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Daily Archives: August 21, 2019

Data Management Law for the 2020s: The Lost Origins and the New Needs

Pałka, Przemysław, Data Management Law for the 2020s: The Lost Origins and the New Needs (August 10, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3435608 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3435608

“In the data analytics society, each individual’s disclosure of personal information imposes costs on others. This disclosure enables companies, deploying novel forms of data analytics, to infer new knowledge about other people and to use this knowledge to engage in potentially harmful activities. These harms go beyond privacy and include difficult to detect price discrimination, preference manipulation, and even social exclusion. Currently existing, individual-focused, data protection regimes leave law unable to account for these social costs or to manage them.This Article suggests a way out, by proposing to re-conceptualize the problem of social costs of data analytics through the new frame of “data management law.” It offers a critical comparison of the two existing models of data governance: the American “notice and choice” approach and the European “personal data protection” regime (currently expressed in the GDPR). Tracing their origin to a single report issued in 1973, the article demonstrates how they developed differently under the influence of different ideologies (market-centered liberalism, and human rights, respectively). It also shows how both ultimately failed at addressing the challenges outlined already forty-five years ago. To tackle these challenges, this Article argues for three normative shifts. First, it proposes to go beyond “privacy” and towards “social costs of data management” as the framework for conceptualizing and mitigating negative effects of corporate data usage. Second, it argues to go beyond the individual interests, to account for collective ones, and to replace contracts with regulation as the means of creating norms governing data management. Third, it argues that the nature of the decisions about these norms is political, and so political means, in place of technocratic solutions, need to be employed.”

On the Hunt for National Treasures With America’s Archive Detective

Atlas Obscura – Mitch Yockelson scours the country for its missing heritage. “…Yockelson is one-half of the Archival Recovery Program, based in the National Archives and Records Administration’s office in College Park, Maryland. He and analyst Kellie Shipley believe they are the only dedicated team in any museum or cultural institution in the world whose… Continue Reading

NYU DC presents “In Conversation: Dr. Carla Hayden and Ray Suarez.”

YouTube: “The Library of Congress is home to some of the most valuable treasures and historical documents in the nation, perhaps the world.The NYU John Brademas Center’s Young Leaders Network welcomed the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, and broadcast journalist Ray Saurez as they discussed the work of “the Nation’s Library” in providing public… Continue Reading

CRS Report to Congress on Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems

The following is the August 16, 2019 Congressional Research Service In Focus report – International Discussions Concerning Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. “As technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), advances, lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS)—weapons designed to make decisions about using lethal force without manual human control—may soon make their appearance, raising a number of potential ethical,… Continue Reading

61% of Voters Say They Believe Russia Will Try to Interfere in 2020 Election

Morning Consult: “With less than six months until the first presidential primary vote is cast in Iowa, more voters are saying it’s likely that Russia will try to interfere in the next presidential election, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll. But the survey suggests that the prospect won’t deter them from heading to the… Continue Reading

Modernization of Secrecy System is Stalled

Secrecy News: “Today’s national security classification system “relies on antiquated policies from another era that undercut its effectiveness today,” the Information Security Oversight Office told the President in a report released yesterday. Modernizing the system is a “government-wide imperative,” the new ISOO annual report said. But that is a familiar refrain by now. It is much the… Continue Reading