"There are no easy answers" to closing the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told a Women in Consumer Electronics event in New York. But she said Tuesday that companies in STEM industries need to collect more data on their workforce demographics. "What we have seen," she said in prepared remarks released Wednesday, "is a stunningly less diverse workforce than the population as a whole. These numbers are not what we want them to be. But collecting data is a start." Rosenworcel also said women need to start taking it upon themselves to bring more women to the industry and should show more support to women in economic and civic life. "That's how we start the process of changing a world where talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not," she said.

Facebook released its updated employee demographic data Thursday and said in a news release that its work to create a more diverse workforce has produced "some positive but modest change" but "there's more work to do." The data show that, as of May 31, Caucasians make up 55 percent of Facebook's employees in the U.S. and Asians account for 36 percent, while African-Americans and Latinos combined for only 6 percent of its national workforce. Of those holding tech jobs with the company in the U.S., 94 percent identified as being either white or Asian and the remaining 6 percent identified as African-American, Hispanic or being of two or more races. It said 73 percent of U.S. employees in senior leadership positions are white. "While we have achieved positive movement over the last year, it's clear to all of us that we still aren't where we want to be," Maxine Williams, Facebook global diversity director, said in the report on the company's diversity demographics. "It's a big task, one that will take time to achieve." Thirty-two percent of all Facebook employees worldwide are women, and women hold 16 percent of the company's tech jobs and 23 percent of senior leadership positions. The only category in which female Facebook employees outnumber men is in non-tech jobs, making up 52 percent of global workers in that capacity.

Spotify extended its partnership with Ford through the integration of its music-streaming service into the vehicle manufacturer's new Sync 3 system, said a Spotify blog post. Sync 3 is expected to be launched this summer in the 2016 models of the Ford Escape and Fiesta, and will include updated options for voice-controlled music selection, Spotify said Tuesday.

Within five years, Ford will migrate driver-assist technologies across its product lineup as part of phase two of its transition to advanced engineering and autonomous driving, it said in a news release. Ford’s Research and Innovation Center Palo Alto in California is working on the Ford Smart Mobility Plan that will take the company “to the next level in connectivity, mobility, autonomous vehicles, the customer experience and big data,” it said. A global Ford team is working to make the required sensing and computing technology “feasible for production” and continuing testing and refinement of algorithms, it said. Ford also said Tuesday that Pre-Collision Assist with Pedestrian Detection technology will be available in the U.S. next year on an unnamed Ford-brand vehicle. The carmaker’s plan is to roll out the feature on most Ford products globally by 2019, it said. Ford also has been working to extend vehicle connectivity to wearables. An upcoming MyFord mobile app for smart watches will enable consumers to check from their wristbands driving range and battery charge for their plug-in vehicle and to find their parked cars, said the company.

Google released Chrome v 43.0.2357.130 for Linux, Mac and Windows to address multiple vulnerabilities Monday, one of which may let an attacker obtain sensitive information, said a U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team alert. “Access to bug details and links may be kept restricted until a majority of users are updated with a fix,” Google Chrome Technical Program Manager Anthony Laforge wrote in a blog post Monday. “We will also retain restrictions if the bug exists in a third party library that other projects similarly depend on, but haven’t yet fixed.”

Ransomware continues to spread and is infecting devices around the globe, an alert from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said Tuesday. CryptoWall is the most current and significant ransomware threat targeting U.S. individuals and businesses and has been actively used to target U.S. victims since April 2014, the IC3 alert said. “The financial impact to victims goes beyond the ransom fee itself, which is typically between $200 and $10,000,” the alert said. “Many victims incur additional costs associated with network mitigation, network countermeasures, loss of productivity, legal fees, IT services, and/or the purchase of credit monitoring services for employees or customers.” Between April 2014 and June 2015, the IC3 received 992 CryptoWall-related complaints, with reported losses totaling more than $18 million. Ransomware problems begin when an individual clicks on an infected advertisement, email or attachment, or visits an infected site, the alert said. “Once the victim’s device is infected with the ransomware variant, the victim’s files become encrypted.” Once a victim pays a ransom fee, usually with a digital currency like Bitcoin, they can regain access to the files that were encrypted, it said.

