An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Nearly one year ago, the Trump administration fired a panel of more than two dozen scientific experts who assisted the Environmental Protection Agency in its review of air quality standards for particulate matter. Now, as the EPA prepares its report on those standards later this month, 20 of those scientists are meeting independently to release their own assessment of current air pollution levels, with a focus on the particles from fossil fuels that can make people sick.

These scientists and researchers, former members of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) on particulate matter, said the EPA has stripped the panel down to its core seven members, who are ill-equipped to set air quality standards and don't have the time to do it. "They fired the particulate matter review panel and they said the chartered CASAC would do the review," Chris Zarba, who served as the staff director of the Scientific Advisory Board at the EPA until 2018, said. "In the history of the agency this has never happened. The new panel is unqualified and the new panel has said they were unqualified." The new panel feels their work is necessary for the very reasons that particle pollution is regulated by the EPA: because extended exposure can cause premature death, nonfatal heart attacks, irregular heartbeat, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function and respiratory issues, according to the agency. EPA said it is confident in its own panel and experts and said it "is committed to scientific integrity and transparency." "EPA has the utmost confidence in its career scientist and the members on its science advisory boards and panels," an agency spokesperson said. "EPA routinely takes comments from the public and outside organizations, including those not employed or associated with EPA, and will continue to take into consideration those comments that meet our scientific standards."

Chris Matyszczyk from ZDNet retells the draconian story of a Financial Times writer who wasn't able to prove she purchased a ticket for the London buses because her phone died (she used Apple Pay), which led to her being charged a criminal. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Today's witness is Jemima Kelly. She's a writer for The Financial Times. Please don't let any personal thoughts about that get in the way of her story. You see, she just experienced a little technological nightmare. A cheery digital convert, she admits she often leaves the house without her wallet. But surely not without her iPhone. Apple Pay is, after all, a contemporary joy. It's right up there with Tinder in its ability to make your life easier.

Kelly, indeed, hops on London buses and uses Apple Pay to tap her payment instead of buying a ticket the old-fashioned way. Which, as she cheerily described, is easy unless a ticket inspector wanders by. Just after your iPhone's battery has died. She couldn't prove that she'd paid, but gave her personal details and assumed there'd be a record of her probity on the transportation company's computers. But then she was charged with, well, not providing proof of payment. Charged as in would be forced to go to court and to plead guilty or not guilty within 21 days. Here's where things got (more) awkward. Kelly produced a bank statement that proved she'd paid. The transportation company -- Transport For London -- insisted this wasn't enough.

It seems she'd failed another digital task -- registering her Apple Pay with Transport For London. She was edging ever closer to criminal status. But did her Apple Pay details need to be registered? Kelly revealed: "They told me, 'there is no requirement for cards to be registered, the same as paying for any goods and services in a shop'. But it's not the same, actually; in a shop, you are given a breakdown in the form of a receipt." So, here she was, contactless and receiptless. Next, she heard that her court case had happened and she'd been found guilty. Oh, and she also owed a fine of around $592. In the end, Kelly managed to get back to court and persuade the judge to void her conviction, but the process took months.

"Her story, however, aptly describes how the digital world demands our complete and unyielding participation," writes Matyszczyk. "Digital systems are designed by those who strive for complete perfection and consistency. Which doesn't describe the human condition at all." Do you think digitizing everything is a good thing?

A new study from Princeton University shows internet-connected TVs, which allow people to stream Netflix and Hulu, are loaded with data-hungry trackers. "If you use a device such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, there are numerous companies that can build up a fairly comprehensive picture of what you're watching," Arvind Narayanan, associate professor of computer science at Princeton, wrote in an email to The Verge. "There's very little oversight or awareness of their practices, including where that data is being sold." From the report: To understand how much surveillance is taking place on smart TVs, Narayanan and his co-author Hooman Mohajeri Moghaddam built a bot that automatically installed thousands of channels on their Roku and Amazon Fire TVs. It then mimicked human behavior by browsing and watching videos. As soon as it ran into an ad, it would track what data was being collected behind the scenes. Some of the information, like device type, city, and state, is hardly unique to one user. But other data, like the device serial number, Wi-Fi network, and advertising ID, could be used to pinpoint an individual. "This gives them a more complete picture of who you are," said Moghaddam. He noted that some channels even sent unencrypted email addresses and video titles to the trackers.

