Privacy

Reviving the Dead in the Digital World

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Summary: New research explores public attitudes towards digital resurrection of the deceased based on consent.

Participants were presented with scenarios where a woman’s digital version could be brought back with or without her consent.

Results showed a significant shift in acceptability when consent was expressed, highlighting the importance of the deceased’s wishes. However, many respondents still found digital resurrection socially unacceptable, even with expressed consent.

This study raises ethical and legal questions about the rights of the deceased and the need for clear regulations in the digital age.

Key Facts:

  1. Consent plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion on digital resurrection.
  2. Public sentiment often aligns with the belief that the wishes of the deceased should be respected.
  3. Existing laws do not adequately protect the rights of the deceased in the digital realm, leading to a discrepancy between law and public sentiment.

Source: De Gruyter

In a 2014 episode of sci-fi series Black Mirror, a grieving young widow reconnects with her dead husband using an app that trawls his social media history to mimic his online language, humor and personality. It works. She finds solace in the early interactions – but soon wants more.   

Such a scenario is no longer fiction. In 2017, the company Eternime aimed to create an avatar of a dead person using their digital footprint, but this “Skype for the dead” didn’t catch on. The machine-learning and AI algorithms just weren’t ready for it. Neither were we.

Now, in 2024, amid exploding use of Chat GPT-like programs, similar efforts are on the way. But should digital resurrection be allowed at all? And are we prepared for the legal battles over what constitutes consent?

In a study published in the Asian Journal of Law and Economics, Dr Masaki Iwasaki of Harvard Law School and currently an assistant professor at Seoul National University, explores how the deceased’s consent (or otherwise) affects attitudes to digital resurrection.

US adults were presented with scenarios where a woman in her 20s dies in a car accident. A company offers to bring a digital version of her back, but her consent is, at first, ambiguous. What should her friends decide?

Two options – one where the deceased has consented to digital resurrection and another where she hasn’t – were read by participants at random. They then answered questions about the social acceptability of bringing her back on a five-point rating scale, considering other factors such as ethics and privacy concerns.

Results showed that expressed consent shifted acceptability two points higher compared to dissent.

“Although I expected societal acceptability for digital resurrection to be higher when consent was expressed, the stark difference in acceptance rates – 58% for consent versus 3% for dissent – was surprising,” says Iwasaki.

“This highlights the crucial role of the deceased’s wishes in shaping public opinion on digital resurrection.”

In fact, 59% of respondents disagreed with their own digital resurrection, and around 40% of respondents did not find any kind of digital resurrection socially acceptable, even with expressed consent.

“While the will of the deceased is important in determining the societal acceptability of digital resurrection, other factors such as ethical concerns about life and death, along with general apprehension towards new technology are also significant,” says Iwasaki.  

The results reflect a discrepancy between existing law and public sentiment. People’s general feelings – that the dead’s wishes should be respected – are actually not protected in most countries.

The digitally recreated John Lennon in the film Forrest Gump, or animated hologram of Amy Winehouse reveal the ‘rights’ of the dead are easily overridden by those in the land of the living.

So, is your digital destiny something to consider when writing your will? It probably should be but in the current absence of clear legal regulations on the subject, the effectiveness of documenting your wishes in such a way is uncertain. For a start, how such directives are respected varies by legal jurisdiction.

“But for those with strong preferences documenting their wishes could be meaningful,” says Iwasaki. “At a minimum, it serves as a clear communication of one’s will to family and associates, and may be considered when legal foundations are better established in the future.”

It’s certainly a conversation worth having now. Many generative AI chatbot services, such as like Replika (“The AI companion who cares”) and Project December (“Simulate the dead”) already enable conversations with chatbots replicating real people’s personalities.

The service ‘You, Only Virtual’ (YOV) allows users to upload someone’s text messages, emails and voice conversations to create a ‘versona’ chatbot. And, in 2020, Microsoft obtained a patent to create chatbots from text, voice and image data for living people as well as for historical figures and fictional characters, with the option of rendering in 2D or 3D.

