The Universal Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence, the first human rights framework for AI, will be announced in Brussels on October 23 at the Public Voice symposium "AI, Ethics, and Fundamental Rights." The Universal Guidelines set out 12 principles to "inform and improve the design and use of AI. The Guidelines are intended to maximize the benefits of AI, to minimize the risk, and to ensure the protection of human rights." More than 150 experts and 40 organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have endorsed the Universal Guidelines. Representatives from more than 30 countries supported the statement. The release of the Universal Guidelines precedes the annual meeting of the Data Protections and Privacy Commissioners, the leading privacy event in the world.
A federal appeals court has ruled that Georgia cannot copyright any part of the state’s code of laws. Georgia had previously charged citizens as much as $400 to access official "annotations" to the code, which establish the meaning of the state's laws. But the appeals court ruled that "the People are the owners of these works, meaning that the works are intrinsically public domain material and, therefore, uncopyrightable." EPIC has long advocated for public access to court documents and other sources of law. In 2015, EPIC called on federal agencies to make statutes, regulations, adjudications, and relevant court documents freely available on agency websites.
In response to EPIC's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FTC has released agency emails about the 2011 Facebook Consent Order. Following a detailed complaint by EPIC and other consumer privacy organizations, the FTC issued an order in 2011 that required biennial audits of Facebook's privacy practices. EPIC pursued public release of these reports and related emails to understand why the FTC failed to bring an enforcement action action against the company. Today the FTC released to EPIC 89 emails between the FTC and Facebook from the years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. In March 2018, following the Cambridge Analytica data breach, the FTC announced it was reopening the Facebook investigation. To date, there is still no announcement, no report, and no fine.
