So Ford just recalled 1.8 million vehicles which nearly equals their annual production of 1.9 million vehicles. Holy shit! Can you imagine the bad press that would ensue if Tesla had to do that? But with Ford, hardly anyone blinks an eye.
I am writing to address the news that our Gene-by-Gene laboratory, which processes genetic tests for several commercial clients in addition to all of the FamilyTreeDNA tests, has processed a handful of DNA samples for cold cases from the F.B.I. In many cases, the news reports contained false or misleading information.
Let me start with this categorical statement:
LAW ENFORCEMENT DOES NOT HAVE OPEN ACCESS TO THE FTDNA DATABASE.
They cannot search or “dig through” FTDNA profiles any more than an ordinary user can. As with all other genetic genealogy services, law enforcement must provide valid legal process, such as a subpoena or search warrant to receive any information beyond that which any other user can access.
I have been an avid genealogist since I was twelve years old. FamilyTreeDNA is not just a business, it is my passion. I fully understand your privacy concerns on a personal level.
Law enforcement has the ability to test DNA samples from crime scenes and upload the results into databases, like any other customer can, and it appears they have been doing it at other companies for the past year. The distinction is that, according to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, we expect the FBI and law enforcement agencies to let us know when they submit something to our database. We moved to something transparent, rather than having them work in a stealthy way. Other than that, nothing changed that affects the privacy of our customers.
FamilyTreeDNA has always taken your privacy seriously and will continue to do so. We’ve remained steadfast, always, refusing to sell your data to pharmaceutical companies and other third parties.
One of the key reasons law enforcement wanted to submit their samples to us is the same reason many of you have: out of all the major companies, FamilyTreeDNA is the only one that has its own lab, and our customers’ samples never leave our company.
As previously stated, law enforcement can only receive information beyond that which is accessible to the standard user by providing FamilyTreeDNA with valid legal process, such as a subpoena or a search warrant. Again, this is specified in FamilyTreeDNA’s Terms of Service, just as with all other companies.
ABOUT OUR TERMS OF SERVICE
The Terms of Service were changed in May of 2018 to reflect GDPR requirements, and we informed our customers about the update at that time. Those changes included a paragraph that required law enforcement to receive our permission to enter the database and since it was a part of the overall update, notice was sent to every FTDNA customer. Without infringing upon our customers’ privacy, the language in the paragraph referring to law enforcement was updated in December, although nothing changed in the actual handling of such requests. It was an oversight that notice of the revision was not sent to you and that is our mistake. Therefore, we are reverting our TOS to our May 2018 version, and any future changes will be communicated to you in a timely manner.
This is the May 2018, GDPR-compliant version, communicated to you at that time: “You agree to not use the Services for any law enforcement purposes, forensic examinations, criminal investigations, and/or similar purposes without the required legal documentation and written permission from FamilyTreeDNA.”
WE WILL DO A BETTER JOB OF COMMUNICATING WITH YOU.
I am genuinely sorry for not having handled our communications with you as we should have.
We’ve received an incredible amount of support from those of you who believe this is an opportunity for honest, law-abiding citizens to help catch bad guys and bring closure to devastated families. We want you to understand, as many of you already do, that you have the same protections that you’ve always had and that you have nothing to fear.
A lot of kids want to be sports stars because, from a role model perspective, endorsements is one of their main avenues of awareness. I, for one, would like to see Astronauts on the cereal box instead of promotion of some random sports figure.
So the people are willing to be surveilled/tracked wherever they go in the hopes to reduce police brutality.
Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty.....
Is the company telling you to check/respond/craft work emails during the commute? You are choosing to perform these actions. Using this logic, I will check my work email hourly at home throughout the evening so I can stay on the clock 16 hours a day....
Increasing the confidence threshold would probably have reduced the 5% error rate....
From the article: The A.C.L.U had used the system’s default setting for matches, called a “confidence threshold,” of 80%. That means the group counted any face matches the system proposed that had a similarity score of 80% or more. Amazon recommended that police departments use a much higher similarity score — 95% — to reduce the likelihood of erroneous matches.
How is this different from the Sprint plan? Sprint offers the same unlimited for $60/mo + Hulu instead of Netflix.
T-Mobile limits their ONE plan after 50Gb/mo just like Sprint and offers 3 other unlimited plans to include the "One Plus" with HD vid for $70/mo.
Slashdot Mirror
So Ford just recalled 1.8 million vehicles which nearly equals their annual production of 1.9 million vehicles. Holy shit! Can you imagine the bad press that would ensue if Tesla had to do that? But with Ford, hardly anyone blinks an eye.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/2... (Tesla recalls 123k cars).
There wasn't much bad press when it occurred at Tesla. At the time of that article, Tesla's annual production was about 125k.
Dear Customers:
I am writing to address the news that our Gene-by-Gene laboratory, which processes genetic tests for several commercial clients in addition to all of the FamilyTreeDNA tests, has processed a handful of DNA samples for cold cases from the F.B.I. In many cases, the news reports contained false or misleading information.
Let me start with this categorical statement:
LAW ENFORCEMENT DOES NOT HAVE OPEN ACCESS TO THE FTDNA DATABASE.
They cannot search or “dig through” FTDNA profiles any more than an ordinary user can. As with all other genetic genealogy services, law enforcement must provide valid legal process, such as a subpoena or search warrant to receive any information beyond that which any other user can access.