Iwasaki says he’ll investigate this and the digital resurrection of celebrities in future research.

“It’s necessary first to discuss what rights should be protected, to what extent, then create rules accordingly,” he explains.

“My research, building upon prior discussions in the field, argues that the opt-in rule requiring the deceased’s consent for digital resurrection might be one way to protect their rights.”

Regain Control of Your Data in 2024 and Delete Your Digital History. Here’s How to Do It

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Maybe the best New Year’s resolution you could make is to tell companies to stop selling your personal data. Here’s how.

Mary-Elisabeth is an associate writer on CNET’s How-To team. She’s a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s English Department, and resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. On the How-To team, she covers a little bit of everything. When she’s not writing, she’s catching up on Formula 1 or reading.

screenshot of the permission slip homepage
Permission Slip allows you to take control of your online personal data.  Consumer Reports/Screenshot by CNET

Go ahead: Resolve to be healthy in 2024 and get your financial house in order. But 2024 may also be the year you decide to take control of the personal data you share across the internet.

Your online personal data is scattered all over the web. Every time you sign up for a new social media platform or purchase something online, you give those companies bits and pieces of your personal data.

These pieces of your data are then collected by both companies and data brokers — which then sell it to other companies that can use your info to sell ads targeted at you. If you’ve given out your online data liberally, you’re paying for it now with ads that track you across the internet. 

The fix to this can be somewhat complicated and confusing. Consumer Reports, however, has an app called Permission Slip that reaches out to companies on your behalf and orders them to stop selling your information.

Read on to find out exactly how to use Permission Slip to reassert some control over your online data. Plus, here are our picks for the best VPNs to protect your privacy online and the best password managers to keep your login information secure.

What is Permission Slip?

To help you claw back a bit of your personal data, some states have passed legislation that allows you to exercise some control over what happens to it. Depending on the state, you can prohibit data brokers from selling your data or delete your online data outright. But the process of controlling your data on websites can be confusing, and it’s often unclear whether you’ve opted in or out of selling your personal data. And due to the nature of how your data is shopped around, it could be nearly impossible to locate all of your online data and protect it. 

This is where services like Consumer Reports’ Permission Slip come in. Permission Slip does the legwork of collecting the places that might have your data, including more than 100 companies that use your personal information. All you have to do is submit your request for your info to either be deleted outright or simply not sold any more. 

How do I use Permission Slip? 

To get started using Permission Slip, sign up for the service with your email address. I decided to sign up with the email address that I frequently use when signing up for rewards programs or making accounts online — that way I would be addressing most of the places that could be selling my data. 

After signing up, you’ll be presented with options of popular companies and data brokers that could have your information. If you think that company might have your data, and you want to do something about it, select Learn More & Take Action. If you don’t think this company has your data and you would like to no longer see it as an option, select Hide and it won’t clog up your suggestions. 

Once you’ve selected Learn More & Take Action, you will be taken to a screen that shows you what sort of data the company usually collects, and what your options are. Depending on the company and the state that you live in, you could have the option to prohibit companies from selling your data or to delete your account outright. It’s important to note that if you’re deleting your account and you have a rewards program with that company, you will lose those rewards upon deletion. 

screenshot of options in permission slip app
Depending on where you live and who you’re dealing with, you can either order the company to stop selling your data or delete your account entirely.  Consumer Reports/Screenshot by CNET

When you’ve decided whether you want to delete your account with a specific company or simply prohibit it from selling your data, Permission Slip will ask you a couple of questions that can help companies and data brokers correctly identify you and properly take care of your information. 

After you input your personal info the first time, the process for continuing to remove your data is pretty simple. You will just scroll through Permission Slip’s suggestions, select companies that might have your info and then delete your account or prohibit the company from using your data. 

screenshot of permission slip's personal info requests
Permission Slip requires you to input some personal information to help the companies who have your data identify you so your request can be fulfilled.  Consumer Reports/Screenshots by CNET

It’s important to note that while Permission Slip is submitting the request on your behalf, you still might have to confirm the request directly with the company. It also might take a bit of time to have your request processed and your information deleted, so patience will be your friend during this process. 

