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The Senate Judiciary Committee Wants Everyone to Know It’s Concerned about Encryption This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee held a  hearing on encryption and “lawful access.” That’s the fanciful idea that encryption providers can somehow allow law enforcement access to users’ encrypted data while otherwise preventing the “bad guys” from accessing this very same data. But the hearing was not inspired by some new engineering breakthrough that might make it possible for Apple or Facebook to build a secure law enforcement backdoor into their encrypted devices and messaging applications. Instead, it followed  speeches, open letters, and other public pressure by law enforcement officials in the U.S. and elsewhere to prevent Facebook from encrypting its messaging applications, and more generally to portray encryption as a tool used in serious crimes, including child exploitation. Facebook has signaled it won’t bow to that pressure. And more than 100 organizations inclu...

Speaking Freely: An Interview With Biella Coleman Around the globe, freedom of expression (or free speech) varies wildly in definition, scope, and level of access. The impact of the digital age on perceptions and censorship of speech has been felt across the political spectrum on a worldwide scale. In the debate over what counts as free expression and how it should work in practice, we often lose sight of how different forms of censorship—of hate speech, for example—can have a negative impact on different communities, and especially marginalized or vulnerable ones. Speaking Freely brings forth interviews with human rights workers, free expression advocates, and activists from a variety of disciplines and affiliations. The common thread in these interviews is that curtailing free expression, via public or private censorship, can harm our ability to fully and authentically participate in an open society. Gabriella “Biella” Coleman is an anthropologist whose work focuses on a range ...

Newly published EN 17267, “Energy measurement and monitoring plan — Principles for energy data collection,” now complements existing standard ISO 50001 §6.6 (“Planning for collection of energy data”). It addresses the needs and the questions most often expressed by organizations: The main needs expressed by organizations 2. The main questions expressed by organizations EN 17267 is helping organizations design and implement a measuring plan through: – A concrete, 6-stage process – Operational recommendations – A pragmatic, 3-level approach (base, medium, high, related to the organization needs) Read our previous posts to learn more about IEC TR 63213, IEC 61557-12 , ISO 50001 ed 2 , and other EE standards . The post How EN 17267 further helps organizations design and measure energy data collection appeared first on Schneider Electric Blog . Visit Toronto Wiring from Schneider Electric Blog Visit Toronto Wiring

Co-authored with Jeff Bullwinkel , Associate General Counsel and Director of Corporate, External and Legal Affairs for Microsoft Europe   History teaches us that when you’re in the middle of sweeping technology-driven change, the struggle to simply keep pace can make it hard to maintain perspective. This is the situation we find ourselves in now, with the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). Suddenly there’s great urgency to explore how businesses and society can realize the benefits of AI while simultaneously grappling with the wide range of issues it has raised—issues like the future of employment and how we can preserve individual privacy and protect public safety. To do all this in a smart and balanced way requires a long-term view of what the decisions we make now will mean for the future. This is something that is probably a little easier to do at a company like Schneider Electric . One of the world’s leading providers of energy and automation digital solutio...

Four million Europeans’ signatures opposing Article 13 have been delivered to the European Parliament Lawmakers in the European Union (EU) often lament the lack of citizen engagement with the complex policy questions that they wrestle with in Strasbourg and Brussels, so we assume that they will be delighted to learn that more than 4,000,000 of their constituents have signed a petition opposing Article 13 of the new Copyright in the Single Market Directive. They oppose it for two main reasons: because it will inevitably lead to the creation of algorithmic copyright filters that only US Big Tech companies can afford (making the field less competitive and thus harder for working artists to negotiate better deals in) and because these filters will censor enormous quantities of legitimate material, thanks to inevitable algorithmic errors and abuse. Currently, the Directive is in the “trilogue” phase , where European national governments and the EU negotiate its final form behind clos...

Human Rights Groups to Sundar Pichai: Listen to Your Employees and Halt Project Dragonfly EFF, as part of a coalition of over sixty other human rights groups led by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International — still have questions for Sundar Pichai , Google’s CEO. Leaks and rumors continue to spread from Google about “Project Dragonfly,” a secretive plan to create a censored, trackable search tool for China. Media reports based on sources from within the company have stated that the project was being readied for a rapid launch, even as it was kept secret even from Google’s own security and privacy experts. These stories undermine the vague answers we were given in previous correspondence . On the eve of Pichai being called before the House Judiciary Committee, we have re-iterated our profound concern, and jointly called upon Google to halt Project Dragonfly completely. Silicon Valley companies know how dangerous it can be to enter markets without considering the human rights i...

Social Justice Organizations Challenge Retention of DNA Collected from Hundreds of Thousands of Innocent Californians California Arrestees’ DNA Profiles Become Part of Federal Database, Accessible to Law Enforcement Across the Country, Even for Those Not Convicted of Any Crime San Francisco – Two social justice organizations—the Center for Genetics and Society and the Equal Justice Society—and an individual plaintiff, Pete Shanks, have filed suit against the state of California for its collection and retention of genetic profiles from people arrested but never convicted of any crime. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Law Office of Michael T. Risher represent the plaintiffs. The suit argues that retention of DNA from innocent people violates the California Constitution’s privacy protections, which are meant to block overbroad collection and unlawful searches of personal data. “One-third of people arrested for felonies in California are never convicted. The gover...

To face climate change, several green island projects are taking place across the globe. Island residents want to be part of a more efficient and sustainable world. To support ecological transition and help stop global warming,  electric utilities  who supply islands play a key role. They need to implement  smart grid solutions  for improved and more sustainable energy networks. Many islands are dependent on imported fuel oil. They must grapple with increasing electricity costs and reliability issues in part because they are isolated, and they don’t benefit from economies of scale. Also, during bad weather or rough seas, diesel shipments are sometimes stopped, and island residents stay without power. Shipping costs are high, and the risk of a serious environmental disaster is real. Besides, these fossil fuels (coal, natural gas...

Today, electrical distribution networks are undergoing significant transformation. If you run a power-critical facility, ‘status quo’ is no longer an option. I promise you, if you don’t like change, you will enjoy obsolescence even less. Smaller facilities can adapt and modernize their power networks quickly and have already seen the positive results. But for larger facilities with critical power needs it can be more difficult. There are multiple pressures to consider and succeeding in this environment requires precision power management tools that can adapt to our ever-changing, digitized world. Finding the right balance between energy efficiency and consumption Those responsible for ensuring the safe, reliable and efficient delivery of power in hospitals, data centers, airports, or manufacturing plants are constantly challenged with finding and maintaining the delicate balance between energy efficiency and consumption. The number of options available to facilities managers has s...