberg

U.S. equity futures retreated alongside European stocks on Tuesday, tracking broad declines across Asia amid mounting worries about a deadly virus in China and after a series of negative developments in Hong Kong.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

For Tech Companies, Election-Year Politics May Limit New Regulation
Sarah E. Needleman, The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. electoral calendar will likely lead to an escalation in Washington’s criticism of big tech companies this year. But politics could delay any major U.S. regulatory decision-making until after the elections are over, say legal, policy and tech experts.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

EU Won’t Recommend Banning Huawei in Upcoming 5G Risk Rules
Helene Fouquet and Natalia Drozdiak, The New York Times

The European Union won’t explicitly ban Huawei Technologies Co. or other 5G equipment vendors when the bloc unveils guidelines for member states to mitigate security risks. The EU will unveil a set of recommended measures that are “naturally strict and vigilant” at the end of January, European Digital Commissioner Thierry Breton said at a news conference in Paris on Monday.

Johnson will defy US and allow use of Huawei, says top security adviser
Michael Savage, The Guardian

Boris Johnson is likely to approve the use of Huawei technology in the UK’s new 5G network against the pleas of the US government, a former national security adviser has said. Sir Mark Lyall Grant, who was Theresa May’s national security adviser, said that the security services had repeatedly concluded over several years that they were able to mitigate any potential threats posed by the Chinese technology.

Huawei Executive’s Extradition Hearing in Canada Begins
Jacquie McNish, The Wall Street Journal

Lawyers for Huawei Technologies Co. executive Meng Wanzhou argued in a Canadian court against her extradition to the U.S., saying the sanctions against Iran that she is accused of violating aren’t enforced in Canada.

Mobile Technology and Social Media

Facebook Removes Pages That Coordinated Posts Defending Man Embroiled in Impeachment Probe
Rebecca Ballhaus, The Wall Street Journal

Facebook Inc. late Friday took down a network of several dozen Facebook pages that were coordinating posts defending Robert F. Hyde, a figure who has become embroiled in the impeachment investigation. 

One of Facebook’s top executives had an awkward public face-off with Amazon’s CTO over making money from user data
Isobel Asher Hamilton, Business Insider

One of Facebook’s top executives had a surprise face-off against Amazon’s CTO while giving a talk at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich on Monday. Facebook head of communications Nick Clegg did an interview at DLD and took questions from the audience at the end.

This Is the Guy Who’s Taking Away the Likes
Amy Chozick, The New York Times

Adam Mosseri, chieftain of Instagram, wants to keep the platform a safe, special space. That means learning from the mistakes of its parent company: Facebook.

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access to Detailed Medical Records
Melanie Evans, The Wall Street Journal

Hospitals have granted Microsoft Corp., International Business Machines and Amazon.com Inc. the ability to access identifiable patient information under deals to crunch millions of health records, the latest examples of hospitals’ growing influence in the data economy. The breadth of access wasn’t always spelled out by hospitals and tech giants when the deals were struck.

Fines for European privacy breaches reach 114 million euros: report
Douglas Busvine, Reuters

European regulators have imposed 114 million euros ($126 million) in fines for data breaches since tougher privacy rules came into force in mid-2018, with approaches varying widely from country to country. A report by law firm DLA Piper said France has imposed the biggest single fine – of 50 million euros against Google – while the Netherlands, Britain and Germany led in terms of the number of data breach notifications.

So far, under California’s new privacy law, firms are disclosing too little data — or far too much
Greg Bensinger, The Washington Post

A new consumer privacy law in California was supposed to push companies toward greater transparency around the reams of data they collect every day. But weeks after the landmark law went into effect, the early results are not yet bringing consumers much clarity.

Amazon’s Ring blamed hacks on consumers reusing their passwords. A lawsuit says that’s not true.
Rani Molla, Recode

After a series of high-profile incidents in which hackers gained access to live footage of Ring security cameras inside people’s homes, the company blamed consumers for reusing old passwords. Two plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit accusing the company of negligence and invasion of privacy say that’s not the issue — instead, they say their passwords were unique and that the company didn’t implement basic security measures to protect users.

Who’s Watching Your Porch?
John Herrman, The New York Times

Ring offers a front-door view of a country where millions of Amazon customers use Amazon cameras to watch Amazon contractors deliver Amazon packages.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Low-Income Citizens Deserve Better Digital Privacy Protection Too
Stuart Brotman, Morning Consult

When the Federal Communications Commission began its Lifeline program 35 years ago, the nation was dominated by landline telephones and had no commercial internet service. And smartphones seemed like something that appeared on the futuristic cartoon series, “The Jetsons.”

How William Barr could make everyone’s iPhone more vulnerable
Editorial Board, The Washington Post

Attorney General William P. Barr wants to get into a terrorist’s iPhone. The way he’s trying to do so could make everyone’s phone more vulnerable.

We’re Banning Facial Recognition. We’re Missing the Point.
Bruce Schneier, The New York Times

Communities across the United States are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow).

Is Venture Capital Worth The Risk?
Nathan Heller, The New Yorker

For a certain sort of nineteenth-century person—the sort with high risk tolerance and little revulsion to brutality—a natural career lay in whaling. The odds of success here were, by almost every measure, poor.

Research Reports

Overcoming Technological and Policy Challenges to Medical Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Robert Graboyes and Darcy N. Bryan, Mercatus Center at George Mason University

In the United States, lifesaving blood transfusions, vaccines, and transplantable organs could someday be delivered routinely by drone. In “Overcoming Technological and Policy Challenges to Medical Uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” Robert F. Graboyes, Darcy Nikol Bryan, and John Coglianese examine the need for improved regulation as well as the financial and technological barriers that must be overcome to make medical drones a reality.

Morning Consult