Some very unpleasant local news (content warning: car crash, loss of life) crossed my feed this morning in what is also the first incidence I've seen of the new iPhone's Crash Detection feature in action. Early Sunday morning in Lincoln, Nebraska (about 45 minutes from where I sit), the Lincoln Police Department report that they were alerted to a car crash via the iPhone 14 (or possibly Apple Watch S8)'s automatic Crash Detection feature. Sadly, this crash was particularly violent and resulted in the loss of six young lives after many hours of emergency crew efforts. From the WOWT story:

Police are still investigating the cause of the crash but said it was reported by an iPhone that detected the impact and called responders automatically when the phone’s owner didn’t respond.

Although in this horrible incident it seems the iPhone 14/Apple Watch S8 Crash Detection feature was not enough to save any lives, it is a remarkable example of the feature in action. Nearby neighbors seem to have been on the scene and immediately attempted to rescue the passengers, and no doubt would have called 9-1-1. I am hopeful, though, how much time was saved by iOS's automatic emergency alerting — and how much of an impact that saved time will have in future crashes.

In a simultaneously stunning-yet-entirely-expected move, President Biden outlined his plan for student loan forgiveness today — the outline of which POTUS shared on Twitter:

In keeping with my campaign promise, my Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023.

I'll have more details this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/kuZNqoMe4I

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 24, 2022

In summary:

• $10,000 in loan forgiveness for all borrowers — doubled to $20,000 if you received Pell grants
• An income cap of $125,000 for individuals and $250,000 for households
• The COVID interest & payment pause ends on January 1st, 2023
• Big changes to the Income-Based Repayment plan

Now, President Biden's titillating Twitter teaser of his titular tab-clearing tactic leaves many questions unanswered — only a portion of which are covered by the Department of Education's new StudentAid.gov/DebtRelief page (which has been intermittently down throughout the day of the announcement, no doubt due to much debtor demand for details). So, I've taken it upon myself to collect what we know about the final form of Biden's Student Debt Relief Plan plan, what we can guess about it, and some exploration of potential loopholes and "pro-tips" for folks looking to maximize their debt forgiveness. But first, a few disclaimers:

1. Throughout this post, I will be referring exclusively to federal student loans — privately-held student loans do not benefit from Biden's new forgiveness plan, nor do they benefit from the pause resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Nothing I write here should be construed as advice and you should consult a fiduciary before making big financial decisions.
3. There's already speculation about the fate of this plan if it is subject to an exsanguinating examination by our current conservative SCOTUS — please remember your obligatory grains of salt before proceeding further.

The Student Loan Repayment Pause

This is the most straightforward component of Biden's plan: perennially-renewed no more, the pause on student loan monthly payments and interest accumulation will come to an end after December of this year — meaning individuals in repayment will resume their monthly obligations starting in January of 2023. The pause in payments and interest began in March of 2020 in-step with the COVID-19 pandemic, and come December will have resulted in 34 months of deferred payments and null interest charges for over 40 million student loan borrowers across America.

The Student Loan Forgiveness Plan

This is where the complexities begin, in no small part due to the fact that President Biden hasn't actually signed (or even released!) his Executive Order — which means the fine print hasn't, err, been printed at all yet. All we know about the plan comes from various tweets, a few statements to a handful of news outlets, and two web pages: the aforementioned StudentAid.gov/DebtRelief, and this fact sheet released by the White House — not a lot to go off of when the difference is tens of thousands of dollars! Here's what we know (with links to the respective source):

• $10,000 in forgiveness to all borrowers, doubled to $20,000 if you received a Pell grant (StudentAid.gov/DebtRelief)
• Graduate loans and Parent PLUS loans are also eligible for $10,000 of forgiveness. Pell grants do not impact graduate loan forgiveness (Washington Post)
• Individual income must fall below $125,000 for individuals or $250,000 for married couples/head-of-household (StudentAid.gov/DebtRelief)
• Borrowers will be income-eligible if either their 2020 or 2021 income is below their respective cap (Washington Post)
• Forgiveness will be automatic for eligible individuals if the Department of Education has your income information on file (StudentAid.gov/DebtRelief)
• The application for forgiveness will open prior to loan payments resuming in January (White House Fact Sheet)
• Only loans originated prior to July 1st, 2022 are eligible for forgiveness (Washington Post)
• Any amount of student loan forgiveness you receive is not taxable (White House Fact Sheet)

While the White House — through both its pre-prepared webpages and via comments to various news orgs — has provided a good amount of insight into the plan specifics, there are still a few areas where we have to make assumptions. For example, the income cutoff never really specifies how income is being measured...but I think it is reasonable to assume they will compare your adjusted gross income to the cutoff levels, rather than your top-line gross income. In other words, if your salary is $130,000 you are still likely to qualify for debt forgiveness, since your AGI after the standard deduction would be $117,450 (based on 2021 tax parameters).

