Year: 2015

Creative tech improves accessibility to court services

September 29, 2015 Shelby Bice Leave a comment Court, Human Rights, Tech

For parts of northwest Mohave County, Arizona, accessibility to court services used to be a problem. Surrounded by the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, and the Virgin River Gorge, the closest court building is more than an hour away. This presents a problem for many of the locals. Mohave County has a high poverty rate and many low- and fixed-income residents, many of which have difficulty obtaining transportation. Thankfully, the IT staff of the Mohave County Superior Court under the direction of the court technology systems manager, Kyle Rimel, have been able to find a unique solution. By setting up the North Country Kiosk at a much closer DMV location, residents of Mohave County can now use video chat to obtain multiple court services. The presiding judge of the Mohave County Superior court, Charles W. Gurtler, says that, “The kiosk has been an absolute godsend as far as those people are concerned.” Among its features are the ability to access any courtroom in the county, pay fines, acquire forms, and even make filings or court appearances.

This isn’t the only way that Rimel and his staff are using technology to increase accessibility. Courthouse posters now include scannable bar codes so visitors can learn about jury and divorce information or receive directions. Additionally, an Internet chat line that provides access to court employees has been implemented, and the IT staff has outfitted nineteen courtrooms with audio-video equipment, allowing for different ways of presenting cases. Even though the Mohave Superior Court was woefully under-utilizing technology when Rimel first started working in 2003, he states that now, “our goal is to be one of the most technologically advanced courts in Arizona.”

For others looking to use technology to expand their court’s services, Rimel advises finding sponsors and realizing that courts may have to approach IT solutions differently than other entities. But the results are worth it: Gurtler has high praise for Rimel, calling him the “rock star of the IT world.”

Article via ABA Journal, September 16, 2015

Photo: Student pair video chatting with an ELL via Penn State [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Competent lawyers must be knowledgeable about technology

September 28, 2015 Shelby Bice Leave a comment Tech for Lawyers

More and more evidence is being brought to light that competent lawyers need to be able to understand technology to truly be considered competent. Take Model Rule 1.1 as set forth by the ABA, for example. Even though states are not required to include Model Rules in their regulations for lawyers, 49 states have adopted Model Rule 1.1, which states that lawyers must be able to provide competent knowledge to their clients. To be able to provide competent knowledge, the lawyers themselves must fully understand the advice they are imparting. Comment 8, an addition to Model Rule 1.1, addresses the fact that lawyers need to continually educate themselves on the technology relevant to their practice if they are to be considered competent enough to advise on it. While not every state has adopted Comment 8, it is being slowly incorporated by a list of states, a list which will likely grow in the future.

Outside of Comment 8, lawyers are starting to have to deal with issues such as cloud computing and metadata, which often require not only tech advice from experts but also knowledge about ethics regulations. Sometimes permission from regulators must be obtained in order to ask experts. To avoid potential problems, lawyers should look into the opinions on the ethics surrounding each type of technology that have been expressed by their state, which can be found on the ABA’s website. Outside the realm of ethics, many states have expressed opinions on what technological knowledge should be required for lawyers. In 2014, for example, the California Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct stated in their Formal Opinion 2015 that although issues like e-discovery are new, the idea of competency is not, and competent lawyers need to be knowledgeable since “in today’s technological world, every case has the potential to involve e-discovery.”

The world is evolving, and law is starting to catch up as formal regulations are set around technological knowledge. To truly stay competent, lawyers need to be familiar with using technology and stay up to date on the latest news surrounding technology with which their clients may be involved.

Article via The Lawyerist, September 10, 2015

Photo: iPublishing, iReading, iEnjoying via Charis Tsevis [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Facebook provides Syrian refugees Internet access

September 26, 2015 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Human Rights

Facebook and the United Nations are working together to provide Internet access to Syrian refugees as they seek resettlement. Web access in refugee camps will help those living there communicate with family and utilize support from aid communities, according to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook is also constructing satellites and aircraft that will beam Internet connections to remote villages and towns, similar to Google’s project that accomplishes the same goal with high-altitude balloons. Critics to the program say that both companies are providing Internet access for selfish purposes, as both Facebook and Google profit from expanding their user base.

