Search: “Center For Democracy & Technology”

A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over

404 Media reveals DHS Border Patrol's secretive Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT) analyzing Americans' financial activity and feeding intelligence to local police for traffic stops.

404 Media identified Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT) in the Spokane Sector (Washington) and Laredo Sector (Texas), which review law enforcement-sensitive databases including Americans' financial activity and pass intelligence to local police. In one case, a PITT analyst flagged financial patterns associated with narcotics activity, leading Montana Highway Patrol to stop a driver for an obstructed license plate and charge him with DUI and possession with intent to distribute. CBP declined to say what financial data is monitored or whether warrants are obtained; the program extends AP's earlier reporting on ALPR-based predictive policing.

404 Media·Sep 8, 13:10 UTC · 8d agoPolicy & legal

Tracking Firm LocationSmart Leaked Location Data for Customers of All Major U.S. Mobile Carriers Without Consent in Real Time Via Its Web Site

Krebs on Security·May 19, 15:06 UTC · May 19, 2018AI tools & infra

Flock camera use by internal affairs unit puts DC police at odds with officers’ union

DC's Metropolitan Police Department used Flock license plate cameras to track officers under internal affairs investigation, prompting a union grievance and council scrutiny.

The DC Police Union learned in July 2026 that MPD Internal Affairs used Flock ALPR cameras to monitor officers under investigation without their knowledge, filing a grievance that management denied. Secure Justice found more than 90 US cities and counties ended Flock contracts in August 2026 alone, with over 200 terminations since 2021, while Texas and Florida announced new usage restrictions. On September 14, DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto asked Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll ten questions about the department's use of Flock data.

The Record·Sep 16, 13:41 UTC · 14h agoPolicy & legal

Microsoft Commits to Sweeping AI Privacy Rules for Students. Will Other Tech Giants Follow?

Microsoft signed legally binding AI privacy and safety standards for schools with the American Federation of Teachers, effective November 1.

Microsoft's agreement with the American Federation of Teachers prohibits using student or educator data to train AI systems, bans selling data or using it for ads and product development, and forbids AI companions designed to foster emotional dependency, with third-party audits required. The standards apply to all schools under Microsoft contract starting November 1. NYC and LA school districts announced one-year moratoriums on student AI use, while OpenAI and Anthropic pursue similar pacts and Google remains noncommittal.

SecurityWeek·Sep 15, 20:24 UTC · 1d agoAI policy

Where the backlash against Flock Safety is having the biggest impact

More than 90 cities ended Flock Safety contracts in August as Texas and Florida restrict license plate reader use amid privacy protests.

Over 90 cities and counties terminated Flock Safety contracts in August, per Secure Justice, which has tracked more than 200 municipal terminations since 2021. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott barred state agencies from funding Flock cameras on Aug. 28 after a report that a state agency secretly diverted $30 million; Florida's transportation department banned ALPRs on state highways and Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the technology. Los Angeles chose not to renew its LAPD contract over data-ownership terms, and Atlanta's mayor ordered a 30-day review of the roughly 5,000 ALPR cameras in the metro area. Several Flock-related police abuse cases, including a Texas officer indicted on 100 felony counts, have fueled the backlash.

The Record·Sep 8, 14:03 UTC · 8d agoPolicy & legal

Kids’ online safety bill faces dim prospects of passage this session despite progress

Kids Online Safety Act clears Senate committee but passage looks unlikely this session amid House-Senate deadlock over the duty-of-care provision.

KOSA advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee, but the chambers remain split on a duty-of-care provision requiring platforms to act with reasonable caution to prevent foreseeable harm, which House leadership opposes over First Amendment and negligence-lawsuit concerns. The Senate passed KOSA 91-3 last Congress before it died in the House, and the House passed its own version without the duty of care in June as part of a larger package, after stripping a state-law preemption provision. Observers say even Senate passage this year is a struggle given the short calendar, with a lame-duck window between November and January the more plausible path, and Majority Leader John Thune controlling whether a roll-call vote happens.

The Record·Aug 24, 00:00 UTC · 24d agoPolicy & legal

Instagram Is Hiding Its 'Palestinian Terrorists' Translation Problem Inside a Black Box

404 Media·Oct 25, 13:00 UTC · Oct 25, 2023Model release

Simulation: the new Scaling Law — Joon Sung Park, Simile AI

Simile AI raised a $2B Series B from GreenOaks and Index Ventures to scale human-behavior simulation for Fortune 100 clients like CVS.

Simile AI, co-founded by Generative Agents researcher Joon Sung Park, announced a $2 billion Series B backed by GreenOaks and Index Ventures, with Fei-Fei Li and Andrej Karpathy among backers. The company runs tens of millions of simulations for Fortune 100 clients including CVS, reporting 85-99% accuracy versus human focus groups and digital twins of 1,000 real people at 85% behavioral accuracy. The long-term ambition is foundation models of human behavior, post-trained on interviews, transaction data, and randomized controlled trials, potentially simulating all 8 billion people.

Latent Space·Aug 21, 23:37 UTC · 26d agoAI industry

Trump may be forced to reveal secret rules feds use for AI safety testing

Protect Democracy sued four federal agencies to force disclosure of the administration's secret framework for frontier AI safety reviews.

Nonprofit Protect Democracy sued four federal agencies, including the Office of the National Cyber Director, OSTP, Treasury and Commerce, seeking disclosure of the secret voluntary framework used for pre-release safety reviews of frontier AI models. The complaint demands the framework text, participant identities and selection criteria by September 30, alleging OpenAI negotiated a private agreement limiting distribution of its cutting-edge models to government-vetted partners. The suit follows the launch of the GOLD EAGLE clearinghouse and the completion of the review framework on August 3, with California Senator Josh Becker supporting the request while the state considers the SB 813 bill for transparent AI safety standards.

Ars Technica · AI·Sep 2, 17:58 UTC · 14d agoAI policy

The FTC wants to regulate AI for ideological bias

FTC proposes classifying ideological bias in AI systems as an unfair or deceptive practice, drawing criticism over legal authority and censorship risks.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson's proposed policy statement would treat ideological bias in AI systems as an unfair or deceptive practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act, potentially allowing regulation of the training and inputs powering AI algorithms. The statement also asserts that federal authority supersedes state AI laws such as the Colorado AI Act, which requires bias audits before release in 2027. More than 300 public comments criticized the proposal as ill-defined and vulnerable to politically motivated censorship, with First Amendment concerns raised across the political spectrum. Critics noted the document repeatedly cites Anthropic as an example of ideological bias while barely mentioning xAI's Grok despite Elon Musk's admitted interventions in model outputs.

CyberScoop·Aug 11, 21:37 UTC · Aug 11, 2026AI policy

Friday Squid Blogging: Stubby Squid

Schneier on Security·Jun 15, 00:00 UTC · Jun 15, 2025Model release2