Unanswered questions still abound. For instance, how will the debt forgiveness be distributed to borrowers with more than one loan with different interest rates? Borrowers would be highly-motivated to prioritize a loan with a higher interest rate over a lower rate loan of equal principle — but no information is available yet as to how the forgiveness will consider varying interest rates. How this is handled could result in thousands of dollars of difference over the span of years for many borrowers. Also, how exactly will Parent PLUS loans be sorted out? It's been confirmed they are eligible for forgiveness...but does that mean an undergraduate student with, say, $10,000 in Stafford loans + $10,000 in Parent PLUS loans in their parent's name will essentially receive $20,000 in forgiveness? It's hard to say — by my reading of the details, that's how I expect the forgiveness to work; quite the boon to borrowers in this situation! However, the nitty-gritty of the forgiveness application is likely to iron this wrinkle flat. I also have some questions about the July 1st cutoff for loan origination — many students have signed their Master Promissory Note over the last few weeks, and have been therefore entirely excluded from the loan forgiveness portion of Biden's plan. Now, naturally, there needs to be some cutoff so folks don't take on more debt to work the system...but given it was announced on August 24th, I think August 31st may have been a more reasonable date. Serve those students who are just now taking on debt for their education, and still greatly minimize the risk of people taking on debt specifically with forgiveness in mind. We'll see if there is any wiggle-room on that cutoff date as specific Executive Order language emerges.

Changes to Income-Based Repayment Plans

President Biden also included some surprising and substantial revisions to the various Income-Based Repayment options available to most student loan borrowers. First-and-foremost, the maximum monthly payment under these plans has been reduced to 5% of discretionary income (which is less than your AGI, and therefore results in lower monthly payments than 5% of AGI) instead of the 10% maximum on previous income-driven repayment plans. This will effectively cut monthly payments in half for many borrowers — a change the Biden Administration projects will save the average borrower over $1,000 per year. Loans under income-based repayment plans will also be forgiven after 10 years instead of 20 years if their balances are under $12,000 — essentially a second round of student loan forgiveness resulting from this plan. The plan will also increase the floor for $0 monthly payments up to 225% of the federal poverty line — meaning many low-income borrowers can fulfill the requirements of IBR plans with $0 monthly payments. But, perhaps the most significant component of the changes to IBR plans also seems to be the least-mentioned: Borrowers making on-time payments under an income-based repayment plan will have their interest subsidized (read: fully-paid) for the duration of those eligible payments. This, in essence, is what many progressive activists have been campaigning for for years: reducing student loan interest rates to zero. Now, not all borrowers are eligible for income-based repayment...but the Department of Education states that "most" of borrowers are. This portion of the plan many be by-far the most impactful improvement of student loan policy since their inception — 0% interest rates for most borrowers.

Of course, there are caveats and questions circling this provision as well: first, there are a variety of income-driven repayment plans with a similar variety of eligibility criteria, eligible loans, and eligibility date cutoffs — I won't be breaking all of those down here, but naturally these criteria will be meaningful to many borrowers. And a related question remains unanswered: do these changes apply to all of the income-based repayment options? Some of them? Just the helpfully-named "Income Based Repayment Plan", a specific plan among "income-based repayment plans"? It's hard to say — it's possible the eligible borrowers is reduced greatly via restriction of these changes to a single type of IBR plan...but again, we'll only know for sure when the specifics of the Executive Order (as well as Department of Education policy) is released.

Voluntary COVID-Times Payments

One other wrinkle of this plan is the matter of voluntary payments made during the pause on payments and interest due to the COVID-19. When people hear about "loan forgiveness" and think of the payments they made that otherwise might have been forgiven, there's not much to do (other than be happy for the people who will be benefited by the plan). But voluntary payments made during the COVID pause may pose an opportunity for a select group of borrowers to recoup their now-needless contributions. The Associated Press summarizes nicely:

WHAT IF I’VE ALREADY PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS — WILL I SEE RELIEF?

