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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 7 September 2018

This Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013 file photo shows the Apple logo
above a store location entrance in Dallas.
Associated Press
EU clears Apple's

purchase of song-

recognition app Shazam

LONDON (AP) — The Euro- was going to buy Shazam, This Oct. 19, 2017, file photo shows a new voting machine which prints a paper record on display
pean Union has approved which had been a com- at a polling site in Conyers, Ga. Associated Press
Apple's acquisition of petitor to its digital assis-
song-recognition app tant Siri. The iPhone mak-
Shazam after a months- er's Apple Music stream- Expert panel calls for sweeping
long investigation found it ing service competes with
wouldn't hurt competition rivals including Spotify. election security measures
in the music streaming EU antitrust officials had
market. launched an investigation
The EU's Antitrust Com- in April over worries that
mission said Thursday the iPhone maker Apple By FRANK BAJAK president of Columbia Uni- per ballots by 2020. Such
that competing providers would get easy access to BOSTON (AP) — An ex- versity and co-chair of the systems are intended to as-
would not be shut out of sensitive consumer data pert panel of the National panel, said in presenting sure voters that their vote
the market following the giving it an unfair advan- Academy of Sciences the report Thursday. was recorded accurately.
acquisition. Apple an- tage over other services in called for fundamental re- The 156-page report — "Se- They also create a lasting
nounced last year that it attracting customers.q forms to ensure the integrity curing the Vote: Protecting record of "voter intent" that
of the U.S. election system, American Democracy" — can be used for reliable re-
which is handicapped by bemoans a rickety system counts, which may not be
EU wants to force antiquated technology compromised by insecure possible in systems that re-
cord votes electronically.
voting equipment and soft-
and under stress from for-
internet firms to eign destabilization efforts. ware whose vulnerabilities Roughly one in five U.S.
The cautiously worded re-
were exposed more than voters cast ballots on such
remove terror content port calls for conducting a decade ago and which electronic machines in
all federal, state and local are too often managed by 2016. While some states
elections on paper bal-
officials with little training in have scrambled to replace
lots by 2020. Its other top cybersecurity. them ahead of Novem-
BRUSSELS (AP) — EU Jus- conduct on deleting hate recommendation would The principal recommen- ber's midterm elections, 13
tice Commissioner Vera speech online has been require nationwide use of dations of the study, com- continue to rely fully or par-
Jourova says the Euro- working well but that ter- a specific form of routine missioned in 2016 as foreign tially on them.
pean Commission is set ror content poses a "too postelection audit to de- intrusion in U.S. elections The panel also calls for all
to unveil new rules that serious threat and risk" for tect fraud. became evident, reflect a states to adopt a type of
could force internet com- removal to be voluntary. The panel did not offer consensus among election postelection audit that em-
panies to take down sus- Jourova said: "We simply a price tag for its recom- security experts that has ploys statistical analysis of
pected terror content. cannot rely anymore on mended overhaul. New met resistance from a num- ballots prior to results certi-
Jourova told reporters the voluntary action of IT York University's Brennan ber of states and Repub- fication. Such "risk-limiting"
Wednesday that "we providers." She provided Center has estimated that lican leaders in Congress. audits are designed to spot
should have absolute cer- no details about possible replacing aging voting ma- In particular, the panel voting fraud or other prob-
tainty that all the platforms penalties. chines over the next few stressed that it is not call- lems. Currently only three
and all the IT providers will She said the Commission years could cost well over ing for a one-time fix, but a states mandate them.
delete terrorist content." would unveil the plans lat- $1 billion. "The extraordinary sustained effort over years The report's release comes
She says that a nonbind- er this month.q threat from foreign actors that would include regu- barely a week after a ma-
ing European code of has profound implications lar funding from Congress jor piece of election secu-
for the future of voting and and greater transparency rity legislation was blocked
obliges us to examine, re- about attacks on voting in the Senate Rules Com-
examine seriously, both the systems and other irregu- mittee by GOP leaders. As
conduct of elections in the larities. Among its specific originally written , the bipar-
United States and the role recommendations was a tisan Secure Elections Act
of the federal and state mainstay of election re- would have satisfied the
governments in securing formers: All elections should paper ballot and risk-limit-
our elections," Lee Bollinger, use human-readable pa- ing audit requirements.q