by Felicien | May 2, 2019 | Education
On Thursday, April 25, 2019, notable news broke that Canada is taking Facebook to court. Daniel Therrien, Canada’s federal privacy commissioner, gave a joint news conference with Michael McEvoy, the information and privacy commissioner for British Columbia. In this announcement, Therrien asserted that the existing accountability requirement enshrined in Canadian law, while meaningful, “is not sufficient to protect Canadians from companies that do not behave responsibly”.
Therrian went on to explain that as Canada continues working to refine its privacy laws, his office is taking Facebook to court based on the company’s response. He’s seeking a court order “to force Facebook to correct its privacy practices”.
How It Got to This Point
If you’re thinking that sounds like an aggressive move, you’re not alone. How did it get to this point? Tensions had been brewing for some time. Therrian’s office came to the conclusion some time back that Facebook failed to protect privacy at the corporate level. The commissioner’s office then launched a thorough investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices. The investigation lasted over a year, and its conclusions included that Facebook had violated Canada’s privacy laws in numerous ways. Much of this relates to a massive user data leak, one where the data was used for political gain through a firm named Cambridge Analytica.
The Data in Question
The privacy commissioner determined that at least 276 Canadians installed an app back in 2013 that violated privacy law, as David Akin reports. The app harvested the users’ data, but it didn’t stop there. It went two steps further, harvesting those users’ friends’ data as well as the data of their friends’ friends. In total, concluded the commissioner, around 650,000 Canadians had their data compromised. This information was stored and eventually shared with UK firm Cambridge Analytica.
Cambridge Analytica has made the news before. It’s the firm that assisted the Donald Trump campaign in targeting voters. There’s nothing wrong with using research to target voters, of course: all serious US presidential candidates follow similar tactics. The problem was with how the data that fed the research was collected. 650,000 Canadians and many more Americans had their data misused.
Facebook Rebuffs the Privacy Commissioner
Under current Canadian law, the privacy commissioner’s only recourse is to recommend that Facebook change its ways. The office made this recommendation, and Facebook said “no”. The company rebuffed the government’s recommendations and made no changes as a result of them.
The problem here is straightforward. Facebook (and other private companies) essentially becomes a self-policing organization. If Facebook determines it has not violated the law, then it can continue to operate no matter what the privacy commissioner concludes.
A Problem with Existing Law
Therrian said that he doesn’t think Canada’s privacy law makes sense. In his view it’s problematic that “a private company, with its private interests, can say to a regulator, ‘Thank you very much for your conclusions on matters of law, but we actually disagree, and we will actually continue as we were.’ It is completely unacceptable”.
Therrian is pushing for the legislature to amend its policies so that the privacy commissioner’s office has order-making power so that its conclusions are binding for private companies. He points to other countries that are rumored to be levying fines against Facebook for its privacy violations. It’s widely reported that the USA may fine Facebook up to $5 billion. Canada has no such ability under current law.
No Real Accountability in Current Law
Companies are accountable for the information they hold on behalf of users, which is an important safeguard. Therrian’s complaint is that current law states that companies are accountable for this without giving the government any mechanism for enforcement. An accountability law that no one can enforce accomplishes nothing.
It’s Up to the New Legislature
Therrian concluded his comments by encouraging the new legislature to undertake updated and enforceable legislation in their new session. He hopes this legislation will continue to hold companies accountable for their handling of data while giving regulators real power to enforce that this is done.
A Response from Facebook
Facebook, for its part, claims to understand that it has an obligation to protect users’ private data. Erin Taylor, communications manager at Facebook, stated that the company was cooperating with the commissioner. In a prepared statement she remarked, “We are disappointed that the [privacy commissioner] considers the issues raised in this report unresolved”.
What Happens Next?
The path forward is not completely clear at this time. Facebook will, for the time being, continue operating unaffected in Canada. The company is not compelled at this point by Canadian law to make any changes, though it has already made numerous changes to its privacy policy as part of the blowback from this scandal.
The results of the coming court case are anyone’s guess at this point. The federal commissioner’s footing is weakened, of course, by his own admission that the law grants him no authority to enforce action against Facebook. Even if no other positive outcome results from the lawsuit, the two privacy commissioners have at least gotten the issue into the public eye.
Then there’s the legislature, which is being pushed to fix this privacy enforcement loophole through new legislation. It’s too early to say how likely this action is, but the publicity of the commissioners’ actions last week may spur legislators to action.
by Felicien | May 1, 2019 | Education
Coordinating interactions between office staff and remote workers can be challenging. One way you can cut through a lot of the confusion that arises when trying to keep everything in sync is by leveraging your worker’s iPad and iPhone devices. It is a way of using something that is already in their arsenal at a minimal cost to your business.