Facebook’s non-profit organization Internet.org is also under attack. Internet.org seeks to provide Internet access to developing countries, and was launched in India on Friday. Several Internet companies withdrew from the program because they saw the organization as a threat to Net neutrality, which guarantees that all websites are equally accessible.

Zuckerberg will be holding a town hall-style discussion with India’s prime minister this Sunday in defense of the non-profit. He says that by expanding Internet access, companies like Facebook and Google can create 140 million new jobs.

Article via CNET, September 26, 2015

Photo: Relief Effort for Syrian Refugees via IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Google appeals “right to be forgotten” law

September 25, 2015 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Business, Ethics, Government

Google appealed EU’s “right to be forgotten” law that allows citizens to apply for the removal of false or damaging information indexed by search engines. Although the company is willing to comply by the law for European domains, like Google.fr, France’s data regulation authority (CNIL) ordered Google to comply by the law for its international domain, Google.com.

If Google refuses, the company may suffer significant fines or sanctions. Google officials argue that applying the EU’s “right to be forgotten” rule to its international server is both time and resource consuming, and may result in widespread censorship. Google does not have the right to appeal again until it has been fined for violating the CNIL order. After that, however, the company will be given the chance to refute the fines in France’s Supreme Court. The EU’s recent regulatory fine structure could charge Google for up to 5 percent of the company’s international operation cost, which would amount to roughly € 3 billion.

Google’s global privacy officer Peter Fleischer released a statement: “We believe that no country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access.”

Article via Legaltech News, September 22, 2015

Photo: Review of the Latvian Presidency via European Parliament [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

AT&T sales reps accused of using malware to unlock phones

September 25, 2015 Astrid Countee Leave a comment Business, Court, Criminal Law, Legal News

A southern California company and former AT&T sales reps are being sued by AT&T Mobility. They are accused of uploading malicious software to unlock phones so that the phones can be used by any wireless network without a contract. It is likely that the sales reps were hoping to exploit the resale market for cell phones.

Lawyers for AT&T Mobility stated that schemes like this are not uncommon. The lawsuit names SwiftUnlocks, as the southern California company referenced above. This is a company that unlocks cell phones for a fee. The lawsuit goes on to describe a scheme that involves the former sales reps profiting from using SwiftUnlocks to unlock phones in milliseconds. It was precisely the act of unlocking many phones so quickly, that drew attention to these sales reps, eventually promoting an investigation.

It is alleged that the former reps earned between $10,000 and $20,000 from Swift Unlocks before tipping off their bosses with their questionable behavior.

Although the suit does not mention criminal fraud, it could still prove expensive for Swift Unlocks and the former sales reps. It is expected that the damages would include lost profit as well as factoring in the revenue that the sales reps made during their alleged scheme.

Article via CNET, 19 September 2015

Photo: This trip to the at&t store is taking longer than I expected via Keith Lam [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Hackings in healthcare, education, and government

September 24, 2015 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Cybercrime, Education, Government, Health Justice, Privacy, Security

Recent hackings have been found to especially target three main platforms: healthcare, education, and government. This has compromised the security of healthcare provider Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, the Cal State University System, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

It was discovered last week that over 10 million people are at risk due to a Excellus computer system hacking that’s been occurring since December of 2013. It doesn’t appear that the hackers stole or utilized any important personal information, though they were able to access and view customer names, birth dates, social security numbers, and financial claims. The attack was one of the worst 20 breaches in healthcare of all time. The hacking also parallels recent incidences at Anthem, Office of personnel Management, Sony and Ashley Madison. In all cases, the attacks were committed by people disguised as employees, using stolen credentials to gain access to corporate networks.

Roughly 80,000 students from the Cal State University System lost general information after enrolling in a class on sexual harassment. Their names, numbers, emails, gender, race, and relationship status were provided to a contractor as part of a program on sexual harassment. The contractor, “We End Violence” was hacked, as reported in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s computer systems were attacked 159 times between 2010 and 2014. Officials declined to comment, however, on the nature of what was accessed by hackers or whether any foreign governments were responsible.

Article via ECT News Network, September 16, 2015

Photo: Longmont Power and Communications-3 via You Belong in Longmont [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]