center for investigative reporting

A coalition of law enforcement groups and prosecutors are holding up a California bill with bipartisan support meant to protect people seeking reproductive and gender affirming health care and fighting to weaken its provisions. The FTC Just Prescribed a Can of Whoop Ass on Health DataThe bill, AB 793, would prohibit so-called “reverse demands,” requests to tech companies such as geofence or keyword search warrants, which typically pull in data about masses of people who may not even be suspected of a crime. Law…

Amazon’s adding a new AI infused package grabbing robot to its growing army of soulless, metal warehouse workers.This week, at Amazon’s Delivering The Future conference near Boston, the company unveiled Sparrow, an AI assisted robotic arm its creators say uses computer vision to identify and move “millions” of objects. Sparrow, CNBC notes, will work in Amazon warehouses, where it will move products before they are packaged, work previously done primarily by overworked, and constantly surveilled human Amazon workers. In a…

Photo: Patrick Pleul (AP)Amazon really, really wants you to think it’s trying on climate. The company released its 2021 sustainability report this week, the third year in a row that it has logged its progress since committing to a net zero by 2040 goal in 2019. But hidden among the slick photos of wind turbines and electric delivery vans are two language tricks that show how Amazon may be dragging its feet on real progress. They’re a valuable lesson in reading between the lines of corporate jargon.At first glance, it…

Meta-owned Facebook is collecting ultra-sensitive personal data about abortion seekers and allowing anti-abortion organisations to use that data to target and influence people online, media reports say.A joint investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Markup found that Facebook is already collecting data about people who visit the websites of hundreds of crisis pregnancy centers.Meta prohibits websites and apps that use Facebook's advertising technology from sending Facebook "sexual and…

Photo: Esteban Felix (AP)A group of data journalists have uncovered evidence that Facebook is collecting sensitive personal information about people who visit the websites of so-called crisis pregnancy centers—clinics that are notoriously dedicated to pressuringpeople out of getting abortions while aping healthcare providers that do offer them.Journalists at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting reported Wednesday that Meta had declined to answers questions about the data it collects from the imitation…