There will not be a focus on any specific device versions, mainly because it may already be yesterday’s news by the time this article reaches your eyes. You can execute these suggestions successfully even if you have some employees who still cling to their iPhone 7 or iPad Air 2. One thing Apple has always offered powerful devices capable of being used in a variety of ways for business. If they are well-maintained and functional, you can implement the ideas that best suit your work culture.
1. Synchronize Accounting
Having a reliable means of tracking financial transactions related to business functions is a crucial component of any enterprise. The App Store provides access to a variety of accounting apps that can be synced to your company software to send invoices and track payments from suppliers and vendors. All workers can see the changes in real-time and keep all ledgers in sync.
The apps also have features allowing management of multiple business accounts and any related transactions between them all. Some provide reports with visuals giving you a quick overview of your current liabilities, and where the company may be making heavier-than-needed expenditures. Workers are not bound to their laptops when it comes time to issue an invoice or product documents needed for tax purposes.
2. Maintain Documents and Scheduling
Your employees can create memos or document the details of a significant business transaction using a variety of document creation tools. Their iPad or iPhone can be synced with popular Microsoft Office applications like Excel or any of your favorite G-Suite tools.
Workers would only need to log into a OneDrive business account to open a Word document created earlier on a MacBook or add the settings of the company’s business Google account to their device.
Their iPad or iPhone can also be coordinated with a calendar to send notifications about upcoming events. Imagine having all your staff show up on time to a meeting or continuously meeting project deadlines despite being in different locations.
3. Create On-The-Go Presentations
An iPad can be used to create a visual presentation showcase anywhere outside of the office. Apps like Keynote let workers share ideas with you and other executives in a creative and organized fashion. Their iPhone can also be transformed into a hand-held digital brochure to show off at conventions and other business events.
Instead of lugging around a ton of paper brochures that can easily be lost, staff can show off a digital version to a business contact that can be forwarded as they collect their information for follow-up. Other iOS apps like CamCard can be used to keep up with all the names and emails of potential future clients at trade shows and expos.
4. Stay Connected and Engaged
Are you concerned that your remote workers might be feeling a little disconnected from the office staff? There are iOS apps available for platforms like Trello and Slack that make communication and project coordination a smoother process.
The apps provide you with the same functionality that peers in the office have on their laptop or desktop. That means you can easily synchronize workflows and maintain communication about upcoming deadlines for tasks related to various projects. Their iPad or iPhone devices become conduits for hosting online video chats with co-workers.
Recommended Support Tools
You may decide that investing in iPhone or iPad devices for your workers would be a sound investment. We suggest investing in the following tools to effectively leverage them for your company.
Stylus — Look for devices like the Apple Pencil that enhances note-taking ability during online meetings. Workers can add comments to PDFs, create charts and graphs, and more.
Keyboard — Investing in a sound keyboard gives employees more comfort when they need to do a lot of typing.
Case — Many cases can protect devices from accidental damage and let workers adjust them to a more comfortable angle for heavy keying.
Do your research into apps and other support devices that will enhance iPhone and iPad business usage. We think you’ll be happy at your decision to turn them into one of your company’s most potent occupational tools.
by Felicien | May 1, 2019 | Education
Monitoring employee behavior is nothing new, as supervisors have been stalking their staff for generations. What has changed is the degree to which employee behavior is transparent in the workplace, with sophisticated monitoring solutions in play one could argue that nothing is truly sacred when it comes to being monitored by your business. It is standard practice for all phone conversations to be recorded in a customer service setting, but this is expanding dramatically into detailed tracking of websites that are visited and even emails that are being sent and received. Employees may not often think about the fact that personal emails that are being checked on business-issued phones or laptops are fair game for tracking — but they are. Whether this tracking is meant to identify underperformers or to protect the IP and sensitive data of the organization, there are laws in place to protect both the employer and the employee.
What Are You Trying to Accomplish With Monitoring?
When you are considering monitoring your staff members or contractors, the most important question to ask yourself if what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you have some underperformers, and are trying to gather information about their work habits? Do you suspect corporate espionage? Do you simply want to protect your organization from the productivity drains that occur when staff members spend an inordinate amount of time on social media? Understanding the business driver will help you more fully define the legal reason for gathering this type of information from your employees. You might even have someone who seems to be absent — even though they are technically “at work” every day. Monitoring of their access badge would fall under these same rules for electronic monitoring. As you’re defining your monitoring program, also look at the success metrics. Are you attempting to reduce the time spent on social media? If so, you also need to have in place a way to communicate that employee behavior is outside the expected norms.
