Tag Archives: ials

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

 

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.

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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The Competence of the European Union in Copyright Lawmaking

Copyright, European Policy, Events, IALS, intellectual property, , , ,

competence-of-eu-in-copyright-lawmakingBook launch event at the IALS
6pm – 8pm, 15 Dec 2016

Register online at Eventbrite to book your free ticket

Speaker: Dr Ana Ramalho, Assistant Professor of Intellectual Property, Maastricht University

Discussant: Professor Lionel Bently, Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property and Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law, University of Cambridge.

In this seminar Ana Ramalho will discuss her new book, which inquires into the competence of the EU to legislate in the field of copyright and uses content analysis techniques to demonstrate the existence of a normative gap in copyright lawmaking.

To address that gap Ana Ramalho proposes the creation of benchmarks of legislative activity, reasoning that EU secondary legislation, such as directives and regulations, should be based on higher sources of law.

In the book she investigates two such possible sources: the activity of the EU Court of Justice in the pre-legislative era and the EU treaties. From these sources Ana Ramalho establishes concrete benchmarks of legislative activity, which she then tests by applying them to current EU copyright legislation.

This provides examples of good and bad practices in copyright lawmaking and also shows how the benchmarks could be implemented in copyright legislation. Finally, Ana Ramalho offers some recommendations in this regard.

This seminar will be followed by the book launch of “The Competence of the European Union in Copyright Lawmaking: A Normative Perspective of EU Powers for Copyright Harmonization” by Ana Ramalho

Information as an Asset: the business benefits of preserving records for providers of legal services

Events, Information law and policy, , , ,

Legal recordsThe second Legal Records at Risk seminar will be held in the IALS Conference Room, 23 November 2016, 2-5.30 pm.

Background

The 2004 Clementi report: Review of the regulatory framework for legal services in England and Wales suggested that it was time for the providers of legal services to act in a more business-like way:

“Research shows that complaints arise as much from poor business service as from poor legal advice… In developing business systems to minimise costs whilst maintaining high standards, there is no reason why lawyers should not work alongside those with other skills, for example in finance or IT.”  

To this the Legal Records at Risk project would add information management. Recent developments (changes to legal services; globalisation; digital obsolescence) have transformed our legal framework, yet no concerted effort has as yet been made to protect and preserve the private sector records which document these changes.

The Legal Records at Risk Project

The Legal Records at Risk project, led by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and working in collaboration with the legal profession, the research community and archives, including The National Archives and the British Records Association, seeks to develop a national strategy to identify and preserve our legal heritage and to save modern (20th and 21st century) private sector legal records in the UK that may be at risk.

What are the specific benefits to specialized law institutions of managing their records effectively and preserving those of value for internal and external research?  Here are just a few which will be explored in this seminar, along with suggestions as to how they can be achieved:

  • cost and efficiency savings
  • business continuity
  • improved client confidence
  • service to justice
  • enhanced reputation
  • community engagement

Come to the seminar, visit our website or contact the Legal Records at Risk Project Director, Clare Cowling at clare.cowling@sas.ac.uk for information.

Applications open…Senior Lecturer/Lecturer in Law & Director: Information Law and Policy Centre

IALS, Information law and policy, Job vacancies, School of Advanced Study, Uncategorized, , , ,

As readers of this blog might already be aware our first Director, Dr Judith Townend, has moved on to a new post at the University of Sussex. This means the Information Law and Policy Centre is now looking for a new Director…

“The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies of the School of Advanced Study is now seeking a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Law and Director: Information Law and Policy Centre.

“The role will be responsible for developing the research promotion and facilitation, teaching/training and public engagement for the Information Law & Policy Centre.

“This position is offered at 3 years in the first instance with the possibility of permanent extension after this period.”

For more information and details of how to apply visit the University of London’s vacancy page.

The close date for this role is at midnight on Sunday, 23 October 2016. 

The Centre’s researchers ‘on tour’ this summer

Copyright, Events, Information law and policy, , , , , , , ,

Freedom of Expression conference South Korea 14-06-16 web 2

Members of the Information Law and Policy Centre will be sharing their research and expertise at several international events over the coming week.