Medical IDs: Enemy of Privacy, Liberty, and Health

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Ron Paul exposes the dark side of the new American medical ID system which the House of Representatives voted in favor of in a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill amendment.

[GreenMedInfo.com Editor’s note: one of the primary reasons mandatory vaccination can not be practically instituted is because there is, at present, no objective way to verify a citizen’s vaccine record. This medical ID system would change that, making it entirely possible to require a citizen to provide authorities the digital equivalent of their “vaccine papers,” and those who fall short forced to comply with the ever-expanding vaccine schedule, or face fines, imprisonment or quarantine.]

Last week, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill amendment to repeal the prohibition on the use of federal funds to create a “unique patient identifier.” Unless this prohibition, which I originally sponsored in 1998, is reinstated, the federal government will have the authority to assign every American a medical ID. This ID will be used to store and track every American’s medical history.

A unique patient identifier would allow federal bureaucrats and government-favored special interests to access health information simply by entering an individual’s unique patient ID into a database. This system would also facilitate the collection of health information without a warrant by surveillance state operatives.

The health records database could easily be linked to other similar databases, such as those containing gun purchase records or education records. If mandatory E-Verify becomes law, the health records database could even be linked to it, allowing employers to examine a potential employee’s medical history.

The possibility that the unique patient identifier system may be linked to a database containing information regarding gun ownership is especially disturbing given the bipartisan support for “red flag” laws. These laws allow the government to deny respect for someone’s Second Amendment rights without due process and based solely on an allegation that the individual is mentally unstable and likely to commit an act of gun violence. Combining red flag laws with the unique patient identifier system would leave a gun owner who ever sought psychiatric help for any reason at risk of losing his ability to legally possess a gun.

Unscrupulous government officials could use medical information to harass those whose political activities challenge the status quo. Anyone who doubts this should ask themselves what a future J. Edgar Hoover or Lois Lerner would do with access to the medical information of those involved in political movements he wishes to silence.

The unique patient identifier undermines one of the foundations of quality health care: the doctor-patient relationship. Accurate diagnosis requires that patients share intimate details about their lives — ranging from details about their diet and exercise habits to their sexual history and alcohol and drug use — with their physicians. If patients legitimately fear information shared will be compromised, they will be unwilling to be completely honest with their physicians, making it impossible for physicians to effectively treat their patients.

Proponents of the unique patient identifier claim it will improve efficiency. But, in a free society, the government should never endanger privacy or liberty for efficiency. Besides, when has any government intervention in health care ever improved efficiency or increased patients’ or health care providers’ satisfaction with the system?

The unique patient identifier system puts the desires of government bureaucrats and politically powerful special interests ahead of the needs of individual patients and health care providers. Instead of further intervening in health care and further destroying our privacy and our liberties, Congress should give patients control over their health care by giving them control over health care dollars through expanding access to Health Savings Accounts and health care tax credits. In a free market, patients and doctors can and will work tighter to ensure patients’ records are maintained in a manner that provides maximum efficiency without endangering privacy or liberty.

Vaccine Industry to partner with police, come after home school students in Iowa for mandated quarterly “health and wellness” checks

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Image: Vaccine Industry to partner with police, come after home school students in Iowa for mandated quarterly “health and wellness” checks

After the World Health Organization (WHO) named “vaccine hesitancy” a global health threat in 2019, vaccine compliance has become top priority for every government that is run by Big Pharma. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has called on the states to limit vaccine exemptions and strip parents of their rights. The war to achieve max vaccine compliance is moving into new, bold territory.