Employee Notification of Online Activity Tracking is Crucial
The majority of employees are simply going about their daily work, unconcerned that their employer could be potentially tapping into conversations on email or their phones. These individuals probably have nothing to hide, because they are being good stewards of time and resources and only doing a little light shopping at lunch, for instance. Others might be extremely concerned and secretive about their online behavior, going so far as to surf in incognito mode or clear out browser activities when they close down for the day — never realizing that these steps probably don’t make a bit of difference in whether their employer can still see their activities. If your organization plans to do any kind of monitoring at all, it should be detailed for employees as they are onboarded. A safer practice would include asking employees to sign the most recent version of the policy on an annual basis to indicate that they understand and agree with the monitoring that is being done.
Handling Second-Party Notifications of Recorded Activities
In many states, there are legal standards that require that both parties to a conversation must be notified and agree that the tracking may take place before the activity is deemed legal. There are some workarounds such as a conspicuous posting on your website or an email signature that warns all parties that continuing the conversation with a staff member is considered their agreement to recording the messages. However, this remains a legal challenge in many states. As the government begins to look more deeply at personally identifiable information (PII) and exactly who has access to that data, you might run into additional legal challenges due to the various data breach notification statutes that are currently in place in 48 states.
IoT in the Workforce
Perhaps on of the most controversial conversation around employee monitoring is around connected devices, such as wearables. These items can be capturing data that is extremely personal to the employee, much of which would be considered protected health information (PHI), including things such as heart rate, miles walked, calories consumed and more. Mobile phones that are provided by the company could easily contain apps that would record the information. If you’ve installed keystroke logging on these phones, are you capturing more personal information than you intended?
While you may feel as though you can list the key legal concerns with employee monitoring, the best course of action is to engage an attorney to ensure that you are staying clear of any legal implications of your actions. This is especially true before you take action based on your monitoring findings, such as a formal employee write-up or termination. While triggers can be written to turn monitoring into an effective tool to ward off data loss, there are still plenty of pitfalls to consider before creating a widespread online activity monitoring program.
by Felicien | May 1, 2019 | Education
The red tape that normally surrounds the administration of patients in the healthcare industry is a leading cause of physician burnout, as many data experts have noted. Healthcare providers are responsible for a growing volume of paperwork and other off-patient work, and the trend towards greater bureaucracy seems to be inevitable. By some estimates, one hour of bedside patient care results in two hours of paperwork post-visit for the average physician.
Fortunately, AI-driven resources are finding new avenues for physicians to spend less time in front of mounds of paper. With new technology in tow, there are now new ways to administrate patient encounters. Physicians are able to stay in compliance with watchdogs, take smarter notes on patients and provide better overall care.
AI in the Medical Marketplace
One such technology, Suki, is a voice-enabled digital assistant that is made specifically for professionals in the medical industry. Suki is designed to help doctors with patient documentation, giving them more time to focus on the bedside. The technology has the ability to respond to complex voice commands, using those commands to create notes that are clinically accurate. The program also has the ability to enter those notes directly into an electronic health record (EHR) system.
No voice technology is able to completely replace direct input, but it does reduce the need for it immensely. AI also reduces the instance of human error in the data input stage during medical transcription and dictation. The result is a significant time savings when creating and organizing medical documents.
Where the technology succeeds most is in leveraging AI to “teach” the program the idiosyncrasies of the physician that is using it. Eventually, the Suki that is used by an individual physician will become a digital scribe that is unique to that person, fully capable of note taking with very low input from the physician himself. Suki is based on successful commercial digital assistants like Alexa, but the nod to the medical industry is an essential one. Currently, commercial digital assistants do not have the ability to learn from esoteric medical terms or organize records in a way that is specific to medical watchdog standards.
Other speech recognition systems that are focused on medicine include Sopris Health, Deepgram, Saykara, Dragon Medical Practice Edition and Nuance.
The Link Between AI and EHR
Digital assistants for the medical industry must be specific to the industry for another reason – the mandatory use of the EHR in the industry. HIPAA standards now require EHRs to form a significant part of each provider’s data infrastructure. Any note-taking or administration program that claims to help the medical industry must follow the protocols set forth in HIPAA standards.