The debt forgiveness is expected to apply only to those currently holding student debt. But if you’ve voluntarily made payments since March 2020, when payments were paused, you can request a refund for those payments, according to the Federal Office of Student Aid. Contact your loan servicer to request a refund.

In short: borrowers may (not "will", may) benefit from requesting a refund of their voluntary payments during the COVID pause if they meet the following criteria:

• Their loans are eligible for forgiveness under the plan, and the current balance is < $10,000
• They made voluntary payments toward their between March 13th, 2020 and now
• (Speculation) They have not fully paid off their loan during the COVID pause

If these criteria are met, you can request a refund of a specified amount from your servicer...bringing your loan total back to $10,000 (or $20,000 if you are a Pell grant recipient!)...which will then theoretically be forgiven under President Biden's plan. Essentially, you're converting your voluntary payments during COVID into forgiven debt instead. So if you made $3,000 in payments during COVID towards your $10,000 loan balance (bringing it down to $7,000), you could request a refund now that you know with reasonable certainty that your $10,000 loan will be forgiven — and use that $3,000 for something else! Of course, my final bullet point labeled "Speculation" may be crucial for some folks: if you've fully paid off your loan during COVID times, requesting a refund may result in the origination of a new loan...after the July 1st cutoff for forgiveness! Consult with your servicer very carefully if you fall into this bucket, because loans originated after July 1st will not be eligible for forgiveness!

In Summary

If you couldn't tell from my constant couching throughout this post, there is much to dissect about what we know — even this post is not fully-comprehensive! — and much we don't know at all yet about this debt forgiveness plan. Hopefully we get to see more of the fine print over the coming weeks, and the political bellwether continues to discourage any blockage resulting from conservative consternation. I'll end by summarizing this entire post as succinctly as I can:

• Up to $10k ($20k for Pell grantees) knocked off your loan balance
• $125k ($250k if married) income cap, likely the lower of 2020/2021 AGI
• Application will be open before EOY
• Cutoff date for forgivable loans is July 1st, 2022
• Loan payment pause ends in Dec 2022, payments resume Jan 2023
• Forgiveness is non-taxable
• Income-based repayment plan monthly payments cut in half (5% of discretionary income)
• On-time income-based repayments = 0% interest for eligible loans (!!)
• 10 years of IBR payments results in forgiveness (reduced from 20 years)
• Certain borrowers may benefit from asking for a refund of voluntary COVID-times loan payments

During today's Ability Summit 2022, Microsoft announced their new line of Adaptive Accessories — hardware devices specifically designed with accessibility in mind. Michael Clark, writing at The Verge:

The lineup consists of three different devices: the Adaptive Mouse, Adaptive Buttons, and the Adaptive Hub. The mouse and buttons are made to support 3D-printed accessories so you can customize them to work the way you want them to.

The adaptive buttons let you add eight programmable inputs to your computer. That doesn’t mean you have to have eight physical buttons, though — the company showed a version with just two large, easy-to-press buttons. But because the mouse can also be used as, say, a joystick or as an eight-way D-pad, Microsoft says you can set the inputs to act as macros or complicated keyboard shortcuts, which could be difficult to execute for those with motor disabilities

Microsoft had a previous compelling entrant in the accessible hardware space with its Xbox Adaptive Controller, which already stood in a league of its own for gaming accessibility — this new line of hardware products further expands upon Microsoft's obvious commitment to those with disabilities.

What's most-intriguing to me about this initial offering — again: a mouse, the buttons, and the hub — is the deliberate planning for customization. The ability to 3D print attachments for the 8-switch Adaptive Button, for example, allows folks with poor motor skills to add custom joystick attachments and still get the most out of this clever little device. Gabi Michel, Microsoft's Director of Accessible Accessories, put it succinctly in Microsoft's accompanying promo video:

The Microsoft Adaptive input ecosystem is very adaptable and very customizable. Almost every part of it you can swap so that you create a setup that is unique to you — it is 'one size fits one'."

