Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen said Wednesday she wants the agency to take a "fresh look" at identity theft to improve efforts to tackle the problem. During a daylong FTC event, Ohlhausen said she wants the agency to do more research on the issue, with assistance from academia, consumer advocates, industry and governments, to provide a foundation that addresses harmful conduct. She said the FTC needs to share information and coordinate cybersecurity efforts with other agencies and state governments. She noted the agency's work with the Small Business Administration to launch a website to help companies deal with cyberthreats and data breaches. Ohlhausen wants more public-private partnerships and cited FTC work with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to make it easier for consumers to get free credit reports. FTC economist Keith Anderson cited 2014 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that said 17.6 million Americans 16 and older were ID theft victims. He said synthetic ID theft is a recent trend, in which thieves construct a "pseudo individual" using information from several people. Sean McCleskey, a retired Secret Service agent who works for the University of Texas-Austin's Center for Identity, said thieves take "bits and pieces" of data -- maybe a fake date of birth, a real Social Security number, or a real or fake address -- making it more difficult to investigate and to notify potential victims. Experts said thieves steal people's credit card and financial information and medical and tax data. Danny Rogers, CEO of Terbium Labs, said ID theft undermines trust in the internet.

Shifting the smart home buyer to mass-market consumers, creating increased interoperability among devices, and monetizing data are challenges, said panelists at Parks Associates' Connections conference Tuesday in Burlingame, California. About a tenth of consumer tech products today have some degree of connectivity, said Parks analyst Tom Kerber. Product ecosystems “need to be more open” to products and applications that provide a “seamless user experience,” said Kerber. Safety and security continue driving consumer interest in smart home adoption, said Parks analyst Brad Russell. About a quarter of all U.S. broadband households own at least one smart home device, Russell said, but only 12 percent own a smart home system. More than 442 million connected consumer devices will be sold in the U.S. in 2020, said Parks data released Tuesday.

Facebook's standards for reviewing online material worldwide, especially bullying, hate speech and terrorism, are "challenging and essential," and broad and complex, wrote Monika Bickert, head of the company's Global Policy Management, in a Tuesday blog post. Responding quickly to millions of reports is hard but so is understanding context, she said. "Someone posts a graphic video of a terrorist attack. Will it inspire people to emulate the violence, or speak out against it? Someone posts a joke about suicide. Are they just being themselves, or is it a cry for help?" She said the company talks with experts about such issues and sometimes policies can seem "counterintuitive." Experts advise leaving live videos of people threatening suicide so assistance can be rendered but then taking them down to prevent copycats, she said. In training reviewers, Facebook uses "intentionally extreme" hypothetical cases to deal with the most problematic situations, Bickert said. "We face criticism from people who want more censorship and people who want less. We see that as a useful signal that we are not leaning too far in any one direction."

Amid concerns about security vulnerabilities for children's products, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who co-founded the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus last year, is asking acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen for information about whether legislation protecting children's data needs to be updated and if the commission needs additional authority to regulate industry's handling of kids' online data. In a Monday letter to Ohlhausen, Warner said he's worried children's protections aren't keeping pace with consumer and tech trends, particularly security vulnerabilities with devices and the transmission and storage of data collected by the devices. "Reports of your statements casting these risks as merely speculative -- and dismissing consumer harms that don’t pose 'monetary injury or unwarranted health and safety risks' -- only deepen my concerns," he wrote. Warner cited the alleged data breach reported by several media outlets in February of Spiral Toys' CloudPets products, which uses an app to record and send messages to the toy, and a complaint filed with the FTC against the "My Friend Cayla" doll that can be hacked (see 1703220045 and 1612190051). Warner wants answers to questions about whether industry is complying with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act standards, if the commission can require companies to recall defective products, the latest FTC guidance or action on the CloudPets and Cayla products, and why Ohlhausen believes IoT device insecurities have yet to materialize or why the private sector is better equipped to address such problems. An FTC spokeswoman acknowledged receipt of Warner's letter but didn't comment beyond that.

The recent WannaCry ransomware attack underscores questions about providing software and hardware patches, who has the responsibility for installing them and the role of high-level executives in organizations for understanding and appropriately investing in cybersecurity (see 1705150008, 1705160038 and 1705180032), said FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny in an interview on C-SPAN that was slated to be televised over the weekend on The Communicators. The commissioner discussed the agency's role in providing guidance for organizations and individuals to protect against such threats, and its enforcement role if organizations don't adequately protect consumer data. McSweeny noted the FTC's role in an expanded interconnected ecosystem that includes wearables, home devices like smart TVs and cars and efforts to give consumers a say in whether their personal data should be collected. The FTC, she said, needs additional resources and technologists to keep pace with evolving technology, how the tech works and how new uses could harm consumers. McSweeny, a Democrat, said the FCC's push to undo the open internet order (see 1705180029) could tilt the playing field toward a few large broadband providers that may want to prioritize their own content at the expense of small, entrepreneurial players. She seemed hopeful the recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to rehear the agency's case against AT&T Mobility (see 1705100063) will "fix an error" made by a three-judge panel that effectively removed the FTC's oversight of broadband providers. She said Congress needs to clarify the commission's jurisdiction in this area (see 1705190053).

TDK completed its acquisition of InvenSense for $1.3 billion cash, the two companies announced Thursday. “Sensors are viewed as an important IoT-enabling technology, and sensor products and the technology portfolio of TDK will expand dramatically as a result of its acquisition." TDK will run InvenSense as a subsidiary and keep its management intact, they said.

NTIA described broadband network deployment costs in a fact sheet released Thursday. The agency said it based data on cost information collected from its broadband grant program.

Amazon began taking preorders for its updated Fire tablet line Wednesday, keeping to its sub-$100 pricing strategy for the 7- and 8-inch models, it announced.

Large majorities of healthcare respondents dismissed privacy, data protection and cybersecurity as concerns, said ABI Research in a Wednesday news release. The business tech survey of 455 U.S.-based companies found that 82 percent of healthcare respondents didn't rank privacy and data protection as a concern, and 58 percent didn't rank cybersecurity. “Cybersecurity within the healthcare sector has been traditionally poor, at best,” said analyst Michela Menting: Most comply with laws but don't understand what "comprehensive, multi-layered cybersecurity implementation" involves. ABI said medical devices and hospital equipment are "highly vulnerable" to cyberattacks like WannaCry, which hindered the U.K. healthcare system (see 1705120055, 1705150008 and 1705160008). ABI said the online survey was done in February and March.

After a two-year decline in reports of smart home technical support issues, consumers in Q1 reported more technical problems with smart home systems and devices, Parks Associates blogged Wednesday: Networked cameras, smart water leak detectors and smart thermostats are categories with increased support issues over the past six to 12 months. Also, 34 percent of smart door lock owners experienced issues when attempting to fix a problem, a 22 percent year-on-year jump, and 35 percent of smart video doorbell owners reported support problems.