The fact that Suki and other AI driven technologies kept these standards in mind allowed them to more easily implement new features that are relevant to physicians. These features include customer-facing options such as imaging and X-ray integration and supply-side improvements like improved end-user response times.
EHR technology gives the physician room to dictate data on a patient while in the room seamlessly, but only with the right process in place. Having a digital assistant that is geared to dictate medical records saves huge amounts of time. Many doctors in the orthopedic and sports medicine industries report that they are saving up to an hour of administration time per patient.
With AI and EHR in tow, doctors have the choice to document the patient during the visit or after. This saves a huge amount of time during the initial visit, a time that is usually spent gathering the entire patient history. Experts believe that doctors will save even more time when patients begin to become aware of these technologies. As patients become more open to their use, more doctors will implement them with greater levels of comfort.
Patients can also take command of the notetaking process when AI and EHR are used correctly. As notes are being taken, some doctors actually encourage patients to chime in if there is a point of clarification or some information that has not been considered.
Patient and Clinician Satisfaction
It is well known that doctors are judged by their bedside manner just as much as their technical skill or knowledge of medicine. One of the major benefits of AI is the ability to reduce physician burnout, a phenomenon that reduces the ability of physicians to present a warm, empathetic bedside manner.
Initial studies on Suki show an average note completion time of 1.5 minutes, down from 4.8 minutes per note without Suki or any other voice assistant tech. This adds up to approximately one hour of time saved per day. More importantly, it increases the time that doctors can spend truly connecting with patients during the encounter.
Future Success
Although the advantages of AI are well documented, its success depends on a number of factors. Experts have stated that vendor support is essential for more widespread adaptation of the technology. There must also be more attention paid to the unique needs of the physician practice.
by Felicien | May 1, 2019 | Education
All notifications are not created equally, especially when it comes to business hours. That becomes apparent when sifting through multiple items on your iPhone or iPad. You want the alert from a peer letting you know about the receipt of a critical signed document, but not constant annoying pings about the latest updates to Candy Crush.
With a few tweaks to your iOS settings, you can avoid these annoyances in the future by taking control of what pops up while you are working.
Make Use of Do Not Disturb
There are times that you want to eliminate all distractions during business hours. It could be while preparing to sit down with a potential new client or when you are going over the implementation of a new organizational strategy with your employees. The last thing you want is to have your iPhone or iPad continually going off at critical points.
The latest iOS 12 updates make it a snap to go into your settings and silence your notifications during crucial junctures like these. Just swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone screen (or down from the top right on your iPad screen) to bring up a moon icon. All you need to do is click it to silence all your notifications.
Pressing and holding the moon icon for a few seconds more brings up additional options that control how long you silence your notifications. You can also press the “Settings” button at the bottom of the list for more detailed control over the length of your DND period.
Manage Alerts Through the Notifications Center
The Notifications Center allows you to make more permanent changes when it comes to managing your alerts. You can activate the Notification Center by swiping down from the top of your iPhone screen (or the top left/center of your iPad screen). Notifications can be viewed as a single entity or in multiple batches.
There are two ways to activate notification management. You can drag the notification from left to right and reveal the “Manage” option. Selecting “Manage” provides you with new options. Or, do a long press on a notification to bring it to the forefront. Select the three-dot icon at the top to bring up the same options.
Deliver Quietly — You will still be able to see your notifications within Notification Center but will not see them on your lock screen. The alerts will also not make sounds, show a banner, or badge the app icon.
Turn Off — Pressing this button allows you to turn off all notifications from a specific app.
Settings — Pressing this button takes you to the notification settings for the app that sent the alert.
Going this route allows you to silence some notifications while allowing others through. That means essential Skype meeting notifications still gets seen, while updates on your favorite sports team wait until you have time to review them.
Controlling Notifications Via Settings
You can also maintain your alerts the old-fashioned way through your settings icon. Clicking on it will bring up a list of options you can select, including one labeled Notifications. The Notification Style section allows you to choose any app and view selections enabling you to control when and how it sends you notifications. Those choices include:
Allowing or disallowing notifications from an app
Choose the way you wish to be notified by an application
Change the appearance of banners that appear for alerts
Imagine that you have separate apps controlling your business and personal emails. You can use the settings to prevent alerts from your non-work email account while still allowing business emails to come through. The Settings section also let you decide whether you want to group important notifications or see previews of relevant messages.
Thanks to the iOS 12 update, you have a variety of possibilities at your fingertips. So take some time to explore your notification controls and ensure that only essential items come through during business hours.