I've discussed before how innovations and explorations in "odd" hardware products like the Elgato Stream Deck Pedal and the new Adaptive Accessories line can make monumental differences in the lives of folks who rely on their computers just as much as any of us do...but have physical barriers to using them to their full potential. Microsoft's promo video for the Adaptive Accessories is a remarkable showcase of exactly that: life-changing hardware that reduces the barrier to entry for so much of our world today — go give it a watch and see for yourself.

As was recently foretold, Apple has announced Tap to Pay support on iPhone models with NFC chips — Chance Miller, reporting at 9to5Mac:

Apple has officially announced a new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone. This feature, coming later this year, will allow businesses to use their iPhone to “seamlessly and securely” accept Apple Pay payments with a simple tap. The feature will also work for contactless credit cards and debit cards, as well as other digital wallets.

Even better, Apple has promised a full SDK for third-party developers to integrate touchless payment support in their own iPhone apps and has already partnered with Stripe as the first payment processor to support the feature. From the Apple Newsroom release:

Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available to participating payment platforms and their app developer partners to leverage in their software developer kits (SDKs) in an upcoming iOS software beta.

One other interesting wrinkle in this story is the lack of any mention of iPad support for this feature — presumably because no current iPad models include NFC support (despite certain models ostensibly including an NFC chip, disabled or otherwise). Given that so many small shop payment terminals are just iPads on swivel stands, you'd think Apple would prioritize adding this feature to iPad hardware as well. Recent rumors have suggested unexpectedly-imminent refreshes to the base iPad as well as the iPad Air, as well as more-timely iPad Pro updates. Zach Knox connected the dots for us in the Relay FM Members Discord:

Zach Knox, connecting the dots with red twine and thumbtacks.

The pre-announcement of Tap to Pay support on iPhone is surely setting the stage for the alleged March 8th Apple Event, which is set to include new iPad hardware spanning the entire line. I expect NFC support will be explicitly called out in any new iPads announced at this event, perhaps even with a shout-out to the new Tap to Pay support as well.

The one remaining question: What percentage of Tap to Pay transactions does Apple plan to skim off the top for themselves?

Apple’s AirTags are one of the most feature-rich and useful consumer tracking products on the market — extensive OS integration, pinpoint tracking accuracy using Apple’s U1 chip, and perhaps the biggest benefit of all: the unrivaled network of iOS devices on the Find My network, which essentially guarantees a lost item is able to “ping” its owner with a location. That said, easy, affordable, and ubiquitous tracking devices have caused some considerable concern particularly from victims of stalking — Ryan Mac and Kashmir Hill summarize the issue well in their New York Times coverage:

Ms. Estrada is not alone in her experience. In recent months, people have posted on TikTok, Reddit and Twitter about finding AirTags on their cars and in their belongings. There is growing concern that the devices may be abetting a new form of stalking, which privacy groups predicted could happen when Apple introduced the devices in April.

The sharp increase in reports of people being unknowingly tracked by bad actors using AirTags is clearly indicative of a major problem — but the question I’ve been wrestling with since these stories began is “Has Apple made the problem of stalking worse with AirTags, or just easier to discover?” This question stems from one of the primary features of AirTags that most competing products entirely lack: the “anti-stalking features” baked into iOS. From the AirTag’s product page:

AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there.

Put simply, if an unknown AirTag is seen moving with you for a period of time your iPhone will send you a notification to let you know, and even cause the offending AirTag to beep and give away its location. I’ve gotten this notification myself on a day where I had my wife’s car keys, “unknown” AirTag included. Since the AirTag did not belong to my iCloud account, I got a warning notification after about four hours of driving around town on my errands. Obviously, in my situation the warning notification was frivolous and almost worth a chuckle (after all, I knew my wife’s keys were the culprit) — but to someone who finds an AirTag in their purse after a party or on the underside of their car? I imagine discovering that some stranger is tracking your location (and has been for a couple hours) would be greatly distressing.