Centre Director Dr Judith Townend visited Japan to present on social media law in the UK at the annual International Communications Association conference in Fukuoka on Saturday. She visited Seoul this week to participate in the following events:

  • Tuesday 14th June: Freedom of Expression with Regard to Terror, Right to be Forgotten & Social Media, Chung Ang Law School
  • Thursday 16th June: Media Law Forum, Korean Press Arbitration Commission

Meanwhile Dr Christina Angelopoulos was in Brussels last week at EuroDig 2016. The event, organised by the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, focused on topics around “Embracing the digital (r)evolution”.

She participated in a panel session on “The rules in the digital world – economy v human rights” and was a ‘key participant’ in a session on “Intermediaries and human rights – between co-opted law enforcement and human rights protection”.

On Thursday 16th June, Christina will be contributing to a workshop organised by Marietje Schaake MEP on: “Privatising the rule of law online? Freedom of speech, copyright and platforms in the digital single market”. She will be speaking on a panel discussing privatised law enforcement and copyright enforcement.

Do introduce yourself to Judith or Christina if you are attending the events this Thursday and you are interested in their work. You can also contact them on Twitter: @jtownend and @cjangelopoulos.

Call for Papers: Restricted and Redacted – Where now for human rights and digital information control?

Announcements, Call for papers, Information law and policy, , , ,

Restricted and Redacted: Where now for human rights and digital information control?

We are pleased to announce this call for papers for the annual IALS’ Information Law and Policy Centre research workshop on 9 November 2016 in London, this year supported by Bloomsbury’s Communications Law journal. You can read about our first event in 2015 here.

We are looking for high quality and focused contributions that consider information law and policy in the context of human rights. Whether based on doctrinal analysis or empirical social research, papers should offer an original perspective on the way in which information and data interact with fundamental rights, which may, for example include legal rights and principles relating to free expression, privacy, data protection, reputation, copyright, national security, anti-discrimination and open justice.

Topics of particular interest in 2016 include: internet intermediary liability, investigatory and surveillance powers, media regulation, freedom of information, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, whistleblower protection, and ‘anti-extremism’ policy.

The workshop will take place during the afternoon of Wednesday 9th November 2016 and will be followed by an evening reception and keynote lecture. Attendance will be free of charge thanks to the support of the IALS and our sponsor, although registration will be required as places are limited.

The best papers will be featured in a special issue of Bloomsbury’s Communications Law journal, following a peer review process. Those giving papers will be invited to submit full draft papers to the journal by 18th November 2016 for consideration by the journal’s editorial team.

How to apply:

Please send an abstract of between 250-300 words and brief biographical information to Eliza Boudier, Fellowships and Administrative Officer, IALS: eliza.boudier@sas.ac.uk by Friday 1st July 2016 (5pm, BST). Abstracts will be considered by the Information Law and Policy Centre academic staff and advisors, and the Communications Law journal editorial team.

About the Information Law and Policy Centre at the IALS:

The Information Law and Policy Centre produces, promotes and facilitates research about the law and policy of information and data, and the ways in which law both restricts and enables the sharing and dissemination of different types of information.  It is part of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, which was founded in 1947. It was conceived and is funded as a national academic institution, attached to the University of London, serving all universities through its national legal research library. Its function is to promote, facilitate and disseminate the results of advanced study and research in the discipline of law, for the benefit of persons and institutions in the UK and abroad.

About Communications Law (Journal of Computer, Media and Telecommunications Law):

Communications Law is a well-respected quarterly journal published by Bloomsbury Professional covering the broad spectrum of legal issues arising in the telecoms, IT and media industries. Each issue brings you 32 pages of opinion and discussion from the field of communications law. It is currently edited by Dr Paul Wragg, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Leeds.

Current vacancies in information law and policy

Announcements, IALS, Information law and policy, Job vacancies, Research, , ,

It seems that information law and policy jobs are just like buses … Here are several current opportunities to share with your networks. (If you have any to advertise, please let us know – we are happy to help spread the word).

Our friends at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam are looking for a PhD researcher in law and a Postdoc researcher in Communication Science/Journalism/Media Studies for a European ERC project Profiling and targeting news readers – implications for the democratic role of the digital media, user rights and public information policy:

Meanwhile, we – the Information Law and Policy Centre at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London – are looking for a temporary part-time assistant. This role is for 2 days a week / 14 hours (with flexibility for vacations) and will be starting in May. Please apply via this link.

Update (11/05/2015): The University of Kent is advertising a funded PhD position available within the H2020 Marie Curie network NeCS, “Network of Excellence in Cyber Security”. This would be to do research in big data, privacy and data protection under the supervision of staff in the Kent Law School and School of Computing. More details at this link.