The Vaccine State is now targeting home school families. Many home school families do not follow the CDC’s full vaccine schedule and some families opt out of vaccines altogether. Iowa State Representative Mary Mascher has proposed a piece of legislation that would target them in their homes, to enforce compliance. Iowa’s HF 272 would require home school families to submit proof of their child’s vaccination record to the state, while requiring the families to submit to quarterly “health and wellness” safety checks, which may be conducted by officials from the Health and Human Services Department and accompanied by local law enforcement.

HF 272 is where the Vaccine State takes its most intrusive step to date. On lines 22-24, the bill instructs all home school parents to provide the district with evidence that the child has had the immunizations “required under section 139A.8.” Furthermore, parents would be required to submit a full portfolio of the child’s school work, including an “outline of course of study,” all subjects covered, all lesson plans, and a time log for each area of study. The bill is both intrusive and dishonest. Even parents who send their kids to public school can opt out of one or all vaccines that are recommended by the CDC. Religious and medical exemptions to vaccines still exist in the state.

The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site.

https://www.brighteon.com/embed/5828132245001

School districts to “conduct quarterly health and safety home visits” and may enlist law enforcement if parents don’t give consent

To enforce the new rules, the bill instructs the board of directors of the school district to “conduct quarterly home visits to check on the health and safety” of children within the district. The bill provides adequate funding for the school district to police home school families in the area. The visits are to be conducted within the home and include an observation of the child and an interview with the child. If the parent does not consent, then the district can obtain probable cause from the juvenile court to forcefully enter the home and conduct the observation and the interview. The superintendent of the school district shall “designate a person to carry out the duties.” This person is designated as the “mandatory reporter.” Most sickening, the school district may collaborate with the department of human services and “local, county and service area officers” to enter the home and conduct the checkup.

Since officers are required to “do their job,” they will be critical for intimidating parents to open their doors and submit their kid to the intrusive interview and the vaccine requirements. If parents do not cooperate and hand over proof of vaccination records, it will be very easy for Child Protective Services to take the child from the home, have them vaccinated, and sent away to live with another family.

In Oregon, lawmakers want to enforce vaccine compliance as soon as parents take their newborns home from the hospital. Under a proposal in Oregon, every new parent, including adoptions, would be visited two or three times by a nurse or health care practitioner. The visits are intended to connect parents with primary care physicians, screen them, and schedule their myriad of vaccinations.

These intrusive bills are a glimpse of how far the authoritarian Vaccine State will go to achieve vaccine compliance and force people to obey. Home school families must be ready to hold their elected representatives accountable, as to not permit pharmaceutical companies the ability to create laws and turn law enforcement against good people.

Vaccine Industry to partner with police, come after home school students in Iowa for mandated quarterly “health and wellness” checks

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Image: Vaccine Industry to partner with police, come after home school students in Iowa for mandated quarterly “health and wellness” checks

After the World Health Organization (WHO) named “vaccine hesitancy” a global health threat in 2019, vaccine compliance has become top priority for every government that is run by Big Pharma. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has called on the states to limit vaccine exemptions and strip parents of their rights. The war to achieve max vaccine compliance is moving into new, bold territory.

The Vaccine State is now targeting home school families. Many home school families do not follow the CDC’s full vaccine schedule and some families opt out of vaccines altogether. Iowa State Representative Mary Mascher has proposed a piece of legislation that would target them in their homes, to enforce compliance. Iowa’s HF 272 would require home school families to submit proof of their child’s vaccination record to the state, while requiring the families to submit to quarterly “health and wellness” safety checks, which may be conducted by officials from the Health and Human Services Department and accompanied by local law enforcement.

HF 272 is where the Vaccine State takes its most intrusive step to date. On lines 22-24, the bill instructs all home school parents to provide the district with evidence that the child has had the immunizations “required under section 139A.8.” Furthermore, parents would be required to submit a full portfolio of the child’s school work, including an “outline of course of study,” all subjects covered, all lesson plans, and a time log for each area of study. The bill is both intrusive and dishonest. Even parents who send their kids to public school can opt out of one or all vaccines that are recommended by the CDC. Religious and medical exemptions to vaccines still exist in the state.

