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ICO

Clearview AI Inc. is a company that collects facial images from a disparate range of sources and makes them available to its customers.

The UK's data protection department, the Information Commissioner's Office, has banned the practice within the UK. The UK acted in concert with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The investigations focused on Clearview AI Inc’s use of people’s images, data scraping from the internet and the use of biometric data for facial recognition.

What effect might that have on remote verification?

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One would have thought that Initial Coin Offerings had been a flash in the pan and already out of fashion. And that may, to a point, be so: their heyday was, of course, three or four years ago.

But the essential problem seems to be that things take a while to filter through so that, when stories reactivate interest, everything old becomes new again, to coin a phrase. So the news that a case relating to conduct in 2017 and 2018 may be the spark that reignites burning embers as some people remember the concept of the ICO and think "that might be a way to help my business that's struggling through the CoVid-19 Pandemic.

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Maybe Floyd Mayweather has been hit in the head too many times. The USA's Securities and Exchange Commission describes him as "a well-known professional boxer." The "well-known" bit is perhaps an understatement: his social media "reach" in 2017 was huge: 21 million "followers" on Instagram, 7.8m on Twitter and 13.4 m on Facebook. So when he said "hey, this is a good idea," it carried far more weight than his slight frame. When people talk about "fame" and "fortune," they might have been talking about Mayweather's return to the ring for one fight only but he used that fame to be paid for boosting crypto-currency ICOs.

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According to the USA's Securities and Exchange Commission, Khaled Khaled (male) is "a well-known celebrity music producer known as “DJ Khaled." So, that's the SEC marked out as fans, then.

And just to prove it, the SEC has done a deal following its favourite things "without admitting or denying the allegation" specifically expressed to be "pursuant to [the] Respondent's Offer of Settlement and are not binding on any other person or entity in this or any other proceeding." That means, no one who suffered loss can rely on the deal to support their case. Nice one, America.

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ASIC has taken action to stop several proposed initial coin offerings or token-generation events (together, "ICO"s), targeting retail investors.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has ordered Facebook to pay a penalty (it's not a fine because there has been no criminal prosecution and only the Crown, via the Criminal Courts, can levy fines) of GBP500,000. The amount will not trouble Facebook - it's less than the annual tax the company doesn't pay the UK as a result of its cross-border arrangements. But the principle should send shock waves through the raft of American companies that operate in Europe and think they can do as they please. Four letters are at the heart of the grenade that the ICO just sent across the pond: GDPR. The next fine will hurt - and it will hurt over and over again.

CoNet Section: 

Editorial Staff

The non-existent board of an imaginary company decide that they won't go to their bank for money, nor their shareholders. Instead, they will do capital raising by an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and that, instead of using intermediaries, they will go it alone.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has licensed the first crowd-sourced funding (CSF) intermediaries under the new CSF regime.

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IN an order issued today, the Securities Commission of Malaysia has ordered CopyCash Foundation to cease and desist from all commercial activities, including an ICO planned for tomorrow (10th January 2018)

Kuala Lumpur, 5 January 2018
Media Statement on Initial Coin Offerings

Following a public statement released on 7 September 2017 regarding Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has noticed an increase in activities by new ICOs to solicit investments in crypto-currencies from the public at large, including senior citizens.

How many tags can we add to this article? LexTech (as in legal technology)?, LegalTech? FinTech, contracting? Cloudflare? DNS Laundering? ICO? Regulation? If nothing else, the story is a warning to regulators to stop and think: are they really doing it right or just being swept along on a wave of other people's self-interest and enthusiasm?

Confido described itself as "using smart contracts with a unique shipment tracking feature." The idea was that it would become a trusted third party (remember that term from the early days of internet payments? It's still useful) as, in effect, an escrow holder. In fact, what the company was offering was far more prosaic:

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The ICO, or initial coin offering, is causing furrowed brows at regulators. It's a fascinating concept and governments are split: should they regulate it on the hoof or, as China has done, ban it until they can work out what do to about it? Or should they pretend it's not happening?

All three approaches are being adopted.

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The grand-daddy of the current crop of electronic currencies is, of course, Bitcoin. In recent months, its value has appreciated exponentially until it reached more than 5,000 dollars. But it's just the most famous so-called "cryptocurrency" and now the technology is "in the wild," anyone with the necessary, apparently not very advanced, IT skills can make one. China says "enough is enough" and is taking steps to more or less outlaw cryptocurrencies or, at least, to make their use difficult. China has explained its reasoning - and it makes a huge amount of sense. The questions are whether the horse has already bolted, can access to cryptocurrencies outside China be banned and just how much use is it really for money laundering, a main plank of the Chinese objection.

On several occasions recently, our filters have picked up e-mail from a company promoting itself as "5mins" and, as is common, offering directory services. But this one is a little different. No matter what, the target is in a lose-lose situation, which is odd because on so many levels, the mail appears to be acting both properly and legally. But there is just enough that isn't right to raise suspicions - and the UK's Information Commissioner's Office, which is responsible for the implementation of the new GPDR regime and is already having a hard time handling the scaremongering that's almost as bad as Y2K.

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