A key House of Representatives panel has pressed for a report to study the use of artificial intelligence to analyze prisoners' phone calls. "But prisoners' advocates and inmates' families say relying on AI to interpret communications opens up the system to mistakes, misunderstandings and racial bias," reports Reuters. From the report: The call for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to further explore the technology, to help prevent violent crime and suicide, accompanies an $81 billion-plus spending bill to fund the DOJ and other federal agencies in 2022 that the Appropriations Committee passed last month. The technology can automatically transcribe inmates' phone calls, analyzing their patterns of communication and flagging certain words or phrases, including slang, that officials pre-program into the system. A House Democratic aide said in an emailed statement they were encouraging the DOJ "to engage with stakeholders in the course of examining the feasibility of utilizing such a system."

Several state and local facilities across the country have already started using the tech, including in Alabama, Georgia and New York. The House panel wants the DOJ to look into potentially leveraging the technology for federal use and to identify gaps or shortcomings in the information it produces. Privacy groups say the technology could amplify racial bias in the justice system and unfairly subject prisoners to unaccountable artificial intelligence. Proponents dispute such criticisms, saying the tech is a vital time-saving tool for law enforcement and does not target specific groups.

The National Security Agency has awarded a cloud computing contract worth up to $10 billion to Amazon, Nextgov reported Tuesday. The Hill reports: The contract, named "WildandStormy" according to protest filings obtained by the outlet, appears to be part of the NSA's attempts to modernize its repository for classified data. The award is being challenged by Microsoft, according to Government Accountability Office records. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that it is filing the protest "based on the decision." "We are exercising our legal rights and will do so carefully and responsibly," they added.

According to a new study, China's video-sharing app TikTok is now the most downloaded app in the world. Nikkei Asia reports: ByteDance launched the international version of TikTok in 2017, and has since overtaken Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger -- all of which are Facebook owned -- in downloads, even in the U.S. Some believe that personal information shared with TikTok is not secure. In 2020, former President Donald Trump called on the company to sell off its U.S. operations or be banned. The app's popularity nevertheless grew during the pandemic, when it became the leading download in Europe, South America and the U.S. Joe Biden, Trump's successor, withdrew the presidential executive order, but uncertainties remain elsewhere. While The Financial Times reported on Sunday that ByteDance has revived plans to go public in the coming months, a spokesperson told Nikkei Asia on Monday that the article was "inaccurate," insisting the company has no current plans for a stock market listing.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Oregon Live: For the next five years, an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level. Gov. Kate Brown had demurred earlier this summer regarding whether she supported the plan passed by the Legislature to drop the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills. But on July 14, the governor signed Senate Bill 744 into law. Through a spokesperson, the governor declined again Friday to comment on the law and why she supported suspending the proficiency requirements. Charles Boyle, the governor's deputy communications director, said the governor's staff notified legislative staff the same day the governor signed the bill.

Boyle said in an emailed statement that suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit "Oregon's Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color." "Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports," Boyle wrote. The requirement that students demonstrate freshman- to sophomore-level skills in reading, writing and, particularly, math led many high schools to create workshop-style courses to help students strengthen their skills and create evidence of mastery. Most of those courses have been discontinued since the skills requirement was paused during the pandemic before lawmakers killed it entirely. The state's four-year graduation rate is 82.6%, up more than 10 points from six years ago. However, it still lags behind the national graduation rate averages, which is 85 percent.

Oregon's graduation rates currently rank nearly last in the country. But it's complicated because states use different methodologies to calculate their graduation rates, making some states appear better than others.

Twitter has suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's account for one week following another violation of the platform's rules, the company said Tuesday. From a report: Greene tweeted on Monday that the Food and Drug Administration "should not approve the covid vaccines." She also claimed the vaccines were "failing" and that they were ineffective at reducing the virus's spread. In response, Twitter labeled the tweet as misleading and prevented Greene from tweeting for one week. The tweet, a company spokesperson said, "was labeled in line with our COVID-19 misleading information policy. The account will be in read-only mode for a week due to repeated violations of the Twitter Rules."

WIth the release of Firefox 91 on Tuesday, Mozilla has introduced a bigger hammer for smashing the cookies that websites, advertisers and tracking companies can use to record your online behavior. From a report: The new feature, called enhanced cookie clearing, is designed to block tracking not just from a website, but also from third parties whose code appears on the site. The technology is designed to let you clear cookies for a particular website but also the more aggressive "supercookies" designed to evade lesser privacy protections. The feature is an option if you enable Firefox's strict mode for cookie handling, which partitions website data into separate storage containers. "You can easily recognize and remove all data a website has stored on your computer, without having to worry about leftover data from third parties embedded in that website," Mozilla said in a blog post.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The government has launched a [4 million pound] fund to back projects trialling running fiber optic broadband cables through water pipes to help connect hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads. The money will also be used to test out monitors in pipes that can help water companies identify and repair leaks more quickly. About a fifth of water put into public supply every day is lost via leaks and it is hoped that sensors could help deliver water companies' commitment to reduce water loss by half.

Infrastructure works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks, the government said. The project is designed to help cut those costs, and is part of a plan to improve broadband and mobile signals in rural areas. The digital infrastructure minister, Matt Warman, said: "The cost of digging up roads and land is the biggest obstacle telecoms companies face when connecting hard-to-reach areas to better broadband, but beneath our feet there is a vast network of pipes reaching virtually every building in the country. So we are calling on Britain's brilliant innovators to help us use this infrastructure to serve a dual purpose of serving up not just fresh and clean water but also lightning-fast digital connectivity."