The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site.

https://www.brighteon.com/embed/5828132245001

School districts to “conduct quarterly health and safety home visits” and may enlist law enforcement if parents don’t give consent

To enforce the new rules, the bill instructs the board of directors of the school district to “conduct quarterly home visits to check on the health and safety” of children within the district. The bill provides adequate funding for the school district to police home school families in the area. The visits are to be conducted within the home and include an observation of the child and an interview with the child. If the parent does not consent, then the district can obtain probable cause from the juvenile court to forcefully enter the home and conduct the observation and the interview. The superintendent of the school district shall “designate a person to carry out the duties.” This person is designated as the “mandatory reporter.” Most sickening, the school district may collaborate with the department of human services and “local, county and service area officers” to enter the home and conduct the checkup.

Since officers are required to “do their job,” they will be critical for intimidating parents to open their doors and submit their kid to the intrusive interview and the vaccine requirements. If parents do not cooperate and hand over proof of vaccination records, it will be very easy for Child Protective Services to take the child from the home, have them vaccinated, and sent away to live with another family.

In Oregon, lawmakers want to enforce vaccine compliance as soon as parents take their newborns home from the hospital. Under a proposal in Oregon, every new parent, including adoptions, would be visited two or three times by a nurse or health care practitioner. The visits are intended to connect parents with primary care physicians, screen them, and schedule their myriad of vaccinations.

These intrusive bills are a glimpse of how far the authoritarian Vaccine State will go to achieve vaccine compliance and force people to obey. Home school families must be ready to hold their elected representatives accountable, as to not permit pharmaceutical companies the ability to create laws and turn law enforcement against good people.

No Room for Privacy: Facebook Launches Friend-Spying Feature ‘Nearby Friends’.

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A new feature introduced by Facebook to allow meeting the Facebook friends in real time when they are actually close by has had mixed reactions from its users.

Nearby Friends, an optional mobile application, taps steady stream of location information and makes it possible for friends to track each other in real time and meet up in real life.

  • For example, when you’re headed to the movies, ”Nearby Friends” will let you know if friends are nearby so you can see the movie together or meet up afterward,” says the Facebook newsroom.

When selected, it means one can have information about:

A list of approved Facebook friends who have selected this feature and their locations; number of friends nearby; list of friends with their locations, distance from your location and a time stamp of their visits.

The new application has options that allow you to share your general location with your customized Facebook friends, or close friends, depending upon the settings you select.

To avoid stalking, the location is shared only with people who have installed this feature on their mobile and who have agreed to share their location.

Initially, the feature, available on iOS and Android apps, will work only for a few locations.

A worrisome fact about this proximity sharing feature is that it has a ‘Location History’setting that needs to be left on for it to function properly. This feature continuously gathers details about your whereabouts in the background, even when you are not using this feature to check friends nearby.

  • When Location History is on, Facebook builds a history of your precise location, even when you’re not using the app. See or delete this information in the Activity Log on your profile,” reads the description under the Location History Setting.

Additionally, it says,

  • Location History must be turned on for some location feature to work on Facebook, including Nearby Friends. Facebook may still receive your most recent precise location so that you can, for example, post content that’s tagged with your location or find nearby places.”

Josh Constine, A TechCrunch reporter, sees a catch in this. He says that Facebook still collects location data when necessary whether or not you use the new feature.

When left on, your location coordinates are added periodically to your activity log. He adds,

  • It’s a bit sketchy that these maps don’t show up in the default view of Activity Log like most other actions.  It’s almost like Facebook is trying to discourage use of the Clear Location History button.”

However, the new feature will make your experiences better.

  • Location History helps us know when it makes the most sense to notify you (for example, by making sure we don’t send you a notification every time a Facebook friend who works with you is also in the office),” reported TechCrunch quoting the company.

However, it could be used for advertising in future, said a company spokesperson.