Slashdot: DeSantis Signs Bill Requiring Parental Consent For Kids Under 16 To Hold Social Media Accounts

DeSantis Signs Bill Requiring Parental Consent For Kids Under 16 To Hold Social Media Accounts
Published on March 26, 2024 at 02:12AM
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just signed into law HB 3 [PDF], a bill that will give parents of teens under 16 more control over their kids' access to social media and require age verification for many websites. From a report: The bill requires social media platforms to prevent kids under 14 from creating accounts, and delete existing ones. It also requires parent or guardian consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create or maintain social media accounts and mandates that platforms delete social media accounts and personal information for this age group at the teen's or parent's request. Companies that fail to promptly delete accounts belonging to 14- and 15-year-olds can be sued on behalf of those kids and may owe them up to $10,000 in damages each. A "knowing or reckless" violation could also be considered an unfair or deceptive trade practice, subject to up to $50,000 in civil penalties per violation. The bill also requires many commercial apps and websites to verify their users' ages -- something that introduces a host of privacy concerns. But it does require websites to give users the option of "anonymous age verification," which is defined as verification by a third party that cannot retain identifying information after the task is complete.

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Slashdot: AT&T Says Leaked Data of 70 Million People Is Not From Its Systems

AT&T Says Leaked Data of 70 Million People Is Not From Its Systems Published on March 20, 2024 at 02:15AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: AT&T says a massive trove of data impacting 71 million people did not originate from its systems after a hacker leaked it on a cybercrime forum and claimed it was stolen in a 2021 breach of the company. While BleepingComputer has not been able to confirm the legitimacy of all the data in the database, we have confirmed some of the entries are accurate, including those whose data is not publicly accessible for scraping. The data is from an alleged 2021 AT&T data breach that a threat actor known as ShinyHunters attempted to sell on the RaidForums data theft forum for a starting price of $200,000 and incremental offers of $30,000. The hacker stated they would sell it immediately for $1 million. AT&T told BleepingComputer then that the data did not originate from them and that its systems were not breached. &q

Slashdot: AT&T, T-Mobile Prep First RedCap 5G IoT Devices

AT&T, T-Mobile Prep First RedCap 5G IoT Devices Published on October 15, 2024 at 03:20AM The first 5G Internet of Things (IoT) devices are launching soon. According to Fierce Wireless, T-Mobile plans to launch its first RedCap devices by the end of the year, while AT&T's devices are expected sometime in 2025. From the report: All of this should pave the way for higher performance 5G gadgets to make an impact in the world of IoT. RedCap, which stands for reduced capabilities, was introduced as part of the 3GPP's Release 17 5G standard, which was completed -- or frozen in 3GPP terms -- in mid-2022. The specification, which is also called NR-Light, is the first 5G-specific spec for IoT. RedCap promises to offer data transfer speeds of between 30 Mbps to 80 Mbps. The RedCap spec greatly reduces the bandwidth needed for 5G, allowing the signal to run in a 20 MHz channel rather than the 100 MHz channel required for full scale 5G communications. Read more of this story at

Slashdot: AT&T Can't Hang Up On Landline Phone Customers, California Agency Rules

AT&T Can't Hang Up On Landline Phone Customers, California Agency Rules Published on June 22, 2024 at 01:50AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) yesterday rejected AT&T's request to end its landline phone obligations. The state agency also urged AT&T to upgrade copper facilities to fiber instead of trying to shut down the outdated portions of its network. AT&T asked the state to eliminate its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation, which requires it to provide landline telephone service to any potential customer in its service territory. A CPUC administrative law judge recommended rejection of the application last month, and the commission voted to dismiss AT&T's application with prejudice on Thursday. "Our vote to dismiss AT&T's application made clear that we will protect customer access to basic telephone service... Our rules were designed to provide that assurance,

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