AirTag Notifications and the Frequency Illusion

For a moment, let’s place the many recent stories about unwanted AirTag stalking in context with Apple’s anti-stalking feature (which notifies iOS users of the fact they are being tracked) and the surrounding market of other readily-available tracking devices (Tile, Chipolo, or no-name options from Amazon and Alibaba) with no such anti-stalking features to speak of. Yes, Apple’s AirTags have the U1 chip, which greatly narrows the accuracy of the device to under one foot versus the bluetooth-limited range of 30 feet for most other trackers. That said, I would argue a nefarious individual wanting to stalk someone would debatably be foolish to use an AirTag to do so…since their victim has a high probability of being alerted to the tracking device (if they have an iPhone — more on that later). Surely to a criminal, the benefit of AirTags’ highly-pinpoint accuracy is immediately overwhelmed by the downside of getting caught. AirTags’ anti-stalking features make the discovery of an unwanted tracker trivially-easy (for iPhone-users), and each AirTag being paired to a specific iCloud account (and in the case of a surreptitiously-placed AirTag: a specific criminal’s iCloud account) creates a scenario in which victims are readily-notified and perpetrators are easily identified by law enforcement (presumably with a simple subpoena for the owner of the discovered AirTag). In fact, I think the increase in news stories about AirTag stalking situations are less indicative of AirTags causing more stalking, and more indicative of how frequently stalkings already occur — with AirTags’ anti-stalking features simply bringing more of these horrible situations to light. These stories may be a classic example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (AKA the "Frequency Illusion") — in which increased awareness of creeps using AirTags to stalk women creates the illusion that it is happening more often, or even that AirTags are responsible for this illusory increase in incidence.

Finding More Solutions

Stalking is a serious problem, and Apple’s foray into the tracker market places the hefty responsibility of harm mitigation on their shoulders — if nothing else due to their sheer scale making trackers like AirTags so much more ubiquitous. Apple’s iteration on AirTags’ anti-stalking features seems to indicate the company is aware of their role in protecting users, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Perhaps the highest-priority item should be bringing the iOS-integrated unknown tracker notification to Android devices as well, as Benjamin Mayo from 9to5mac and others have suggested. Apple has released a dedicated Android app so users can “scan” for nearby AirTags, but the lack of constant background checks and the necessity of manually seeking out the app in the first place renders it all but useless. I’d guess most of the foundational work for Android system-level tracker alerts was done with Apple and Google’s joint effort on the (painfully underutilized) COVID exposure notification API, so a partnership with Google to further-reduce the harm of stalking is probably feasible. In addition, the nebulous amount of time (usually on the order of hours) that an unwanted AirTag needs to be following you seems somewhat untenable if preventing stalking is the goal. If it takes five hours of moving around before you’re notified that you may be being stalked, is the harm really prevented? I proposed on Twitter that Apple (and perhaps Google down the road) should add the ability to lower the time before such a warning is sent to a user’s preference — or perhaps even better, set the default duration very low (30 minutes?) and allow users to raise it if they feel comfortable with the added risk.

Ultimately, I don’t think AirTags are to blame for any perceived increase in stalking incidents since their release — in fact, I think their innovative anti-stalking features are likely resulting in more unaware victims discovering the unwanted trackers and avoiding much worse outcomes. That being said, the ball is still in Apple’s court to take a very negative PR situation and apply some creative solutions (like the ones suggested above) to deliver real-world protections for potential victims of stalking. AirTags’ anti-stalking features have already put pressure on other tracking companies like Tile to develop similar anti-stalking solutions, and hopefully further improvements will make stalking someone with a consumer tracker dingus much more difficult for creeps and weirdos; or if nothing else, results in more of them getting caught.

Chance Miller, reporting today via 9to5Mac:

With Find My integration, the Chipolo Card Spot can be paired with the Find My app on your iPhone and easily located using the Find My network. You can also receive a notification when you leave your wallet behind using the new “Notify When Left Behind” feature of iOS 15.

The Chipolo Card Spot looks to be the best offering available to anyone looking for Find My compatibility in a wallet tracker. Apple's lackluster attempt in the MagSafe Wallet with Find My is such a compromised and incomplete implementation of "Find My" compatibility that the product description includes two asterisks. I covered my disappointment with the MagSafe Wallet back in September, when it's primary feature (left-behind notifications) was quickly revealed to be more annoyance than loss-avoidance with its lack of smarts. The only other way to add true Find My integration to a wallet are the many grotesqueries that lash entire AirTag to your wallet (with the obvious and unacceptable caveat of...an entire AirTag bulging out of your pocket).