In total, the study found trackers on 69 percent of Roku channels and 89 percent of Amazon Fire channels. "Some of these are well known, such as Google, while many others are relatively obscure companies that most of us have never heard of," Narayanan said. Google's ad service DoubleClick was found on 97 percent of Roku channels. "Like other publishers, smart TV app developers can use Google's ad services to show ads against their content, and we've helped design industry guidelines for this that enable a privacy-safe experience for users," a Google spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Verge. "Depending on the user's preferences, the developer may share data with Google that's similar to data used for ads in mobile apps or on the web." "Better privacy controls would certainly help, but they are ultimately band-aids," Narayanan said. "The business model of targeted advertising on TVs is incompatible with privacy, and we need to confront that reality. To maximize revenue, platforms based on ad targeting will likely turn to data mining and algorithmic personalization/persuasion to keep people glued to the screen as long as possible."

Another study from Northeastern University and the Imperial College of London found that other smart-home devices are also collecting reams of data that is being sent to third parties like advertisers and major tech companies.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra released a series of draft regulations this week aimed at getting businesses to comply with the state's landmark data privacy law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. From a report: Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, signed into law in June 2018, businesses must disclose to consumers the various kinds of data they collect about them. Companies must stop selling consumer data to third parties if customers ask them to, delete personal data on request, and explicitly seek consent from consumers aged 16 or younger to sell personal information. The bill also states that consumers who exercise their rights under the law cannot be discriminated against. The newly announced rules for businesses require notifying people before or when their data is collected. If notice is not given, data cannot be collected. The attorney general also provided guidelines for how to respond to consumers wanting to opt out, delete and know the data that's collected on them, as well as how to verify the identity of people making such requests and how to maintain relevant records for two years. "Help us get this right," Becerra said. Privacy is a right in California, he said, even as he acknowledged that some businesses may struggle to find the resources to comply. But, he added, "We want companies to understand that ignorance is not an excuse."

dryriver writes: Picture this: You want to buy 3 small items from some online retailer totalling about 50 bucks. A programming book, a USB thumbdrive and an HDMI cable. But you don't want to give this online retailer your full name, credit card number, email address, home postal address, phone number or other data for this insignificant little 50 Dollar online transaction, nor do you want to bother with 'registering an account' at the online retailer's webpage with password hassles and such. You want to buy quickly and anonymously, just like you can from a bricks and mortar shop with cash. You now instruct your bank -- or another online shopping intermediary you DO trust with your data -- to pay for those 3 items, receive them, and send them on to your home address. The online retailer gets 50 bucks as usual, but does NOT get identifying private data about you. You just shopped online, without having to bend over and ID yourself in X different ways to some online retailer, and your private info didn't go into yet another who-knows-where forever-database that may some day be hacked or compromised. Why is this simple, simple service not really a thing in the real world? Why can you walk into a bricks and mortar shop in most countries, pick out some products, pay in cash and walk out, and when you want to buy the exact same (non-dangerous) items online, you have to tell some profit-oriented retailer all sorts of stuff about yourself? Why is real world store shopping pretty much anonymous -- as it has been for centuries -- and online shopping almost like being ID'd before boarding a flight at an airport?

An anonymous reader shares a report: Those outside the People's Republic of China (PRC) are accustomed to thinking of the Internet censorship practices of the Chinese state as primarily domestic, enacted through the so-called "Great Firewall" -- a system of surveillance and blocking technology that prevents Chinese citizens from viewing websites outside the country. The Chinese government's justification for that firewall is based on the concept of "Internet sovereignty." The PRC has long declared that "within Chinese territory, the internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty." Hong Kong, as part of the "one country, two systems" agreement, has largely lived outside that firewall: foreign services like Twitter, Google, and Facebook are available there, and local ISPs have made clear that they will oppose direct state censorship of its open Internet.

But the ongoing Hong Kong protests, and mainland China's pervasive attempts to disrupt and discredit the movement globally, have highlighted that China is not above trying to extend its reach beyond the Great Firewall, and beyond its own borders. In attempting to silence protests that lie outside the Firewall, in full view of the rest of the world, China is showing its hand, and revealing the tools it can use to silence dissent or criticism worldwide. Some of those tools -- such as pressure on private entities, including American corporations NBA and Blizzard -- have caught U.S. headlines and outraged customers and employees of those companies. Others have been more technical, and less obvious to the Western observers.