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Seattle Information Technology

Got Privacy? Tips to Protect Your Data

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This Sunday, January 28, is Data Privacy Day. Data privacy is related to how information is handled based on its importance. In this digital age we live in, data privacy is critical to protect personal information. An awareness of how a digital life can show a snippet of a real life and what is shared can have an effect on data privacy.

Here are some Privacy tips to keep in mind:

  1. Check the privacy settings on your social media sites to ensure that your info is only being viewed by people you want to see it and avoid oversharing on social media.
  2. Limit what you say about your location and plans on social media and help your children with this discipline also. You’re putting yourself at risk each time you provide dates, place, and activities associated with posts and pictures.
  3. Use complex and unique passwords and change your passwords every 60-90 days or immediately after a reported security breach. A password manager can help if you have a lot of accounts to keep track of.
  4. Keep your device operating systems and all software up-to-date. Software updates typically contain fixes for security vulnerabilities, so it is important to keep any software applications that you run up-to-date at all times in order to reduce your risk of being vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
  5. Regularly monitor activity on your online accounts.
    If you notice suspicious activity, notify the companies involved immediately. Even with other protections in place, vigilant monitoring is still often the fastest way to identify a compromise
  6. Avoid using free Wi-Fi networks, particularly in high traffic public places like cafes, airports, and similar places. If you must use an unprotected Wi-Fi network, be sure that HTTPS is enabled for any sites you visit – a good habit for all online activity.
  7. Learn to recognize and avoid phishing attacks. Very common still and successful! These are emails that order or entice you to click on a link that sends you to a site that requests private information, such as credit card details and passwords.

For more information: https://staysafeonline.org/data-privacy-day/about/

Got Privacy?

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Privacy Fact: Your credit card’s magnetic strip knows your secrets! The banking industry is finally stepping up to provide robust privacy and data protection because one of the biggest threats is the card itself. Magnetic strips contain a great deal of information that is potentially hackable.

January 28 is a good day to take stock of your data privacy. Why is that? It’s Data Privacy Day (DPD) which commemorates the January 28, 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Data Privacy Day is observed annually on January 28. United States and Canada began observing it in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe.

DPD is an opportunity to remind ourselves about the importance of data privacy and security. Awareness about how to reduce and secure the personal data we provide is critical to limiting exposure to identity theft and more.

Throughout the week, our Chief Privacy Officer Ginger Armbruster will have some tips about maintaining and protecting data privacy.

Ginger Armbruster is the City of Seattle’s chief privacy officer. She works to protect the sensitive information of Seattle residents that is collected, used, and disposed of while ensuring the City upholds its commitment to be transparent.

She earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Columbia University and a master’s degree in infrastructure planning and management from the University of Washington in 2013.

Seattle’s Civic User Testing Group Engages Residents to Provide Feedback on City Technology Tools

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Seattle residents rely on government and nonprofit websites and apps to access key information and resources, like utility accounts, housing assistance, permits, and library services. But they don’t always get the chance to provide feedback on that technology and how useful – and usable – it is for them.

Seattle’s new Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup) aims to involve residents in the creation of technology that’s designed for public use, giving residents a voice and a chance to gain technology experience, while helping developers of this technology make it more effective. Given the growing prominence of online platforms in daily activities, technology design has become a key opportunity to address principles of inclusivity, diversity and equity.

The CUTGroup is a partnership between the City of Seattle Information Technology Department; the University of Washington iSchool; and the civic technology community group Open Seattle. It’s modeled after similar programs in Miami, Chicago and Detroit, and supports the City’s Digital Equity Initiative, which works to ensure that all residents have the opportunities and skills to participate in digital activities.

To join the CUTGroup, you just need to be a resident of Seattle — no technology experience or device ownership is required. Residents can fill out a brief form on the CUTGroup website and will be notified when a new testing opportunity is available. Test sessions will be up to an hour long and run by user experience researchers in a small-group setting. Each participant will receive a $20 Visa gift card per session.

Funding for the CUTGroup is provided by the City of Seattle Information Technology Department and will provide support for up to four test sessions for four different civic websites and apps this spring.