Chipolo's new product (which is available now for pre-order, shipping in February) is better in almost every possible way than either of these solutions. The Card Spot is $35 (vs $29 for an AirTag or $59 for the MagSafe Leather Wallet), but offers fully-featured tracking using the Find My network (vs the MagSafe Wallet only remembering where it was removed from your phone), in a slim credit card form factor (as opposed to an AirTag-shaped bone spur jutting out of your pocket). It also has all of the primary features of the AirTag, including Lost Mode (which notifies you when your item is found near any iOS device) and the ability to play a sound when nearby. Oh, and no more obnoxious "Wallet Disconnected" notifications! Truly the best of all possible worlds. The only downside I currently see with Chipolo's offering is the lack of a replaceable battery — though this trade-off is somewhat mitigated by Chipolo offering a 50% discount and prepaid recycling for its customers.

When I got the MagSafe Leather Wallet with Find My, I was hoping for a solution that would A. Hold my credit cards and B. Help me find my wallet if I lost it. While it succeeds at A, it fails spectacularly at B. Chipolo has created a product that would actually help me find my wallet if it were lost or stolen. I immediately pre-ordered it, and hope to have a positive update when it arrives in February.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was written when this story was more timely (although Facebook and privacy violations always seems to be a timely topic). Since I've just published the site, I wanted to include this note to clarify this article.

A Little Background

You might have heard about a big privacy scare in the news in recent weeks that many iPhone users are furious about — and no, it has nothing to do with FaceTime. TechCrunch broke the story that Facebook was paying users (including minors) to install a VPN with root-level access to their phones with the intention of tracking all their usage, encrypted or otherwise. If that wasn't bad enough, Facebook instructed those users to install this app using Facebook's enterprise certificate to circumvent Apple's app store review (which had already booted the same app for privacy violations in August of 2018).

Apple promptly revoked Facebook's enterprise certificate (which turned out to be their only enterprise certificate), crippling this internal-yet-oh-so-external spyware app as well as many other internal Facebook applications. Facebook has acknowledged that they misused their enterprise certificate to distribute an app to consumers, but Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also claimed that users who downloaded the app "knew they were involved and consented" in the so-called "Facebook Research App". As a researcher myself, I was pretty skeptical that Facebook's practices would even come close to meeting the benchmark of "informed consent", and it didn't take long for my worries to be confirmed: Dave Lee with the BBC demonstrated just how easy it was to sign up for the app as a 14 year-old and receive a link to download it — no parental consent required.

Lets Talk About Consent

I think Facebook (and many other big tech companies) throws around the word "consent" a little too loosely — whether it be in their inscrutable Terms of Service or in examples as grotesque as this data-tracking app. In my field, "consent" means a full understanding of the risks and benefits, and a willing acceptance of those risks and benefits without any sort of coercion. In addition, minors are not typically allowed to give consent for most things in the field of research (though assent is required depending on the circumstance). The idea that a web-form with a few blurbs about "agreeing to the Terms of this program" is sufficiently "informed" for a self-proclaimed research app is ludicrous to me, especially given the significant (and likely misunderstood) amount of data users handed over. I'm sure most users of the Facebook Research App don't fully understand what a VPN is, let alone how much of their private data it allowed Facebook to see.

Informed consent is a big deal in my line of work (and in general) — our team's research is focused on pregnant women and their newborn infants, so the rules for consent are even more strict. For example, if I would like to do a study on placental tissue from deliveries at our hospital (tissue that is normally disposed of after delivery) there is a rigorous process I have to go through before I get started. I have to write up a lengthy Institutional Review Board application, explaining the reason for my research and the ways I am minimizing any unnecessary risk to patients. I have to write a consent form in lay-terms so that a patient could read it and have good understanding of the studies risks and benefits. I have to explain why I'm researching minors in the first place, or why I'm not using an alternative that avoids involving minors all together. Then, assuming that same Review Board actually approves my study, when I actually consent a patient I have to confirm that they understand the risks and benefits before enrolling them in the study. Oh, and I have to specify exactly how I plan to use their tissue, and not go beyond that without asking for their consent again.

Needless to say, the Facebook Research App would fall laughably short at all of these steps (and the myriad I didn't list in my simplistic example). Then again, Facebook's malicious appetite for user data is what motivates them, not any desire for basic ethics in the way they gather it. Perhaps Facebook's blatant disregard for the standard of "informed consent" belies a defining characteristic of their business model: they prefer their users uninformed.