All posts by infolawcentre

Emotion detection, personalisation and autonomous decision-making online

Events, ,

This event took place at the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on Monday, 5 February 2018.

Date
 05 Feb 2018, 17:30 to 05 Feb 2018, 19:30
Venue
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Speaker: Damian Clifford, KU Leuven Centre for IT and IP Law

Panel Discussants:

Dr Edina Harbinja, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Hertfordshire.

Hamed Haddadi, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor),  Deputy Director of Research in the Dyson School of Design Engineering, and an Academic Fellow of the Data Science Institute in the Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London.

Chair: Dr Nora Ni Loideain, Director and Lecturer in Law, Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

Description:

Emotions play a key role in decision making. Technological advancements are now rendering emotions detectable in real-time. Building on the granular insights provided by big data, such technological developments allow commercial entities to move beyond the targeting of behaviour in advertisements to the personalisation of services, interfaces and the other consumer-facing interactions, based on personal preferences, biases and emotion insights gleaned from the tracking of online activity and profiling and the emergence of ‘emphathic media’.

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Personal Data as an Asset: Design and Incentive Alignments in a Personal Data Economy

Events, , ,

Registration open

Date
 19 Feb 2018, 17:30 to 19 Feb 2018, 19:30
Institute
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Venue
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR


Speaker:  Professor Irene Ng, Director of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation and the Professor of Marketing and Service Systems at WMG, University of Warwick
Panel Discussants: Perry Keller, King’s College London and John Sheridan, National ArchivesChair:  Dr Nora Ni Loideain, Director and Lecturer in Law, Information Law & Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies

 

Description:

Despite the World Economic Forum (2011) report on personal data becoming an asset class  the cost of transacting on personal data is becoming increasingly high with regulatory risks, societal disapproval, legal complexity and privacy concerns.

Professor Irene Ng contends that this is because personal data as an asset is currently controlled by organisations. As a co-produced asset, the person has not had the technological capability to control and process his or her own data or indeed, data in general. Hence, legal and economic structures have been created only around Organisation-controlled personal data (OPD).

This presentation will argue that a person-controlled personal data (PPD), technologically, legally and economically architected such that the individual owns a personal micro-server and therefore have full rights to the data within, much like owning a PC or a smartphone, is potentially a route to reducing transaction costs and innovating in the personal data economy. I will present the design and incentive alignments of stakeholders on the HAT hub-of-all-things platform (https://hubofallthings.com).

Professor Irene Ng is the Director of the International Institute for Product and Service Innovation and the Professor of Marketing and Service Systems at WMG, University of Warwick. She is also the Chairman of the Hub-of-all-Things (HAT) Foundation Group (http://hubofallthings.com). A market design economist, Professor Ng is an advisor to large organisations, startups and governments on design of markets, economic and business models in the digital economy. Personal website http://ireneng.com

John Sheridan is the Digital Director at The National Archives, with overall responsibility for the organisation’s digital services and digital archiving capability. His role is to provide strategic direction, developing the people and capability needed for The National Archives to become a disruptive digital archive. John’s academic background is in mathematics and information technology, with a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Southampton and a Master’s Degree in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool. Prior to his current role, John was the Head of Legislation Services at The National Archives where he led the team responsible for creating legislation.gov.uk, as well overseeing the operation of the official Gazette. John recently led, as Principal Investigator, an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, ‘big data for law’, exploring the application of data analytics to the statute book, winning the Halsbury Legal Award for Innovation. John has a strong interest in the web and data standards and is a former co-chair of the W3C e-Government Interest Group. He serves on the UK Government’s Data Leaders group and Open Standards Board which sets data standards for use across government. John was an early pioneer of open data and remains active in that community.

Perry Keller is Reader in Media and Information Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, where he teaches and researches issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy and data protection. He is the author of European and International Media Law. Mr Keller’s current research concerns the transparency of urban life as a consequence of governmental and commercial surveillance and the particular challenges that brings for liberal democracies. He also has longstanding connections with China, having previously studied or worked in Beijing, Nanjing, Taipei and Hong Kong. His current research interests regarding law and regulation in China concern the development of a divergent Chinese model for securing data privacy and security.

A wine reception will follow this seminar.

Admission FREE but advance booking is required.

