Tag Archives: Thomson Reuters Foundation

2024: Elections, AI and disinformation

By Adam Smith | Tech correspondent

21 Dec 2013 /Thomson Reuters Foundation/ —  2024 is set to be a record-breaking year for elections, with voters in more than 50 countries heading to the polls including the United States, India and Mexico. Continue reading

05Sep/23

Africa Climate Summit: “opportunity” awaits

By Alister Doyle | Climate Correspondent

The Africa Climate Summit (ACS) is hearing a lot about “opportunities” for combating climate change on the continent that has done least to cause warming yet is most vulnerable to its harmful impacts.

The September 4-6 summit in Nairobi is a striking shift for African governments, who have berated rich nations for failing to meet a promise to mobilise $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. That year, it totalled just $83 billion. Continue reading

25Jul/23

Women storm climate leadership

By Alister Doyle | Climate Correspondent

July 25, 2023 /Environment/ — Since it was set up in 1988, the U.N.’s prestigious panel of climate scientists has been led by men – a Swede, an Anglo-American, an Indian and a South Korean.

That 35-year all-male run may end this week when governments pick a new chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at a meeting in Nairobi from July 25-28. Continue reading

06Jul/23

World’s oldest profession: still fighting

By Lauren Crosby Medlicott | Freelance Journalist

The policies:

Street Offences Act 1959, Section 1.

The Crime and Disorder Act, 1998.

Sexual Offences Act 2003, Section 53.

Modern Slavery Act 2015

The Impact:

Criminalised for kerb crawling and working together, British sex workers feel they are fighting a desperate battle with the law to provide for themselves and their families. Continue reading

14Mar/23

Climate ‘danger zone’

By Megan Rowling | Just Transition Editor

Climate scientists and government officials are gathered in Switzerland this week to agree the final summary for policymakers in the latest blockbuster series of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on global warming and how to keep it in check.

Coming before an important review of global progress on climate goals at the end of this year, it doesn’t take a PhD to work out that the key message will be along the lines of “must do better”.
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03Mar/23

ID of 93 million Nigerians at risk in landmark election

  • Facial recognition and fingerprints needed to cast votes
  • Privacy experts fear mass breach of Nigerians’ identity
  • Aim is to root out widespread electoral fraud

LAGOS – Africa’s biggest electorate votes on Saturday in a poll that experts fear could unleash a mass breach of privacy as Nigerians relinquish reams of personal data to cast their vote.
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03Mar/23

Snooping on campaigners

By Kim Harrisberg | South Africa correspondent

From phishing traps to arrests based on their social media posts alone, activists from Russia to Uganda say they’re increasingly being watched for their online campaigning.
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23Feb/23

The EU’s AI Act – Innovations Vs Human Rights

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is everywhere. Thanks to a lack of red tape, it’s transforming our homes, economies and cultures – from ChatGPT and virtual DJs, to facial recognition and predictive policing tools.

However, the rise of AI has also come at a significant cost. As we’ve discussed in recent weeks, AI often undermines our privacy, entrenches societal biases, and creates opaque systems that lack accountability.
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17Feb/23

Kids’ online safety: A fragile balance

By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist

Last week, Joe Biden sounded the alarm over the lack of child protections online during his State of the Union address. He called for a ban on the collection of kids’ personal data and the prohibition of targeted advertising to children, saying: “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.”
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27Jan/23

The spy clause and the end of anonymity

By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist

The long, turbulent history of UK’s Online Safety Bill can be traced back to 2017, with the publication of the Internet Safety Strategy green paper. Since then, the proposed legislation has gone through endless revisions, been delayed and, at times, looked like it might be dropped entirely. Continue reading