This story caught my eye regarding internet privacy and how companies like Google are automating identification and enforcement of potential illegal behavior. In short, a man sent pictures of his son’s penis to a doctor for help to figure out what was causing pain. The doctor helped him but since the pictures went over the Google network, his Google account got flagged for child porn and locked him account of his email and Android phone.
This should make all of us question just how closely are we being watched? I get why this could happen and the purpose of this technology. There are likely thousands of bad situations being automatically blocked but that doesn’t mean its ok to assume it will be 100% accurate and not consider what happens when it is wrong.
This statement came from the article
“Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son’s first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn’t get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life.”
See the details of this situation via the Malwarebites lab article found HERE. Crazy stuff.