ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN RITTERDriving Digital
Security
what’s at stake
Today’s marketplace offers an
ever-growing list of connected
products—smart phones, smart
TVs, smart refrigerators, even
smart sneakers. Plus, we have
millions of apps and other
digital tools at our fingertips,
and most of us are daily users
of huge online platforms like
Amazon and Google.
Smart technology delivers
many conveniences but also
raises serious questions
about the safety of our
personal information and the
ways it’s collected, shared,
and exploited. Meanwhile,
companies often fail to police
themselves—and the federal
government has not always
kept pace with new technology.
how cr has your back
To tackle these problems,
we’ve launched the CR Digital
Lab, a new initiative that will
expand our work on consumer
privacy and digital security.
Funded in part by a $6 million
investment from Craig
Newmark Philanthropies, the
Digital Lab will build on CR’s
core strengths: product testing,
investigative journalism, and
advocacy. The aim is to develop
new ways to test and report on
digital products and services,
from connected thermostats
to cars that collect data on
drivers to the websites of tech
companies big and small.
“Consumer Reports has
a strong track record, from
ensuring the security of
seatbelts in cars to keeping
toxins out of food,” says
Newmark, founder of Craigslist
and a former CR board
member. “This initiative will
increase transparency, giving
consumers more control, more
options, and stronger voices.”
A previous investment by
Newmark helped CR lead the
development of the Digital
Standard, a set of benchmarks
companies can use to design
digital products that respect
consumer privacy. In 2018, CRapplied the Digital Standard
to our television testing,
discovering that certain
smart TVs were vulnerable
to hacking. Similar work is
planned or underway with
routers, password managers,
and other devices and services.
“The Digital Lab will reveal
precisely where our rights
are being undermined,” says
CR president Marta Tellado.
“Armed with that knowledge,
consumers can make choices
that protect their privacy and
hold digital giants to account.”
what you can do
Learn more about CR’s privacy
work at CR.org/dataprivacy.Fighting the
Robocallers
what’s at stake
Consumers are so fed up
with robocalls that most have
stopped answering their
phones if they can’t identify the
caller in advance. Robocallsaren’t just annoying, either.
Truecaller estimates that
consumers have lost almost
$10.5 billion to phone scams
over the previous 12 months.
how cr has your back
In April, CR hosted a roundtable
session at the U.S. Capitol on
ways that Congress could curb
unwanted robocalls. The next
month, the Senate approved,
97 to 1, the CR-endorsed
Telephone Robocall Abuse
Criminal Enforcement and
Deterrence (TRACED) Act.
It would enable the Federal
Communications Commission
to crack down on scammers
and require phone companies
to adopt technologies that
verify caller ID data before the
calls reach consumers. CR has
been working with the House
on taking similar action, and
urging President Trump to
support the effort. Meanwhile,
the FCC established that phone
companies may preemptively
block robocalls as long as
customers can opt out.what you can do
Go to robocallspetition.cr.org
to join the more than 215,
consumers urging the FCC to
ensure carriers adopt effective,
free anti-robocall technologies.Pushing for
Safer Furniture
what’s at stake
A TV, appliance, or piece of
furniture tips over and kills a
child in the U.S. once every two
weeks, on average. Dressers are
particularly deadly. Yet both
the furniture industry and the
federal government have been
slow to take steps that could
address the problem.
Two recent events, however,
are likely to make these
tragedies less common. One is
the passage by the New York
State legislature of Harper’s
Law, named after 3-year-old
Harper Fried of Monroe, N.Y.,
who died from a furniture
tip-over incident. (We expect
Governor Andrew Cuomo to
sign it into law.) In addition,
following a May meeting of
the ASTM Furniture Safety
subcommittee—on which
CR sits, along with parents,
industry representatives, and
other safety advocates—the
group is now willing to extend
a key voluntary standard to
dressers as short as 27 inches.
how cr has your back
CR worked with New York
legislators and the Fried family
to ensure that Harper’s Law
would restrict sales of dressers
that fail to meet baseline
stability standards, while CR’s
New York members sent 2,
messages of support to their
state lawmakers. CR also spent
months urging the industry
to strengthen its voluntary
standard, in particular
by expanding its scope to
dressers 27 inches and taller—
a recommendation based on
the findings of a CR tip-over
investigation published in the
May 2018 issue of the magazine.
what you can do
Go to CR.org/tipover to learn
more about furniture tip-overs.Building a Better World, Together Join with us to make a safer, fairer, healthier marketplace
Putting Privacy First
CR’s Digital Lab will
test new products and
services to ensure that
consumers’ data is
protected.SEPTEMBER 2019 CR.ORG 7