Ethical Dimensions of the GDPR, AI Regulation, and Beyond

Our digital society is changing rapidly, with emerging new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, robotics, and the internet of things. These changes trigger new fundamental ethical questions relating to privacy, data protection and other values, including human rights and the way they are affected by the extensive and intensive use of data for analytical and practical innovations. This article explores these ethical dimensions and the extent to which the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018 takes ethics into account in relation to these socio-technical developments. More briefly, it looks similarly but more selectively at the EU’s proposed AI Act of 2021, which aims to regulate AI in relation to levels of risk.It concludes with some observations on desirable institutional arrangements for making and applying ethical judgements in the regulation of advanced technologies that use personal data.

Playin’ the city : artistic and scientific approaches to playful urban arts

An Theorien und Diskussionen über die Stadt mangelt es nicht, denn Städte dienen uns u.a. als Projektionsfläche zur Auseinandersetzung mit unserer Vergangenheit, der Gegenwart und unserer Zukunft. Diese Ausgabe 1 (2016) der Navigationen untersucht spielerische Formen dieser Auseinandersetzung in und mit der Stadt durch die sogenannten playful urban arts.The city has been discussed and theorized widely, and it continues to serve as a space in which our sense of the present, past, and future is constantly negotiated. This issue 1 (2016) of Navigationen examines new ways of engaging with cities through what are called the playful urban arts. Playful engagements with the urban environment frequently strive to create new ways of imagining and experiencing the city. In and through play, city spaces can become playgrounds that have the potential to transform people’s sense of themselves as human actors in an urban network of spatially bound and socio-economically grounded actions. Emerging from the playin’siegen urban games festival 2015, the essays and panel discussions assembled in this issue provide an interdisciplinary account of the contemporary playful urban arts. Wiht contributions by Miguel Sicart, Andreas Rauscher, Daniel Stein, Judith Ackermann and Martin Reiche, Michael Straeubig and Sebastian Quack, Marianne Halblaub Miranda and Martin Knöll, and Anne Lena Hartman

Balancing privacy rights and surveillance analytics: a decision process guide

The right to privacy has been discussed by scholars in multiple disciplines, yet privacy issues are increasing due to technological advances and lower costs for organisations to adopt smart surveillance. Given the potential for misuse, it seems prudent for stakeholders to critically evaluate Surveillance Analytics (SA) innovations. To assist in balancing the issues arising from SA adoption and the implications for privacy, we review key terms and ethical frameworks. Further, we prescribe a two-by-two Surveillance, Privacy, and Ethical Decision (SPED) Process Guide. SPED recommends the use of one or more of three ethical frameworks, Consequence, Duty, and Virtue. The vertical axis in the SPED matrix is the sophistication of an organisation’s SA and the horizontal axis is an assessment of the current privacy level and the rights afforded to the target(s) of surveillance. The proposed decision process guide can assist senior managers and technologists in making decisions about adopting SA

Rethinking the architecture of incarceration : a proposed pre-release centre for female offenders in Durban.

Master of Architecture. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.It is beyond the scope of the present brief to appraise the degree of failure regarding the idea of imprisonment or to uncover a universal prototype for all incarcerative facilities. Therefore the focus of this dissertation will pertain directly to the rehabilitation and reintegration of women in prison through the built form, with specific emphasis in dealing with the psychological repercussions that the correctional environment incurs. The research study identifies rehabilitation and reintegration as key strategies for lowering the recidivism rate of offenders and attempts to understand the complex incarcerative subculture that exists in order to facilitate change. Criminological theories linked to the key strategies include: Panopticism, the theory of rehabilitation and the institutional theory. Here the interest leans toward current and dated methods of reform. The search for characteristics which constitute an effective facility that will seek to ready the offender for release will drive the design process and create a resource for forward-thinking, small scale, correctional and pre-release facilities for women. The dissertation includes issues which have come to dominate discussions surrounding incarceration and a response to the commonly asked question: should incarcerative facilities be moving toward rehabilitation rather than punishment? Corresponding qualitative research involving both local and global institutions is conducted in order to provide a multifaceted understanding of the existing state of South African correctional facilities and contemporary interpretations aligned with positive change worldwide. Findings through observational analysis and interviews with correctional personnel will be used to inform the outcome of the research which confirms that there is a definite need for an emphasis to be placed on the re-entry process of offenders. It also indicates that while South African penal policies are largely progressive, facilities in which offenders are imprisoned remain outdated, ultimately revealing an environment that is unfavourable towards rehabilitation

Vigilância socioassistencial como relação sociotécnica de vigilância: análise das perspectivas no campo de serviço social

