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Digital Planet: Increase in stalkerware installations

Factual: Science & Nature

Increase in stalkerware installations

24/11/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Increase in stalkerware installations

Stalkerware use - software that tracks a user’s device without their consent - is rising.

Stalkerware on the rise.  Also, robots are not immune to bias and injustice and military tech adapted to find the Blue Whales of South Georgia

New data shows an increase in stalkerware use.  This is software that grants a remote user the ability to monitor the activity on another user’s device without their consent, and can be preloaded in technology given as gifts. It’s an increasing problem around the world according to the cybersecurity form Kaspersky.  Tara Hairston from Kaspersky and Sachiko Hasumi, Manager of Information Security & Compliance at UN Women highlight the growing problem as part of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women this week. 

Robots are not immune to bias and injustice
An editorial in Science Robotics is calling on roboticists and AI developers to consider racial biases and inequalities when developing new technology.  Professor Ayanna Howard who co-leads the organisation “Black in Robotics” wants the robotics community to welcome and employ a more racially diverse workforce as current developers do not reflect the global population and both robotics and AI are therefore being developed without many people in mind.

Military tech adapted to find the blue whales of South Georgia 
Scientists who have discovered the return of critically endangered Antarctic blue whales to the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia - 50 years after whaling all but wiped them out - used military sonobuoys to track the animals.  This tech is usually deployed from aircraft into the sea to track submarines.  The team looked at 30 years of data – reports of sightings, photographs and underwater sea recordings – to track the world’s largest mammal back to these waters.  The new study follows recent research that humpback whales are also returning to the region.  Lead author of the study, Susannah Calderan of the Scottish Association for Marine Science explains how they are using sonobuoys to track blue whales hundreds of miles away.  

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Bill Thompson.


(Image: Getty Images)                                         

Studio manager: John Boland
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

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