Data protection and ICT

A conversation with Gry Hasselbalch, co-founder of DataEthics.eu, on how power dynamics impact the field of AI in terms of fundamental rights, sustainability, etc.

https://www.panelfit.eu

Philip Di Salvo, post-doctoral researcher at the Università della Svizzera italiana, was interviewed about, spyware, surveillance and cyberattacks against journalists, and how newsrooms can defend themselves. Hosts were Federico Caruso and Dimitri Bettoni from OBC Transeuropa - EDJNet.

This episode was produced within the project DJAS, supported in part by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute in cooperation with the OSIFE of the Open Society Foundations. The contents of this event are the sole responsibility of OBC Transeuropa.
DJAS has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765140.

How to prevent companies from misusing cookie banners to collect users’ data? What solutions are there to safeguard citizens’ online privacy?
We try to answer with Stefano Rossetti, a data protection lawyer at noyb.

• Can you please briefly introduce yourself and your organisation? [1’06’’]
• Could you please tell us about the “500 GDPR complaints” and “browser signal” campaigns? [3’22’’]
• Is the GDPR a hindrance or a tool to fight this battle? [18’54’’]
• Besides being unlawful, what are the risks of this spread of users’ information? [24’22’’]
• When I click “Refuse” (where possible), my Privacy Badger plugin still warns me that it has prevented potential third party cookies to track me. Are even lawful cookies really lawful? Or, in other words: Do we know what websites actually do with our data, besides banners’ claims? [29’25’’]
• [From the audience] Is it lawful for companies to use, for whatever purpose, sensitive categories of data collected by tracking online users (even if one gives consent to that)? [34’44’’]
• [From the audience] What do you think about the Norwegian Consumer Council to completely ban surveillance advertising? [41’56’’]
• What do you think about Apple’s initiative to protect users’ privacy: is Europe letting big tech companies take the lead as policymakers on this matter? [48’00’’]

How is digitalisation impacting the work of journalists? How are social media influencing the distribution of the information? We talked of these issues with Patrick Penninckx, Head of Information Society Department at the Council of Europe.


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Intro Music: Corporate Innovation by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6067-corporate-innovation
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Sophie Kwasny, Head of the Data Protection Unit at the Council of Europe, talking about the Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data (Convention 108), approved in 1981 and revamped in 2018, the same year GDPR came into force.
We also touched upon issues such as transborder data flows and facial recognition.

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Intro Music: Corporate Innovation by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6067-corporate-innovation
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Digital technologies reconfigure the rationales, techniques and practices of border security and migration management. We explored these issues with Georgios Glouftsios, a researcher at the University of Trento, whose work is focused on analysing how data infrastructures shape the logics and tactics of mobility control in Europe.

Here are some of the books and articles we mentioned:
- When Biometrics Fail: Gender, Race, and the Technology of Identity, by Shoshana Amielle Magnet. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-biometrics-fail-shoshana-amielle-magnet/1111754660
- Data derivatives: on the emergence of a security risk calculus for our times, by Louise A. Moore. https://dro.dur.ac.uk/9331/
- Artificial Unintelligence, By Meredith Broussard. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/artificial-unintelligence

Intro Music: Corporate Innovation by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6067-corporate-innovation
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Data is more and more used by policy-makers to devise their politics of intervention on economic, social and cultural rights. But these data are often incomplete, inaccurate, and gathered without the participation of the people whose lives will be affected by those decisions. We spoke with Francesca Feruglio and Erica Murphy, from the International Network for Economic, Social & Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net).

Francesca Feruglio is the coordinator of the Monitoring Working Group of the ESCR-Net. Before ESCR-Net, she was a Research Officer at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK. Francesca also co-founded Nazdeek, a legal empowerment organization in India and has been involved in research, advocacy and capacity building with several grassroots groups, international NGOs. Her work focuses on socio-economic rights and issues around citizens’ participation in democratic governance.

Erica Murphy is an independent human rights consultant and until recently a member of the ESCR-Net monitoring working group with the Right to Education Initiative - a global human rights organisation dedicated to promoting education as a human right. She is currently involved in the drafting of the collective position on a human rights-based approach to data for economic, social, and cultural rights with the ESCR-Net monitoring working group.