The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles granted a partial motion to dismiss a data breach class action suit against Sony Pictures Entertainment after the breach of sensitive and personal information of at least 15,000 former and current Sony employees, said a post Tuesday on the Hunton & Williams’ privacy and information security law blog. The class action against Sony alleged negligence, breach of implied contract, violation of the California Customer Records Act, violation of the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, violation of the Unfair Competition Law, declaratory judgment, violation of Virginia Code 18.2‑186.6, and violation of Colorado Revised Statutes 6-1-716, the post said. “Sony moved to dismiss for lack of Article III standing under Rule 12(b)(1) and failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6),” it said. Sony’s challenge against Rule 12(b)(1) was rejected, as the court said the “personally identifiable information (PII) was stolen and posted on file-sharing websites for identity thieves to download, and that the PII was used to send threatening e-mails to employees and their families,” the post said. Challenges to Rule 12(b)(6) were both granted and denied. The plaintiffs' argument that implied contract claim was breached was dismissed, as were the claims the breach violated the California Customer Records Act, and the Virginia and Colorado breach notification claims, the post said. Negligence claims against Sony were granted and the Unfair Competition Law claim also advanced, the post said. Sony had no immediate comment.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and NAB support some of the Consumer Drone Safety Act introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The legislation “strikes the right balance by imposing meaningful guidelines on recreational use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” an NAB spokesman said in a written statement Thursday. “UAVs hold great potential in improving newsgathering capabilities at local stations.” Though ITIF Vice President Daniel Castro generally commended the legislation, he said Friday that its anti-tampering proposed requirements go too far. “UAS as we know them today were created due to a culture of innovation, in which amateur inventors and model aircraft hobbyists built and improved upon the technology organically,” Castro said of unmanned aircraft systems. “This bill would prohibit consumers from ‘jailbreaking’ their drones and put the brakes on permission-less innovation.” Castro proposed steep penalties be imposed on those who violate Federal Aviation Administration safety rules. “The Consumer Drone Safety Act is a small, but important, step forward,” he said. “Congress and the FAA should continue to look for opportunities to enable commercial UAS usage that is risk-based and technology-neutral,” he said. “By modernizing its FAA safety rules, the United States can promote innovation and remain competitive in the rapidly growing global market for drone technology.” Some have said the chances of Congress passing any comprehensive drone privacy legislation are low (see 1506180020).

New America’s Open Technology Institute released a report Thursday that “tells the story of the original Crypto Wars and draws out lessons that can be applied to today’s debates surrounding encryption,” an OTI news release said. The report, “Doomed to Repeat History? Lessons from the Crypto Wars of the 1990s,” outlines reasons why the White House should take a stand against backdoors allowing surveillance and highlights the story of a coalition of companies, civil society organizations and individual experts that won two critical technology battles in the 1990s over “key escrow” solutions and the “Clipper Chip” technology, the release said. The report was released the day after U.N. Special Rapporteur David Kaye presented a report to the Human Rights Council on how “encryption and anonymity are critical to free expression in the digital age,” and a week after the House passed an appropriations bill amendment that would “defund any attempt by the government to request or mandate that tech companies weaken the security of their products to facilitate surveillance,” the release said. “It’s important to reflect on the history of the original Crypto Wars so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past,” said OTI Director Kevin Bankston. After nearly a decade of debate in the 1990s, “there was a broad bipartisan consensus that policies intended to weaken or restrict access to strong encryption were bad for privacy, bad for security, bad for business, and a bad strategy for combating crime,” Bankston said. “Encryption backdoors are just bad policy, period, and that’s as true now as it was twenty years ago -- even more so, when we need strong encryption to protect us from a growing range of cyberthreats,” he said. “The diverse alliance of privacy activists, tech experts, business leaders, and politicians from both sides of the aisle that banded together to fight the Crypto Wars set an example for Internet advocates that has since been followed in other successful campaigns like the fights for strong net neutrality rules and for post-[Edward] Snowden surveillance reform,” said OTI Senior Policy Analyst Danielle Kehl. “If policymakers fail to heed the lessons of the 1990s -- that encryption is good for the Internet economy, cybersecurity, and our civil liberties -- an equally powerful and broad alliance will stand up to win the fight for our right to encrypt.”

The California Department of Motor Vehicles said it will release accident reports for crashes involving self-driving cars being tested on public roads, after requests from consumer advocacy groups (see 1505120034), a Consumer Watchdog news release said Thursday. “DMV initially declined to release these reports based on Vehicle Code provisions that require accident reports concerning traffic injuries or fatalities to remain confidential,” said DMV Senior Staff Counsel Roger Sato. “After further review, DMV has determined that it is possible to release the factual information related to the autonomous vehicle reports, so long as the personal information of the drivers involved in the accidents and other information not disclosable by law is kept confidential,” Sato said. Personal information including the driver's’ name, the car’s vehicle identification number and insurer will be redacted, the release said. “It took too long, but the DMV is now getting right,” said Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson. “The robot cars are being tested on public roads and people have a right to know as much as possible about what goes wrong,” Simpson said.