Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, professor of ICT and Law at Radboud University, says that the EDPB's position 'makes sense. The regulator should only explain the law, but not invent new laws. It follows from the law that personalised ads are only allowed after valid consent, which must be "freely given". But if it's hard for people not to use a certain platform, it's questionable whether such content is really voluntary.'
Curious difference between media in the UK and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, media tend to write about William W (not William Woods) when writing about suspects and victims. The Dutch tradition is based on self-regulation by the media; not on law. #law#privacy#freedomofexpression#dataprotection#netherlands#uk
‘A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown.
This powerful cohort of state-controlled corporations and shareholder-owned multinationals are the leading drivers of the climate crisis’.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) emphases that encryption contribute to ensuring the enjoyment of privacy and other fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression. Case of Podchasov v. Russia (no. 33696/19).
'In the digital age, technical solutions for securing and protecting the privacy of electronic communications, including measures for encryption, contribute to ensuring the enjoyment of other fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression (…). Encryption, moreover, appears to help citizens and businesses to defend themselves against abuses of information technologies, such as hacking, identity and personal data theft, fraud and the improper disclosure of confidential information.' (par 76)
'Weakening encryption by creating backdoors would apparently make it technically possible to perform routine, general and indiscriminate surveillance of personal electronic communications. Backdoors may also be exploited by criminal networks and would seriously compromise the security of all users’ electronic communications. The Court takes note of the dangers of restricting encryption described by many experts in the field' (par 77)
ECtHR, Podchasov v. Russia (no. 33696/19).
AI Act. ‘Polygraphs’ (lie detectors) are not banned, but are merely categorized as ‘high risk’. Annex III art. 6 and 7 (law enforcement and immigration).
A ban would have made sense to me. It’s not really my expertise, but I’ve seen meta review papers that conclude that such tech is snake oil.
AI Act. The requirement for a fundamental rights impact assessment (FRIA) applies, in short, to AI deployers in the public sector and private parties if they provide public services. And to AI operators that use high-risk systems for credit scoring or life or health insurance underwriting. If I understand it correctly, most of the private sector is thus excluded from the FRIA requirement. Art. 29a. #aiact#ai#law#tech#eu#politics
AI Act. As expected, it contains a debiasing exception to the GDPR’s in-principle ban on using special categories of data (art 10(5) AI Act), if the AI operator uses the data for bias detection and correction. There are - sensible - strict rules and safeguards. The provision has much improved since the original proposal. For background see https://iapp.org/news/a/using-sensitive-data-to-prevent-ai-discrimination-does-the-eu-gdpr-need-a-new-exception/
'It is not possible to confidently infer happiness from a smile, anger from a scowl, or sadness from a frown, as much of current technology tries to do when applying what are mistakenly believed to be the scientific facts.’ From a review paper by Barrett et al. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31313636/@douwekorff
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We reveal 'Patternz', a global mass surveillance system that harvests digital advertising data on behalf of 'national security agencies'.
Patternz is operated by a company based in Israel and/or Singapore. It claims to collect data about 5 billion users from 87 ad exchanges and SSPs via 6 data centers around the world.
‘Politie experimenteert met gezichtsherkenning, maar wetgeving ontbreekt’
‘Gezichtsherkenningstechnologie kan zó diep ingrijpen in ons leven, dat het beter zou zijn we met zijn allen discussiëren over wanneer de staat die techniek mag gebruiken,’ vond ik.
Dutch police are experimenting with facial recognition technology, but a legal basis is lacking
'Facial recognition technology can interfere so deeply in our lives that it would be better if there was a public debate about when the state should be allowed to use it,' I said.
‘More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record
The number of articles being retracted rose sharply this year… Nature’s analysis suggests that the retraction rate — the proportion of papers published in any given year that go on to be retracted — has more than trebled in the past decade. In 2022, it exceeded 0.2%.’ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8 #academia#publishing#fraud#openaccess
‘around one-quarter of the total number of retractions are conference papers — and the bulk of those comprise withdrawals by the IEEE, which has pulled more than 10,000 such papers in the past two decades.’ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8