WIRED Awake February 28: TikTok fined for failure to protect children's data

TikTok fined for failure to protect children's data TikTok, the short video app that's proved wildly popular with younger internet users, has been fined a record $5.7m (£4.3m) by the US Federal Trade Commission for failing to identify and adequately protect the data of children using it (BBC News). To comply with FTC regulations, as well as now asking whether users are over 13 and deleting content uploaded by underage users, TikTok is launching a US-only app "experience" with extremely limited functionality for those under 13. Read More UK police facial recognition requires oversight The government's Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group has advised that British police should follow strict ethical and scientific principles in future trials of facial recognition technology (The Register). In the advisory group's report, it further cautioned that the use of facial recognition technology in public places can only be justified if it's actually effective at identifying people, avoids bias and discriminatory misrecognition, and isn't deployed "in ways that disproportionally target certain events, but not others, without a compelling justification." Read More Facebook's Tommy Robinson ban is all about saving face, not stopping extremism Far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, has been banned from Facebook and Instagram, where he commanded a combined following of over one million (WIRED). The company claims that "when ideas and opinions cross the line and amount to hate speech that may create an environment of intimidation and exclusion for certain groups in society...we take action." But if Facebook applied its standards with any consistency, then Robinson's removal would surely have come sooner. Read More Revolut insiders reveal the human cost of a fintech unicorn's wild rise Matt Hancock's plan to purge NHS pagers is pretty dumb. Here's why British firm launches first six broadband satellites OneWeb, a UK-based satellite broadband firm established by US entrepreneur Greg Wyler, has successfully launched the first six mini-satellites of a planned 654-satellite constellation to provide worldwide internet access (Space News). The launch was critical for OneWeb, as it means the company can begin using part of the radio spectrum that it would otherwise lose rights to after November 29. Read More The next Pokémon games are set in a fictional England The Pokémon Company has announced its eighth generation Pokémon games, coming to Nintendo Switch at the end of this year (EuroGamer). Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield will be set in a fictionalised version of England called Galar and returns to the JRPG series' traditional combat and encounter systems, rather than the simplified versions seen in 2018's Pokémon Let's Go. Read More Don't miss out on the future. Get WIRED. Subscribe now and save Podcast 406: Facebook's anti-vaxxer problem LISTEN SUBSCRIBE VIA RSS ADD TO ITUNES FOLLOW WIRED Unsubscribe   |   View this email in your browser Condé Nast Digital 1 Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd Our Privacy Policy