The UAE has been aggressively pursuing AI integration across all its sectors, including law. In 2019, Dubai introduced the “AI Court” to automate legal processes, and Abu Dhabi has explored AI in contract analysis. Given the UAE’s push for AI dominance (like appointing the world’s first Minister of AI in 2017), a fully AI-powered legal intelligence office would have…
UN Headquarters Informal Dialogues on the Pact for the Future The President of the General Assembly is organizing informal dialogues to help Member States with the implementation of the Pact for the Future. These dialogues aim to allow Members to exchange views and share best practices leading up to a review of the Pact in…
RICHARD STALLMAN, rms at gnu.org This article/letter was written in 2013. We republish it here because of its importance. On Wednesday, Stallman was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. He is founder of the Free Software Foundation and has pioneered the notion of copyleft. He said today: “It is said that ‘knowledge is power.’ Internet corporations took this…
SecondEye is a product that was developed in Iran by a web and development company in Iran named UltimateSoft Co, and marketed as a parenting or employee surveillance tool. However, it has been reportedly repurposed and used as spyware known as EyeSpy. The malware is allegedly deployed by disguising it as a free VPN package…
Google employee Ariel Koren tweeted that she had resigned from Google citing hostility against workers who speak up about Google’s $1b AI/surveillance contract with Israel. She also wrote her story in Medium where she stated: “Due to retaliation, a hostile environment, and illegal actions by the company, I cannot continue to work at Google and…
In a new round of talks this week to formulate a UN Cybercrime Treaty, EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation provisions and safeguards to ensure that states respect human rights when responding to legal assistance requests. EFF is among a group of digital and human rights organizations participating…
Access Now has issued a joint statement with human rights and press freedom organizations in August urging the United States government to hold NSO Group accountable for providing Pegasus spyware to governments that have used the tool to secretly surveil journalists around the world. Signatories include: ORGANIZATIONSAccess NowARTICLE 19Amnesty InternationalCommittee to Protect JournalistsElectronic Frontier Foundation…
Governments can use a range of tactics to close their citizens off from internet access. The Guardian, UK, has three great articles on such shutdowns: why and how they are shut down, and how to counter it. Key points from the first article:This article discusses different strategies, ranging from complete blackouts to targeted restrictions. It…
