Zao lets users superimpose themselves on to celebrities but critics warn of data threat

A new Chinese app that lets users swap their faces with celebrities, sports stars or anyone else in a video clip racked up millions of downloads at the weekend but was swiftly criticised over privacy issues.

The app’s surge in popularity and sudden backlash from some users highlights how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies raise concerns surrounding identity verification.

In case you haven’t heard, #ZAO is a Chinese app which completely blew up since Friday. Best application of ‘Deepfake’-style AI facial replacement I’ve ever seen.

Here’s an example of me as DiCaprio (generated in under 8 secs from that one photo in the thumbnail) pic.twitter.com/1RpnJJ3wgT

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Exclusive: Hannah Fry says ethical pledge needed in tech fields that will shape future

Mathematicians, computer engineers and scientists in related fields should take a Hippocratic oath to protect the public from powerful new technologies under development in laboratories and tech firms, a leading researcher has said.

The ethical pledge would commit scientists to think deeply about the possible applications of their work and compel them to pursue only those that, at the least, do no harm to society.

Despite being invisible, maths has a dramatic impact on our lives

Related: Google whistleblower launches project to keep tech ethical

Related: To fix the problem of deepfakes we must treat the cause, not the symptoms | Matt Beard

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Researchers able to identify MP Anthony Carbines’s travel history using tweets and Public Transport Victoria dataset

The three-year travel history of a Victorian politician was able to be identified after the state government released the supposedly “de-identified” data of more than 15m myki public transport users in a breach of privacy laws.

In July 2018, Public Transport Victoria (now the Department of Transport) released a dataset containing 1.8bn travel records for 15.1m myki public transport users for the period between June 2015 and June 2018.

Related: Major breach found in biometrics system used by banks, UK police and defence firms

See you about 05.24AM tomorrow at Rosanna to catch the first train to town. Well done all. Thanks for hanging in there. Massive construction effort. Single track gone. Two level crossings gone. The trains! The trains! The trains are coming! pic.twitter.com/kk2Cj3ey9T

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Fingerprints, facial recognition and other personal information from Biostar 2 discovered on publicly accessible database

The fingerprints of over 1 million people, as well as facial recognition information, unencrypted usernames and passwords, and personal information of employees, was discovered on a publicly accessible database for a company used by the likes of the UK Metropolitan Police, defence contractors and banks.

Suprema is the security company responsible for the web-based Biostar 2 biometrics lock system that allows centralised control for access to secure facilities like warehouses or office buildings. Biostar 2 uses fingerprints and facial recognition as part of its means of identifying people attempting to gain access to buildings.

Related: The Great Hack: the film that goes behind the scenes of the Facebook data scandal

Related: Chinese cyberhackers ‘blurring line between state power and crime’

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Web security firm Cloudflare’s decision to terminate 8chan as a customer is welcome, but risks setting a dangerous precedent

Last Saturday morning, a gunman armed with an assault rifle walked into a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, and shot 22 people dead and injured 24 more. Shortly before he did so, a post by him appeared on the /pol/ [politically incorrect] message board of the far-right website 8chan. Attached to it was a four-page “manifesto”. The 8chan thread was quickly deleted by a site moderator (it was news to me that 8chan had moderators), but archived copies of it rapidly circulated on the internet.

“There is nothing new in this killer’s ramblings,” wrote one analyst who had read it. “He expresses fears of the same ‘replacement’ of white people that motivated the Christchurch shooter and notes that he was deeply motivated by that shooter’s manifesto.”

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Cybersecurity firm FireEye says ‘aggressive’ APT41 group working for Beijing is also hacking video games to make money

A group of state-sponsored hackers in China ran activities for personal gain at the same time as undertaking spying operations for the Chinese government in 14 different countries, the cybersecurity firm FireEye has said.

In a report released on Thursday, the company said the hacking group APT41 was different to other China-based groups tracked by security firms in that it used non-public malware typically reserved for espionage to make money through attacks on video game companies.

Related: Australia joins condemnation of ‘huge, audacious’ Chinese hacking plot

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• Marcus Hutchins pleaded guilty to two malware charges
• Hutchins sentenced to time served and supervised release

A British cybersecurity expert credited with helping stop a worldwide computer virus in May 2017 will not serve any additional time behind bars for creating malware years before he won international acclaim.

Related: FTSE 250 firms exposed to possible cyber-attacks, report finds

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Anxious parents may see the appeal of measuring their baby’s vital signs – but sharing your child’s data with a private company may not be wise

This week’s instalment of innovations no one was waiting for is brought to you by Pampers, which has announced a “smart nappy” system. Lumi consists of a sensor that you stick to a specially designed nappy; the gizmo then beams information about how much your little bub is peeing and sleeping to a dedicated app. You can complement this with a video monitor that links to the app and tracks room temperature and humidity. Voilà: your embarrassingly low-tech baby is now a sophisticated analytics machine.

If you can’t wait to start a more data-driven relationship with your newborn, I am afraid to say there is no word on when Lumi will launch in the UK (it arrives in the US this autumn). If you are in South Korea, however, you can grab some Huggies smart nappies; these let you know, via Bluetooth, whether your baby has urinated or defecated. A truly brilliant update to the obsolete technology known as “your nose”.

Related: ‘You can track everything’: the parents who digitise their babies’ lives

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Anxious parents may see the appeal of measuring their baby’s vital signs – but sharing your child’s data with a private company may not be wise

This week’s instalment of innovations no one was waiting for is brought to you by Pampers, which has announced a “smart nappy” system. Lumi consists of a sensor that you stick to a specially designed nappy; the gizmo then beams information about how much your little bub is peeing and sleeping to a dedicated app. You can complement this with a video monitor that links to the app and tracks room temperature and humidity. Voilà: your embarrassingly low-tech baby is now a sophisticated analytics machine.

If you can’t wait to start a more data-driven relationship with your newborn, I am afraid to say there is no word on when Lumi will launch in the UK (it arrives in the US this autumn). If you are in South Korea, however, you can grab some Huggies smart nappies; these let you know, via Bluetooth, whether your baby has urinated or defecated. A truly brilliant update to the obsolete technology known as “your nose”.

Related: ‘You can track everything’: the parents who digitise their babies’ lives

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This week, a Netflix documentary on Cambridge Analytica sheds light on one of the most complex scandals of our time. Carole Cadwalladr, who broke the story and appears in the film, looks at the fallout – and finds ‘surveillance capitalism’ out of control

Related: Arron Banks threatens Netflix over Great Hack documentary

Cambridge Analytica may have become the byword for a scandal, but it’s not entirely clear that anyone knows exactly what that scandal is. It’s more like toxic word association: “Facebook”, “data”, “harvested”, “weaponised”, “Trump” and, in this country, most controversially, “Brexit”.

Cambridge Analytica didn’t decide democracy was for sale. We built this world, so we should own it

(December 11, 2015) First hint of the scandal

People have completely misunderstood the scandal as being about privacy, when it’s actually about power

The Cambridge Analytica files resulted in a multi-year investigation from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, “the most important ever”, according to Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner.

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