EAGLE SCOUT | ISSUE NO. 22-08

NEWS | Controversial “emotion AI” technology raises divided comments

17 April 2022

UNITED STATES – Intel and Classroom Technologies partnered to integrate an AI-based technology that runs on top of Zoom. Intel claims that by assessing their facial expressions and how students interact with educational content, its system can detect whether students are bored, distracted, or confused. Critics argue otherwise that it is not possible to make accurate assessments based solely on facial expressions or other external signals. READ HERE

NEWS | Spreadsheet error lead to Teaching Council’s data breach

16 Apr 2022

NEW ZEALAND – A privacy breach, initially uncovered by TVNZ, revealed details of complaints against teachers, principals, and schools which was uploaded on the internet by the Teaching Council. The data had been indexed by Google, which allowed it to be publicly available. Names of sixty-eight people were supposedly affected by the breach, who occurred in late March. READ HERE

NEWS | Another School District announces student data breached on an Illuminate Education software

21 April 2022

UNITED STATES – Coventry Public Schools in Connecticut announced on its website that the Illuminate software it uses, eduClimber, had experienced a data breach. Coventry is the second district that acknowledged a data breach within its school systems managed by Illuminate Education. The latter confirmed that a data breach had impacted New York City schools during a January cyberattack but then declined to confirm how many students or districts outside the city were affected. READ HERE

NEWS | Why Pres. Duterte vetoed the proposed sim card law

26 Apr 2022

PHILIPPINES – President Rodrigo Duterte vetoed the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration Act two months after it was ratified by Congress. Presidential spokesperson, Martin Andanar, said that the veto was due to the inclusion of mandatory social media registration in the measure. He said the President disagreed with the inclusion in the absence of proper guidelines and definitions since it may threaten many constitutionally protected rights.  READ HERE

NEWS | Three men were arrested over Smartmatic data breach

26 Apr 2022

PHILIPPINES – Authorities arrested three members of a hacker group allegedly behind the data breach involving poll software provider, Smartmatic. The men were supposedly seeking to scam interested politicians. According to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) probe, the group first contacted Smartmatic through an email and claimed to have infiltrated its networks. The NBI, however, disputed the hacker’s claim that they were able to download 60 gigabytes’ worth of election-related data. READ HERE