In order to form a diverse group of resident testers that is inclusive of all of Seattle’s communities, we’re looking for organizations interested in serving as Community Partners to help spread the word. As a partner, you can help ensure that your community is represented in the feedback provided to developers creating technology for public use, and your organization will be featured on the CUTGroup website and in each published report from our test sessions. For more information about becoming a Community Partner, please email seattle.cutgroup@gmail.com.

Learn more about the Civic User Testing Group on our website.

How to Avoid Holiday Scams

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1. Be wary of online shopping scams 

  • Is the advertised price too low to be true? Check the price for the item on other websites and see what it’s priced at on those sites. Avoid any unusual payment system for an online item, like a money order or wire transfer.
  • If you choose to pay from the website’s payment system, look for details that could indicate you are on a hacker-controlled website. There are cases when the scammers direct you to a fake payment site, so look at the web address of the page.

 2. How to stay away from gift card scams

  • Don’t click suspicious links on social media sites, even when the “special offer” comes from a friend.
  • As the saying goes, if the offer seems to good to be true, it probably is.  You can directly contact the official website of the product, or you can look it up on search engines and see what results appear.
  • Pay special attention when buying small animals, mobile devices, cars or motorbikes online, since they are some of the most used scamming items.
  • Don’t use Amazon gift card generator tools, websites or apps, they’re generally all scams.

3. How to detect charity scams

  • Check if the website is genuine before sending your money. The site may use official logos and appear as real. This doesn’t mean it is.
  • Contact charity groups directly to make your donation. Do not donate anything to intermediary people or suspicious sites.
  • If you are approached by a charity group or person and you are in doubt, check online for the organization’s name or the person’s name who requested the money.

4. How to see Christmas e-card scams for what they are

  • Pay attention to spam campaigns that try to push these phishing attempts to you.
  • If you receive a suspicious e-mail, do not open it, do not click any link or download any attachment.
  • Make sure you have not only antivirus protection, but also a good anti-spyware program.
  • Even if you receive such an e-mail from a friend, it doesn’t mean that he or she actually sent that e-mail.
  • According to the Kount Merchant Holiday Retail Guide, Cyber Monday 2017 saw the biggest increase in fraud attacks, at 134%.

5. How to identify winter holidays travel scams

  • Always buy airline tickets or book a travel offer from official travel websites.
  • If the price for the trip or for the flight may be too low to be true, it may actually be some sort of scam.

6. How to avoid Christmas screensavers bundle malware

  • Before decorating your PC with snow-laden houses, do make sure you’re visiting safe websites and not downloading anything malicious. You can do this by using a traffic-filtering software that blocks malicious websites and, of course, by having an antivirus installed.

7. How to identify shipping notification Christmas scams

  • This time of the year marks a big increase in the number of items purchased online and, at the same time, in the number of confirmation emails and shipping notifications we receive. But are all these notifications real? An email requesting an update on your shipment could be a disguised attempt to retrieve valuable information from your online banking account.
  • This email might or might not have an attachment that you are requested to download. You could be dealing with a phishing e-mail, an e-mail designed to spread ransomware or any other combination, so take precautions!

8. How to spot fake jobs, financial opportunities, and Christmas scams for loans

  • One of the busiest periods in recruitment is the holiday season. Job seekers around to world flock to job sites in order to boost their careers. Malicious hackers get a present as well: the personal details of those jobs seekers.
  • A popular method of gathering sensitive information is phishing via fake job sites. Unsuspecting victims simply give out their name, address, phone number and even SSN, thinking they’re applying for a job through an established career portal.
  • Another one is good old-fashioned emails from “recruiters” or “staffing agencies” – click the link and at best you give out your personal information, at worst you find yourself with a malware infection.

Facebook hackathon applied Machine Learning to our Open Data platform

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In October, Facebook held a civic hackathon, inviting in-house engineers as well as representatives from other tech companies to apply machine learning to our open data platform (http://data.seattle.gov) to solve problems.

(If you don’t know what machine learning is, here is a great primer: http://www.r2d3.us/visual-intro-to-machine-learning-part-1. In machine learning, computers apply statistical learning techniques to automatically identify patterns in data. These techniques can be used to make highly accurate predictions, and these are the techniques that the hackathon participants applied to our open data platform).

Two projects were deemed to be the winning efforts, one focused on issues related to parking and another focused on helping the public get contractor estimates when they want to undertake a major construction or remodeling project.