I have been an avid genealogist since I was twelve years old. FamilyTreeDNA is not just a business, it is my passion. I fully understand your privacy concerns on a personal level.
Law enforcement has the ability to test DNA samples from crime scenes and upload the results into databases, like any other customer can, and it appears they have been doing it at other companies for the past year. The distinction is that, according to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, we expect the FBI and law enforcement agencies to let us know when they submit something to our database. We moved to something transparent, rather than having them work in a stealthy way. Other than that, nothing changed that affects the privacy of our customers.
FamilyTreeDNA has always taken your privacy seriously and will continue to do so. We’ve remained steadfast, always, refusing to sell your data to pharmaceutical companies and other third parties.
One of the key reasons law enforcement wanted to submit their samples to us is the same reason many of you have: out of all the major companies, FamilyTreeDNA is the only one that has its own lab, and our customers’ samples never leave our company.
As previously stated, law enforcement can only receive information beyond that which is accessible to the standard user by providing FamilyTreeDNA with valid legal process, such as a subpoena or a search warrant. Again, this is specified in FamilyTreeDNA’s Terms of Service, just as with all other companies.
ABOUT OUR TERMS OF SERVICE
The Terms of Service were changed in May of 2018 to reflect GDPR requirements, and we informed our customers about the update at that time. Those changes included a paragraph that required law enforcement to receive our permission to enter the database and since it was a part of the overall update, notice was sent to every FTDNA customer. Without infringing upon our customers’ privacy, the language in the paragraph referring to law enforcement was updated in December, although nothing changed in the actual handling of such requests. It was an oversight that notice of the revision was not sent to you and that is our mistake. Therefore, we are reverting our TOS to our May 2018 version, and any future changes will be communicated to you in a timely manner.
This is the May 2018, GDPR-compliant version, communicated to you at that time: “You agree to not use the Services for any law enforcement purposes, forensic examinations, criminal investigations, and/or similar purposes without the required legal documentation and written permission from FamilyTreeDNA.”
WE WILL DO A BETTER JOB OF COMMUNICATING WITH YOU.
I am genuinely sorry for not having handled our communications with you as we should have.
We’ve received an incredible amount of support from those of you who believe this is an opportunity for honest, law-abiding citizens to help catch bad guys and bring closure to devastated families. We want you to understand, as many of you already do, that you have the same protections that you’ve always had and that you have nothing to fear.
We’ve also hea
It's MA'AM!
My voice is my passport, verify me.
The library programmers are upset because the dewey decimal system starts with 001....
The subject line should include "in the UK/Europe"..... Their regulations may not impact other countries....
Bolster our self-driving car efforts by taking out the competition with roof mounted AR's.
The consortium is spearheaded by InGen.
it IS a solar observatory, one that's dedicated to observation of the closest star to our planet. Ie. the Sun.
The facility personnel were using the telescope to get rid of their ant problem.
"The new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will use eSIM technology to allow users to use two phone lines on a single device."
Regarding multi-line, at least one carrier already provides a voice multi-line service on one device (BYOD) without requiring a special eSIM handset.
https://business.sprint.com/so...
Not sure how it would compare to eSIM.
A lot of kids want to be sports stars because, from a role model perspective, endorsements is one of their main avenues of awareness. I, for one, would like to see Astronauts on the cereal box instead of promotion of some random sports figure.
Because a person has never said one thing PRIOR to being elected and then doing the complete opposite AFTER being elected....
I'm not sure everyone shares the "eccentric" view. Tesla stock is down 6% (roughly $20) this morning after the interview aired last night.
So the people are willing to be surveilled/tracked wherever they go in the hopes to reduce police brutality. Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty.....
Is the company telling you to check/respond/craft work emails during the commute? You are choosing to perform these actions. Using this logic, I will check my work email hourly at home throughout the evening so I can stay on the clock 16 hours a day....
FTA: "it does not work when there are waves taller than 16cm (6in) in the water." Doesn't most of the ocean have waves higher than 6 inches?
Has anyone checked for Solar plants being used to destroy toxic waste but are actually dumping it into an underground river?
Prince Vultan: Ah, well; who wants to live forever?
All everyone has to do is wait them out and they can pick it up for pennies on the dollar if they want it.
That time is close. The stock was trading at $2000 in January. Currently, it is trading at 55 cents... https://www.marketwatch.com/in...
Now if there was only a company who had the reusable rocket technology that the gov't could pilfer/commandeer in the name of national security.....
Increasing the confidence threshold would probably have reduced the 5% error rate.... From the article: The A.C.L.U had used the system’s default setting for matches, called a “confidence threshold,” of 80%. That means the group counted any face matches the system proposed that had a similarity score of 80% or more. Amazon recommended that police departments use a much higher similarity score — 95% — to reduce the likelihood of erroneous matches.
Apple's iPhones Trail Samsung, Google Devices, and the Pony Express in Internet Speeds
Killer as in Job Killer
Maximum Overdrive!
How is this different from the Sprint plan? Sprint offers the same unlimited for $60/mo + Hulu instead of Netflix. T-Mobile limits their ONE plan after 50Gb/mo just like Sprint and offers 3 other unlimited plans to include the "One Plus" with HD vid for $70/mo.