Book now

 

Guilty until proven innocent? How a legal loophole is being used to name and shame children

Guest post, Information law and policy, , ,

File 20171026 13319 1cvf3uw.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this guest post, Faith Gordon, University of Westminster explores how, under UK law, a child’s anonimity is not entirely guaranteed. Faith is speaking at the  Information Law and Policy Centre’s annual conference – Children and Digital Rights: Regulating Freedoms and Safeguards this Friday, 17 November. 

Under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, each individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty. A big part of protecting this principle is guaranteeing that public opinion is not biased against someone that is about to be tried in the courts. In this situation, minors are particularly vulnerable and need all the protection that can be legally offered. So when you read stories about cases involving children, it’s often accompanied with the line that the accused cannot be named for legal reasons.

However, a loophole exists: a minor can be named before being formally charged. And as we all know in this digital age, being named comes with consequences – details or images shared of the child are permanent. While the right to be forgotten is the strongest for children within the Data Protection Bill, children and young people know that when their images and posts are screenshot they have little or no control over how they are used and who has access to them.

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Ethical issues in research using datasets of illicit origin

Guest post, Information law and policy, Privacy, , , ,

In this guest post Dr Daniel R. Thomas, University of Cambridge reviews research surrounding ethical issues in research using datasets of illicit origin. This post first appeared on “Light Blue Touchpaper” weblog written by researchers in the Security Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory.

On Friday at IMC I presented our paper “Ethical issues in research using datasets of illicit origin” by Daniel R. Thomas, Sergio Pastrana, Alice Hutchings, Richard Clayton, and Alastair R. Beresford. We conducted this research after thinking about some of these issues in the context of our previous work on UDP reflection DDoS attacks.

Data of illicit origin is data obtained by illicit means such as exploiting a vulnerability or unauthorized disclosure, in our previous work this was leaked databases from booter services. We analysed existing guidance on ethics and papers that used data of illicit origin to see what issues researchers are encouraged to discuss and what issues they did discuss. We find wide variation in current practice. We encourage researchers using data of illicit origin to include an ethics section in their paper: to explain why the work was ethical so that the research community can learn from the work. At present in many cases positive benefits as well as potential harms of research, remain entirely unidentified. Few papers record explicit Research Ethics Board (REB) (aka IRB/Ethics Commitee) approval for the activity that is described and the justifications given for exemption from REB approval suggest deficiencies in the REB process. It is also important to focus on the “human participants” of research rather than the narrower “human subjects” definition as not all the humans that might be harmed by research are its direct subjects.

The paper and the slides are available.

Call for Papers: Trust, Risk, Information & the Law Conference

Call for papers, , , ,

The 5th interdisciplinary Conference on Trust, Risk, Information & the Law will be held on 25 April 2018 at the Holiday Inn, Winchester UK. Our overall theme for this conference will be: “Public Law, Politics and the Constitution: A new battleground between the Law and Technology?”

Our keynote speakers will be Michael Barton, Chief Constable of Durham Constabulary and Jamie Bartlett, Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media for Demos in conjunction with the University of Sussex, and author of several books including ‘Radicals’ and ‘The Dark Net’.

Papers are welcomed on any aspect of the conference theme. This might include although is not restricted to:

  • Fake news: definition, consequences, responsibilities and liabilities;

  • The use of Big Data in political campaigning;

  • Social media ‘echo chambers’ and political campaigning;

  • Digital threats and impact on the political process;

  • The Dark Net and consequences for the State and the Constitution;

  • Big Tech – the new States and how to regulate them;

  • The use of algorithmic tools and Big Data by the public sector;

  • Tackling terrorist propaganda and digital communications within Constitutional values;

  • Technology neutral legislation;

  • Threats to individual privacy and public law solutions;

  • Online courts and holding the State to account.

Proposals for workshops are also welcome.

 

The full call for papers and workshops can be found at: https://journals.winchesteruniversitypress.org/index.php/jirpp/pages/view/TRIL.

Deadline for submissions is 26 January 2018.

On Internet Intermediaries – from Defamation to Directive to Data Protection

Data Protection, Defamation, Events, Government policy, , , ,

In this guest post,  Professor of Law and Innovation at Queen’s University Belfast Daithí Mac Síthigh reviews the recent Information Law and Policy Centre seminar that explored Internet intermediaries and their legal role and obligations.