On Thursday October 26th, the two winning teams were invited to speak at the monthly “Breakfast of Champions” meeting, and share their project ideas and prototypes with over 40 City staff who act as Open Data Champions across all City departments. The aim was to spur new ideas for future uses of machine learning within the City and for the relevant departments to connect directly with the winning teams.

Find n' Park team

Find n’ Park team

The first project, “Find ‘n Park”, tackled the problem of Seattleites spending a lot of time searching for open parking spaces. Seattle is ranked as one of the hardest places to find a parking spot amongst large US cities; and currently there is no way to get good data on the availability of parking in lots or for on-street parking. Find ‘n Park used deep learning vision models to determine how many cars are currently parked in a particular lot, to give real-time availability of parking. You can find more details on this project here: https://github.com/raghakot/facebook-hackathon

The second project, “Contractor 5”, tackled the problem of looking for a building contractor and quickly getting a realistic cost estimate for new construction or remodels of existing properties. The Contractor 5 tool models the estimated price to complete a project by to within $5,000 by leveraging City permitting (open) data and using natural language processing to compare your project description with similar projects. It greatly simplifies getting an estimate and increases market transparency. You can find more details on this project here: https://github.com/FBMLHACK2017/Contractorfive

Contractor 5 team

Contractor 5 team

Both presentations evoked many questions and follow up interactions between City staff and the winning teams, and gave our Open Data Champs a great insight into the power of ML and how powerful applications could be quickly developed using the open data they are providing. These presentations also provided us with a lot of food for thought re: our 2018 Open Data Plan, especially when it comes to potential investments in using ML to power applications and services, or powering AI scenarios.

Special thanks to the Facebook staff who helped organize this event – Aria Haghighi, Lindsay Amos and SarahBeth Donaghy. We hope this is the first of many partnership interactions!

 

Mayor Burgess signs on to FCC letter regarding Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee

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On November 3, Mayor Tim Burgess joined more than 200 mayors and county leaders across the country in signing a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai expressing their concern about the FCC’s lack of transparency and the inadequate level of local government representation on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC).

The BDAC is conducting important proceedings about the regulations covering wireline and wireless broadband infrastructure deployment that could result in adverse consequences to Seattle and other local communities. Elected officials on the letter believe more must be done to create the proper balance between the business needs of the communications industry and the legitimate interests of local governments. To read more about their concerns, and the letter, visit the National Association of Counties.

 

City of Seattle technology leaders condemn calls to repeal Net Neutrality regulations

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Today, the City of Seattle’s Chief Technology Officer Michael Mattmiller condemned the proposal by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai to repeal net neutrality rules. Mattmiller encourages FCC commissioners to vote against this proposal and keep the internet open and fair for all to use.

“The fight for strong net neutrality protections is important for the internet to remain a space for creativity, innovation and free speech,” said Mattmiller. “Net neutrality is necessary to protect Seattle’s consumers and ensure all internet content is equally accessible.”

Current FCC net neutrality regulations forbids carriers from slowing down internet speed and content delivery. Pai, whom President Donald Trump appointed to lead the FCC in January 2017, believes the Obama era regulations prohibit the industry from expanding and investing in other networks.

In February 2015, under President Barack Obama, the FCC ruled in favor of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband as a common carrier under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Those rules went into effect in June of 2015.

“A fair and open internet is vital to everyday life in our communities, not only in Seattle but across the country,” said Jim Loter, Director of Digital Engagement for Seattle Information Technology. “It is also critical for ending the digital divide and ensuring all Seattle residents have access to the tools to be successful.”

The City of Seattle was one of 50 cities that participated in the Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality this past summer. More than 5-million people commented on the possibility to end net neutrality on the FCC’s website. To learn more about Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality, visit www.seattle.gov/netneutrality.

Seattle IT Wires KeyArena for the King County Health Clinic

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When thousands of medical volunteers came together to provide free medical, dental, and vision care to the community, Seattle IT provided the technology and digital capabilities for the King County Health Clinic. Seattle IT’s Eric Bell and his team planned for months to build an Internet network for the event.

The free medical clinic brought together healthcare organizations, civic agencies, non-profits, private businesses, and volunteers from across the state for the free four-day clinic at Seattle Center’s KeyArena.