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Sócio-Econômico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Serviço Social, Florianópolis, 2016.Objetiva-se compreender quais concepções de vigilância têm sido mobilizadas pelas obras acadêmicas do campo do Serviço Social que tratam da vigilância socioassistencial. As obras consultadas são recentes, posto que a implementação da vigilância socioassistencial vem sendo feita desde sua emergência na Política Nacional de Assistência Social em 2004. Visto que as fontes de dados não tratam especificamente de problematizar o conceito de vigilância, o estudo procura avaliar não só as definições em jogo, mas também seus pressupostos e suas justificativas, e as inferências que podem ser relacionadas às noções adotadas ou subentendidas de vigilância. A vigilância socioassistencial é definida e caracterizada através das legislações e, a partir da constatação de dificuldades nesta caracterização, opta-se por realizar uma pesquisa documental que resulta numa reordenação e ênfase categorial alternativa, evidenciando os processos de gestão da informação suportados por tecnologias da informação. Mobiliza-se o conceito de relação sociotécnica para se compreender como a inserção de artefatos tecnológicos contribui na complexificação da dimensão ético-política da vigilância socioassistencial. Realiza-se uma incursão teórica sobre os estudos de vigilância (surveillance studies) e sobre os estudos de vigilância sobre os sistemas de bem-estar social (welfare surveillance), constituindo o alicerce teórico para explicar as práticas de vigilância que se encontram no espaço particular da vigilância socioassistencial, inserida na política de Assistência Social. A partir do edifício teórico dos estudos de vigilância delineia-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica, a qual, suportada por toda a discussão precedente, é utilizada para abordar as obras acadêmicas que têm a vigilância socioassistencial como objeto de investigação para observar como mobilizam a noção de vigilância, seus pressupostos, justificativas e consequências. Os resultados demonstram que as concepções que norteiam as práticas de vigilância na vigilância socioassistencial são analisadas pelas obras do Serviço Social muito pontualmente e principalmente a partir dos textos legais, pouco problematizando outros fatores sociais. Apesar da exposição de algumas preocupações éticas, de usos indevidos ou não intencionais, e de consequências históricas, são pouco acentuadas as práticas de vigilância que não se alinham à defesa dos direitos de cidadania. Verifica-se um espaço de análise aberto para uma interpelação mais densa da vigilância socioassistencial através dos estudos de vigilância.Abstract : This study intends to understand which ideas of surveillance are used by academic works from the Social Work field which investigates the social assistance surveillance. These academic works are recent, as the social assistance surveillance is being implemented since the National Policy of Social Assistance in 2004. As the sources are not directly concerned about the concept of surveillance, this study looks for definitions, but also for assumptions, justifications, and inferences that can be related to the adopted or implicit notions of surveillance. The social assistance surveillance is defined and characterized by its legislations and, after difficulties in this description are found, a documentary research is used to reorganize and stress an alternative group of categories, in order to emphasize processes of information management supported by technologies of information. The concept of sociotechnical relation is mobilized to understand how the introduction of technological artifacts contributes in the complexification of the social assistance surveillance?s ethical-political dimension. A theoretical incursion into the surveillance studies and welfare surveillance studies is done, building an academic background to explain the surveillance practices which are found on the specific space of the social assistance surveillance, the Social Assistance policy. From this surveillance studies perspective, a bibliographic research is performed to look into the academic works that investigates the social assistance surveillance, as they apprehend the notion of surveillance, its assumptions, justifications, and consequences. The results show that the notions about the surveillance practices of the social assistance surveillance are analyzed by the Social Work studies very punctually and mainly related to legal texts, other social factors being put aside. Although some ethical precautions, non-intentional or improper uses, and historic consequences are exposed, surveillance practices that do not align with citizenship rights defense are not emphasized. It can be argued that there is an open space of analysis to further investigate the social assistance surveillance through surveillance studies

Making European cult cinema: fan production in an alternative economy

This study gives attention to the fan production surrounding European cult cinema, low budget exploitation films often in the horror genre, that engage a high level of cultural commitment and investment from its fans. It addresses wider issues of debate relating to why people are fans and whether they are anything more than obsessive in their consumption of media. The academic study of fandom is relatively a new area, the formative year being 1992 when studies such as Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers, Lisa Lewis’ The Adoring Audience and Camille Bacon-Smith’s Enterprising Women approached fandom as a cultural activity. Studies such as these celebrate fandom and focus on fan production as a symbolic activity rather than an economic activity. Academics have only recently have academics recognised the commitment, time and effort that fans invest when producing artefacts. I explore the ways European cult cinema fandom might be understood as an alternative economy of fan production by looking at how fans produce artefacts and commodities. It uses a method of data collection, which includes ethnographic observation and interviews, focused on public offline and online fan activities, and my own personal experiences as autoethnography. The collected data is interrogated using a theoretical framework that incorporates ideas from cultural studies and political economy: using the concept of an ‘alternative economy’ of European cult cinema fan production. The purpose being to interpret an object of fandom as a production of meaning, physical artefacts and commodities, therefore understanding fandom as both cultural and economic production. I argue that, in this alternative economy, fans are ‘creative’ workers, using digital technologies to produce artefacts that are exchanged as gifts or commodities; this practice relating to repertoires of professionalism. I find that fans are not just producing artefacts and commodities relating to European cult cinema, but that through these processes they are culturally and economically making what has become known as European cult cinema