SUMMARY: The growing popularity of FaceApp, a photo filter app that allows users to transform their features by adding or removing wrinkles, is sounding alarm bells among privacy advocates and lawmakers. There are questions about how the images of people's faces could be used, especially as the app's company is based in Russia. Amna Nawaz talks to the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Joseph Jerome.
SUMMARY: A conflict between tech giant Apple and the FBI over the encrypted iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters came to a moot point when Justice Department officials announced they had cracked the phone's security without Apple's help. Gwen Ifill talks to Devlin Barrett of The Wall Street Journal and Fred Kaplan of Slate for more on how the FBI got what it wanted and what happens now.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): A pitched battle between the Obama Justice Department and one of the world's biggest tech companies appeared to end abruptly this week, when the government decided to drop its insistence that Apple crack the code for an iPhone used in the San Bernardino shootings.
Apple had refused, insisting such cooperation would constitute a major breach of privacy. The impending standoff ended yesterday when the government announced it had been able to crack the phone after all, without Apple's help.
But questions remain.
For that, we turn to Devlin Barrett, who covers the Justice Department for The Wall Street Journal, and Fred Kaplan, a columnist with Slate. He's the author of “The Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War.”
Devlin, starting with you, did one or the other of the parties in this case back away, just back up?
DEVLIN BARRETT, The Wall Street Journal: The government backed away. The government said — but it also got what it wanted, in a sense, because it got into the phone it had been trying to get into for months.
I think what you saw happen was that the government spent two months saying it can't get into this phone without Apple, and then at the last minute, essentially, it said, actually, someone has just come to us and told us that we can get into it without Apple, and that's what happened.
GWEN IFILL: So, Fred Kaplan, the obvious question for so many of us is, who broke into the phone for them, and how did they find them, and had they — would they have been able to find them before without all of this legal mishmash?
FRED KAPLAN, Slate: Well, it seems to be an Israeli cyber-security firm called Cellebrite, which consists mainly of retired professionals from the — an outfit called Unit 822, which is a — the cyber-warfare branch of the Israeli intelligence agency, sort of the Israeli NSA.
You can imagine. Here's the FBI saying, we can't break into this phone. Here's Apple saying, we don't want anybody to break into this phone. This is the most secure phone out there. You have got hundreds, maybe thousands of hackers around the world who look at this and say, hmm, let me give this a try.
And, you know, the law that the FBI was invoking to get Apple to open it themselves, which is a 1789 law called the 'All Writs Act,' states that if somebody else can do it, if you can find some way to do it without demanding that a company like Apple do it, then you have to drop your suit.
And that's why the FBI withdrew. They had to. They really didn't want to. They thought that they had a good case here and were ultimately trying to test a new legal principle to accommodate for this new stronger era of encryption.
They can check your heartbeat, count your calories, and even conduct your ultrasound, but the Food and Drug Administration wants to decide whether Smartphone apps are ready to start seeing patients.
This week, the FDA began seeking input on proposed guidelines that would allow it to regulate the ballooning market for "mobile medical apps." That's any app for a Smartphone, tablet computer or personal digital assistant that helps diagnose, treat or prevent a disease or medical condition.
The FDA isn't planning to examine all health apps -- just the ones that could be used as "an accessory to a regulated medical device" or that "transforms a mobile platform into a regulated medical device."
"The use of mobile medical applications by health care professionals is revolutionizing health care," said Dr. Bakul Patel, an FDA policy advisor in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "But inaccurate information can present a significant health risk to patients."
Industry analysts estimate that there are already well over 17,000 medical applications available, and according to the mobile research company Research2Guidance 2010, 500 million Smartphone users worldwide will be using them by 2015.
FDA officials say they have yet to receive any reports of mobile apps causing harm, but they worry about the "additional or different risks due to the unique characteristics of the platform."
Prime example: radiological images on a mobile device could be adversely affected by the smaller screen size, lower contrast ratio, and uncontrolled ambient light of the mobile platform, the proposed guidelines say.
Any app that uses attachments, display screens, or sensors to turn a mobile device into regulated medical equipment like an ECG machine or a stethoscope will fall under the new rules. So will those apps that control medical devices -- like the inflation and deflation of a blood pressure cuff or the delivery of insulin on an insulin pump.
In the same vein, apps intended to analyze glucose meter readings would be considered similar to software running on a desktop computer and would need review, the regulations say.
The line isn't always so clear, though. If an app is built to give off light that generally illuminates an object or space, it doesn't qualify. If, on the other hand, it's marketed "as a light source to examine patients," it would.
Textbooks and reference materials don't meet the bar and neither do those that simply "relate to a healthy lifestyle and wellness" -- including apps that count calories, log appointments, suggest healthy eating tips, or recommend better posture and exercise techniques.
For example, Patel said, a calorie counting app used by anorexia patients would fall into a gray area that FDA officials are still attempting to navigate.
Apple declined to comment on the potential impact of the regulations on the company, but the news received mixed reviews from app manufacturers, who generally agree that any product serving as a medical device should already be regulated.
"As a developer, any time you see the FDA getting involved, you hope that the burden of regulation isn't too great," said Dr. Terrence Truxillo, vice president of iAnesthesia LLC and a practicing anesthesiologist. "As a physician, I'm definitely concerned about patient safety and this is all a good step in that direction."
iAnesthesia creates a slate of products, including dosing calculators, that will likely face FDA scrutiny. Truxillo called that "very reasonable" and said his company isn't concerned.
Clive Smith, CEO of Thinklabs, designed his electronic stethoscope app (which sells for $69.99 on iTunes) knowing that the FDA could "jump in at any time," he said. The app attaches to an FDA-regulated electronic stethoscope, allowing doctors to easily capture, store and email results.
Still, Smith thinks regulation for his particular app might be a bit much -- especially when it "only acts as a very convenient display device," he said.
"If we have to have severe regulation, that could definitely be burdensome," he said. "But overall, a limited amount of guidance -- and regulation, as necessary -- is beneficial to patients and the industry. It will mean that those who play by the rules aren't going to be competing against the jokers out there who are basically creating toys with no medical value."
FDA officials are hoping to hear from manufacturers and the public as they attempt to "strike the right balance between promoting innovation and protecting public health," said Patel. Shortly after the comment period closes in three months, the rules will become final.
Existing Apps and Those Pending Regulation Include:
- Analyzing and interpreting ECG or EEG data
- Screening blood transfusion results
- Remotely inflating/deflating a blood-pressure cuff
- Controlling devices for MRI or X-ray machines
- Acting as a blood glucose meter, using an attachment to a mobile platform
- Using the light source from a mobile platform to treat and control conditions like acne
- Acting as an electronic stethoscope, by connecting to an external sensor
- Calculating the amount of chemotherapy needed based on the patient's body surface area
- Assisting with patient-specific dosing, such as for radiation planning
- Calculating dosage of local anesthesia based on a patient's weight and age
- Defining disease stage or progression or predict a patient's response to treatment based on a analysis of physiological, laboratory, and other data
Officials in New York state asked Apple Inc. on Monday to change its iPhone design to allow consumers to replace their own batteries, just days after lawyers in Illinois filed a class-action lawsuit over the same complaint.
Apple charges customers a US$79 fee to replace the iPhone battery, which is sealed inside the phone instead of being attached by a removable latch, like most other consumer electronics. The company also charges an additional $29 to rent the user a temporary replacement phone to use during the repair.