Seattle IT’s team played a vital role in fusing the grassroots community event with the needed technology to treat patients. The team stretched wire to build hubs and bring dozens of laptops, mobile stations, and printers in the KeyArena online.

“We also built redundant, or backup connections, to ensure the network was working for the entire event,” said Bell. “The laptops, printers, rolling hubs, and all other devices needed to be connected to the Internet without fail to help make this event successful.”

The devices served as patient intake stations to welcome the thousands that lined up through the last weekend in October to get free health services. They collected data given voluntarily from patients who were treated. There were also mobile interpreter stations that streamed from an offsite translator speaking any language to any patient.

The IT planning started in the spring when City employees met with all the organizations involved. They built a diagram to map out what the network would look like and tracked the work through a spreadsheet. Bell says the event grows in complexity every year and his team of Stephen Burke and Kevin Tom, with help from Steve Mulford and Scott Coppess, spent many hours executing the set-up and take-down of the event.

“This was certainly a wonderful and great opportunity to help all the dedicated volunteers who committed their time to make the clinic run smoothly and successfully in providing medical assistance to the homeless community,” said Tom. “My part in setting up the technology is very little compared to how much they’ve accomplished. It was great to see all the happy faces and smiles at the event.”

Telephone capabilities were also added by Mark Peterson from Seattle IT’s telephone services. He set up desk phones with voice mail in several suites in KeyArena for the care providers. Then Peterson modified the call center to allow callers to get information in both English and Spanish.

“I get to work on a variety of interesting projects,” said Peterson. “But it’s a privilege to be part of such a worthy initiative that brings significant benefit to so many.”

This year, the clinic treated more than 4,300 patients and provided more than $3.7 million in healthcare services over the four-day period. Exact treatment numbers are still coming in, but the clinic is expected to have matched the services of last year when 2,485 received dental care, 2,830 received medical care, and 1,373 patients received eye care.

Seattle to hold Digital Literacy Network meet-ups

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Do you want to work together to push forward shared interests in cultivating a more digital literate Seattle for K-12 students, young adults, adults, and senior citizens? Come join us Nov 13, 15, or 17 to share your work and ideas for collaborating to improve digital skills for the community you work with. The Seattle Information Technology Department (Seattle IT) and the City’s Community Technology Advisory Board (CTAB) are convening two in-person and one online session to explore a digital literacy network.

The idea for a digital literacy network or something similar came up in the community input as we were developing Seattle’s Digital Equity Initiative.  Similar groups have formed elsewhere, including Kansas City’s Coalition for Digital Inclusion Alliance and Philadelphia’s Digital Literacy Alliance.  These coalitions are helping market educational opportunities, train trainers, recruit and place volunteers, develop funding, identify skills standards and assessment tools, exchange curriculum, and/or increase awareness of the need for digital literacy. These efforts can complement other broadband, education, STEM, immigrant/refugee, or social service coalitions. They involve a range of community based organizations, companies, public agencies, schools, foundations, and community members.

Seattle IT and CTAB are hosting three meet-ups the week of November 13-17 to learn who wants to be involved and what the needs and priorities would be. One meet-up will be in the north end, one in the south/west area, and one will be virtual (phone/internet).

Please join us for one of these dates:

  • Monday, November 13, 9-10:30 a.m. at Literacy Source, 3200 NE 125th St, Seattle, WA
  • Wednesday, November 15, 10-11:30 a.m. at Delridge Community Center, 4501 Delridge Way SW, Seattle, WA
  • Friday, November 17, 12-1 p.m. virtual meeting online

If you’re interested, please RSVP to david.keyes@seattle.gov with your name, organization, and which meet-up you would like to participate in.  Please let us know if you need special accommodations or an interpreter. Feel free to invite others!

City for All Hackathon: Final Report

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City for All hackathon 2017

The City of Seattle’s City for All hackathon was one of 88 projects nationwide to receive a Challenge Grant from the AARP. Through this grant, the AARP furnished $10,000 in cash prizes to three winners from the hackathon, through partner organization Sound Generations.

The hackathon, held in the Bertha Knight Landes room on September 22-24, was a competition of tech-savvy people to find solutions for aging.

A final report offers a recap of the event, its goals, and next steps.