Taking stock of recent developments concerning the liability and duties associated with being an Internet intermediary (especially the provision of hosting and social media services) was the theme of a recent event at the Information Law and Policy Centre. In my presentation, starting from about 20 years ago, I reviewed the early statutory interventions, including the broad protection against liability contained in US law (and the narrower shield in respect of intellectual property!), and the conditional provisions adopted by the European Union in Directive 2000/31/EC (E-Commerce Directive), alongside developments in specific areas, such as defamation. The most recent 10 years, though, have seen a trend towards specific solutions for one area of law or another (what I called ‘fragmentation’ in 2013), as well as a growing body of caselaw on liability, injunctions, and the like (both from the Court of Justice of the EU and the domestic courts).

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Co-existing with HAL 9000: Being Human in a World with AI

Artificial Intelligence, Events, Information law and policy, , ,

This event took place at the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on Monday, 20 November 2017.

Date
 20 Nov 2017, 17:30 to 20 Nov 2017, 19:30
Venue
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR

Description

As part of the University of London’s Being Human Festival, the Information Law and Policy Centre will be hosting a film and discussion panel evening at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

One of the Centre’s key aims is to promote public engagement by bringing together academic experts, policy-makers, industry, artists, and key civil society stakeholders (such as NGOs, journalists) to discuss issues and ideas concerning information law and policy relevant to the public interest that will capture the public’s imagination.

This event will focus on the implications posed by the increasingly significant role of artificial intelligence (AI) in society and the possible ways in which humans will co-exist with AI in future, particularly the impact that this interaction will have on our liberty, privacy, and agency. Will the benefits of AI only be achieved at the expense of these human rights and values? Do current laws, ethics, or technologies offer any guidance with respect to how we should navigate this future society?

The primary purpose of this event is to particularly encourage engagement and interest from young adults (15-18 years) in considering the implications for democracy, civil liberties, and human rights posed by the increasing role of AI in society that affect their everyday decision-making as humans and citizens. A limited number of places for this event will also be available to the general public.

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Call for Papers: Global Fake News and Defamation Symposium

Call for papers, News, News media, Social Media, ,

Readers of the Information and Law Policy Centre blog are invited to submit a call for papers for the Global Fake News and Defamation Symposium on the theme of ‘Fake News and Weaponized Defamation: Global Perspectives’

Concept Note:

The notion of “fake news” has gained great currency in global popular culture in the wake of contentious social-media imbued elections in the United States and Europe. Although often associated with the rise of extremist voices in political discourse and, specifically, an agenda to “deconstruct” the power of government, institutional media, and the scientific establishment, fake news is “new wine in old bottles,” a phenomenon that has long historical roots in government propaganda, jingoistic newspapers, and business-controlled public relations. In some countries, dissemination of “fake news” is a crime that is used to stifle dissent. This broad conception of fake news not only acts to repress evidence-based inquiry of government, scientists, and the press; but it also diminishes the power of populations to seek informed consensus on policies such as climate change, healthcare, race and gender equality, religious tolerance, national security, drug abuse, poverty, homophobia, and government corruption, among others.

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Has Facebook finally given up chasing teenagers? It’s complicated

Children, Guest post, Social Media, ,

File 20170811 13446 1iv9dp7

Facebook Watch.
Facebook

In this guest post, Harry T Dyer, University of East Anglia, looks into the complicated relationship between social media and young people. His article is relevant to the Information Law and Policy Centre’s annual conference coming up in November – Children and Digital Rights: Regulating Freedoms and Safeguards.

Facebook’s latest attempt to appeal to teens has quietly closed its doors. The social media platform’s Lifestage app (so unsuccessful that this is probably the first time you’ve heard of it) was launched a little under a year ago to resounding apathy and has struggled ever since.

Yet, as is Silicon Valley’s way, Facebook has rapidly followed the failure of one venture with the launch of another one by unveiling a new video streaming service. Facebook Watch will host series of live and pre-recorded short-form videos, including some original, professionally made content, in a move that will allow the platform to more directly compete with the likes of YouTube, Netflix and traditional TV channels.

Lifestage was just one of a long series of attempts by Facebook to stem the tide of young people increasingly interacting across multiple platforms. With Watch, the company seems to have changed tack from this focus on retaining young people, instead targeting a much wider user base. Perhaps Facebook has learnt that it will simply never be cool –, but that doesn’t mean it still can’t be popular.

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