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Monthly Archives: August 2018

AI and Big Data: A Blueprint for a Human Rights, Social and Ethical Impact Assessment

Mantelero, Alessandro, AI and Big Data: A Blueprint for a Human Rights, Social and Ethical Impact Assessment (May 12, 2018). (2018) 34(4) Computer Law & Security Review 754-772 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3225749

“The use of algorithms in modern data processing techniques, as well as data-intensive technological trends, suggests the adoption of a broader view of the data protection impact assessment. This will force data controllers to go beyond the traditional focus on data quality and security, and consider the impact of data processing on fundamental rights and collective social and ethical values. Building on studies of the collective dimension of data protection, this article sets out to embed this new perspective in an assessment model centred on human rights (Human Rights, Ethical and Social Impact Assessment-HRESIA). This self-assessment model intends to overcome the limitations of the existing assessment models, which are either too closely focused on data processing or have an extent and granularity that make them too complicated to evaluate the consequences of a given use of data. In terms of architecture, the HRESIA has two main elements: a self-assessment questionnaire and an ad hoc expert committee. As a blueprint, this contribution focuses mainly on the nature of the proposed model, its architecture and its challenges; a more detailed description of the model and the content of the questionnaire will be discussed in a future publication drawing on the ongoing research.”

Finding Open Access Articles – Tools & Tips

LITA Blog – Ashley Farley – This guide is meant to help individuals, of any background, search more easily for open access articles. “One of the pillars of libraries is facilitating access to the large corpus of existing knowledge. Typically this requires accessing gated information through a publisher or other service provider. Each institution can… Continue Reading

DOJ Warns It Might Not Be Able to Prosecute Voting Machine Hackers

Motherboard: “…After more than a decade of headlines about the vulnerability of US voting machines to hacking, it turns out the federal government says it may not be able to prosecute election hacking under the federal law that currently governs computer intrusions. Per a Justice Department report issued in July from the Attorney General’s Cyber… Continue Reading

Bias of Big Tech news not substantiated by the facts

NextDraft: “…This week, President Trump has been attacking Google (and by extension, all of big tech) for being biased against him and the other “victims” who support him. As Kara Swisher rightfully explains in the NYT, “the idea that Google and Twitter are rigging their platforms against him is patently false.” In The Atlantic, Alexis… Continue Reading

Study – Climate change could render many of Earth’s ecosystems unrecognizable

Washington Post: “… researchers are reporting Thursday in the journal Science [in a] sweeping survey [that] global fossil and temperature records from the past 20,000 years suggests that Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems are at risk of another, even faster transformation unless aggressive action is taken against climate change…” “Even as someone who has spent more than… Continue Reading

New CRS Reports – Judge Kavanaugh’s Jurisprudence, Supreme Court Nomination, Records, Papers and Decision

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh: His Jurisprudence and Potential Impact on the Supreme Court, August 21, 2018 Supreme Court Nomination: CRS Products, CRS Legal Sidebar, updated August 24, 2018 Calling Balls and Strikes: Ethics and Supreme Court Justices, CRS Legal Sidebar, August 20, 2018 Judicial Fact-Finding and Criminal Sentencing: Current Practice and Potential Change, CRS Legal… Continue Reading

Confronting the Ripple Effects of Felony Disenfranchisement

Confronting the Ripple Effects of Felony Disenfranchisement: “Today, I was interviewed on Democracy Now! discussing felony disenfranchisement policies with Crystal Mason, a Texas woman sentenced to five years for mistakenly casting a provisional ballot while on parole. In a letter published by the New York Times, in response to an article about similar cases in… Continue Reading

The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave

The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave, Paleofuture (Aug. 28, 2018) Brian L. Frye “The world of invention is famous for its patent disputes. But what happens when your dispute wasn’t with another inventor but whether the Patent Office saw you as a person at all? In 1864, a… Continue Reading

Metadata infrastructure Planning

“Metadata infrastructure planning should start by focusing on the “big picture”, which is the objective of the metadata program, and plan all the MME layers to maintain focus on the objective. Successful technical metadata management requires a solid infrastructure, one that has been planned before it is implemented. In this Focus on Foundations’ article titled… Continue Reading