Intro Music: Corporate Innovation by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6067-corporate-innovation
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The interview focuses on the Issues and gaps analysis of EU regulation on security and cybersecurity in the context of ICT research and innovation, that is one of the outputs of Panelfit.
You can download the document following this link: https://bit.ly/PanelfitD41

We explore the topic with Jaro Krieger-Lamina, a researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences who took care of the analysis.

We mention an article by the European Data Journalism Network on digital advertising, that you can read here: https://www.europeandatajournalism.eu/eng/News/Data-news/Online-ads-know-you-well

To what extend insurance companies rely on Big Data analytics and AI for pricing and costing of their policies? What implications does this have from a data protection point of view? A chat with Gert Meyers, researcher at Tilburg University and KU Leuven.

Data commercialisation raises ethical and legal issues that are largely discussed in the research field. With Frédéric Tronnier we delve into the analysis made within the context of Panelfit on this topic, examining proposed mitigations and solutions.

Click here to download the research: https://www.panelfit.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/D31-Issues-and-gaps-analysis-on-Data-Commercialisation-in-the-Context-of-ICT-Research-and-Innovation.pdf

What are the main issues in the legal framework of informed consent for the processing of personal data? We address the issue with Alessandro Ortalda, a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.


We focus on the Issues and gaps analysis on informed consent in the context of ICT research and Innovation, produced within the context of Panelfit. Download it here: https://bit.ly/D21InformedConsent

Find here the other analyses: https://www.panelfit.eu/deliverables/

A chat around Carissa Véliz's latest book "Privacy is Power" and on some connected topics. How to raise people awareness about the consequences of sharing personal data? Is the frame given by the media to the topic a good one to understand the issue? In which sense privacy is a collective rather than individual matter?

Łukasz Król, researcher who works with the College of Europe in Natolin (Poland) talks with us about cybersecurity issues, threat models, companies accountability on the use of people's data, and a lot more.

Contact tracing apps and GDPR. The relevance of such apps in the more general context of health data as a tool for epidemiological studies and strategies. Data protection and health privacy in the context of employment. We addressed these and other issues with Sara Judite Mendes Roda, senior policy advisor in the digital health life at the Standing Committee of European Doctors.

Liesbeth Hermans is Chief Marketing Officer at Fourcast, a Google Cloud Premier partner active in all Europe and headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Fourcast specialises in implementing Google Cloud technologies at companies. Fourcast services go from transforming the Digital Workplace to modernising IT infrastructure while moving data to the Cloud, to building data lakes & warehouses and applying AI & ML technologies.

In the podcast we talk about the main cybersecurity threats that Fourcast has to face when providing Google Cloud services, and the measures it takes to protect customers' data.

Who are vulnerable data subjects, and what are they risking when they take decisions on their personal data? What harms could they suffer when those data are processed and actions are taken on their behalf? We addressed these and other issues with Gianclaudio Malgieri, Attorney at Law and a doctoral researcher at the Brussels University.

Security and privacy are often presented as highly related issues. The more you bow in terms of privacy, we're told, the more you get closer to national security. Is this relation true? How does surveillance policies impact on national and societal security? We asked these (and more) question to Johann Čas, an economists with a technical background working at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Researcher Lorena Perez Campillo gives an overview of how cloud computing and blockchain are being implemented in healthcare, and what are the opportunities and downsides of those on data protection.

Bibliography:

- CNIL (French supervisory authority): “Blockchain and the GDPR: Solutions for a responsible use”. (2018)

- European Parlament: “Blockchain and the General Data Protection Regulation.” (2019)

- FICK, Michèle, Blockchains and Data Protection in the European Union (November 30, 2017). Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 18-01. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3080322FOX S. (2008). The Engaged E-patient Population. Pew Internet Am Life 1-4. or GUY ZYSKIND, et al., Descentralización de la privacidad: uso de Blockchain para proteger datos personales, 2015 IEEE Sec. talleres de privacidad 180, 181 (2015).

- ZETZSCHE DA Buckley RP, Arner DW (2017). The Distributed Liability of Distributed Ledgers: Legal Risks of Blockchain, University of New South Wales Law Research Series. Law Working Paper Series, Number 2017-007. Recuperado de http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3018214

There is a lot of interest on digital pills in the health field. This technology can have a big impact both on healthcare systems and public policies. But what are the downsides of the spread of such devices? We talk about it with Iñigo De Miguel Beriain, bioethicist and research professor at the University of the Basque Country. UPV/EHU