Regulating Data as Property: A New Construct for Moving Forward

The global community urgently needs precise, clear rules that define ownership of data and express the attendant rights to license, transfer, use, modify, and destroy digital information assets. In response, this article proposes a new approach for regulating data as an entirely new class of property. Recently, European and Asian public officials and industries have called for data ownership principles to be developed, above and beyond current privacy and data protection laws. In addition, official policy guidances and legal proposals have been published that offer to accelerate realization of a property rights structure for digital information. But how can ownership of digital information be achieved? How can those rights be transferred and enforced? Those calls for data ownership emphasize the impact of ownership on the automotive industry and the vast quantities of operational data which smart automobiles and self-driving vehicles will produce. We looked at how, if at all, the issue was being considered in consumer-facing statements addressing the data being collected by their vehicles. To formulate our proposal, we also considered continued advances in scientific research, quantum mechanics, and quantum computing which confirm that information in any digital or electronic medium is, and always has been, physical, tangible matter. Yet, to date, data regulation has sought to adapt legal constructs for “intangible” intellectual property or to express a series of permissions and constraints tied to specific classifications of data (such as personally identifiable information). We examined legal reforms that were recently approved by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law to enable transactions involving electronic transferable records, as well as prior reforms adopted in the United States Uniform Commercial Code and Federal law to enable similar transactions involving digital records that were, historically, physical assets (such as promissory notes or chattel paper). Finally, we surveyed prior academic scholarship in the U.S. and Europe to determine if the physical attributes of digital data had been previously considered in the vigorous debates on how to regulate personal information or the extent, if at all, that the solutions developed for transferable records had been considered for larger classes of digital assets. Based on the preceding, we propose that regulation of digital information assets, and clear concepts of ownership, can be built on existing legal constructs that have enabled electronic commercial practices. We propose a property rules construct that clearly defines a right to own digital information arises upon creation (whether by keystroke or machine), and suggest when and how that right attaches to specific data though the exercise of technological controls. This construct will enable faster, better adaptations of new rules for the ever-evolving portfolio of data assets being created around the world. This approach will also create more predictable, scalable, and extensible mechanisms for regulating data and is consistent with, and may improve the exercise and enforcement of, rights regarding personal information. We conclude by highlighting existing technologies and their potential to support this construct and begin an inventory of the steps necessary to further proceed with this process

ZIH-Info

- Telefondaten im Self-Service-Portal - Inbetriebnahme neuer Loadbalancer im LZR - Migration des SharePoint-Dienstes - ZIH-Windows-Poolmodell in Tharandt - CeBIT 2017: Digitale Transformation - Big-Data in Business - Save the Date! Mitteilung aus dem Dezernat 4 - Anfragen über das OTRS-Ticketsystem möglich - ZIH-Publikationen - Veranstaltunge

Industry 4.0: Germany’s new industrial policy. OSW Report April 2019

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is characterised by the extensive use of the internet and the computerisation & roboticisation of all spheres of the economy. Its symbols today are smartphones and electric cars, but in the near future we will witness the creation and use of smart cities, smart electrical grids and smart factories. Today’s industry is changing at an unprecedented rate. The earlier industrial revolutions, i.e. periods of fundamental changes in the modes of production and communication, proceeded at a much slower pace than those we are observing today. The first industrial revolution utilised coal and steam to mechanise production and transport. The second disseminated the means of mass production by the use of electricity and the internal combustion engine. The third, digital revolution, which began in the middle of the last century, automated industrial production and globalised communication. The German economy, which reached a very high level of sophistication in the industries of the first and second industrial revolutions – in heavy industry, electronics and the automotive branch – did not benefit so greatly from the digital revolution

fh-presse Juni 2018

Ausgabe 3/2018 der fh-press

„Passivität im Kostüm der Aktivität“ – Über Günther Anders’ Kritik kybernetischer Politik im Zeitalter der „totalen Maschine“

Various media-theoretical studies have recently characterized the fourth industrial revolution as a process of all-encompassing technicization and cybernetization. Against this background, this paper seeks to show the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has both witnessed, and negotiated, the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticised not only its tendency of automatization and expansion, but also the circular logic and the “integral power” it rests upon, including the destructive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s oeuvre can indeed shed new light on the techno-logically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime. The aim of the essay is, thus, not only to emphasize the contemporariness of Anders’s critical thought, but also use it to frame a critique vis-à-vis current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as “algorithmic regulation”, “smart states”, “direct technocracy”, and “government as platform”. The essay finally seeks to, through Anders’s lens, address the question of the position and role of the critic in relation to ever expanding technical environments

Teachers in training: Their opinions about the digitization of the educational system and the potential teaching subjects programming and entrepreneurship

In aktuellen Bildungsdebatten wird häufig über die Digitalisierung im Bildungssystem und die potenziellen Unterrichtsfächer Programmieren und Unternehmertum diskutiert. Wenngleich diverse Positionen in den Debatten vertreten werden, ist wenig über die Meinung von derzeitigen Lehramtsstudierenden zu diesen Themenkomplexen bekannt. Die vorliegende Arbeit präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer explorativen Befragung von Lehramtsstudierenden zu den Themen Digitalisierung im Bildungssystem sowie den Unterrichtsfächern Programmieren und Unternehmertum. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Mehrheit der befragten Lehramtsstudierenden den Unterrichtfächern Unternehmertum und Programmieren negativ gegenübersteht: Das Erlernen unternehmerischer Fertigkeiten als auch das Erlernen einer Programmiersprache sollten laut der Mehrheit keine Kernaufgaben schulischer Bildung sein. Zudem sollten beide Fächer weder den Charakter eines Hauptfaches haben noch Pflichtfächer in der Primarstufe, Sekundarstufe 1 und Sekundarstufe 2 sein. Zur Digitalisierung gibt die Mehrheit an, dass sie die Qualität des Bildungssystems zwar verbessern, jedoch nicht für mehr Chancengleichheit sorgen wird. Die Mehrheit gibt an, sich weder im Studium noch in der Freizeit ausreichend mit den Auswirkungen der Digitalisierung auf das Bildungssystem zu beschäftigen. Zudem wird mehrheitlich angegeben, dass man weder ausreichend informiert noch vorbereitet auf die Auswirkungen der Digitalisierung auf das Bildungssystem sei.The digitization of the educational system as well as the potential teaching subjects programming and entrepreneurship are in focus in current educational debates. Whilst different positions towards this manner are represented, there has not been paid a lot of attention towards the opinions of future teachers who are still in training. This paper outlines the results of an explorative survey in which teachers in training gave their opinion. One of the main results is that teachers in training seem to have a rather skeptical view on the potential teaching subjects programming and entrepreneurship: The majority beliefs that the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills as well as the learning of a programming language should not be predominant tasks of the educational system. Furthermore, the majority beliefs that both subjects should not be equal to major subjects (mathematics, languages, etc.) and should not be obligatory in neither primary schools nor high schools nor collegiate. Although the majority of teachers in training beliefs that the digitization is going to improve the quality of the educational system, they also state that it will not equalize chances within the educational system. Moreover, the majority declares to neither deal sufficiently with the impacts of the digitization on the educational system at university nor in their private leisure time. Furthermore, the majority acknowledges that they are neither adequately informed about nor prepared for the impacts of the digitization on the educational system

Business Model Innovation in Times of Crisis: Highway2Hybrid – A Trade Fairs Digital Transformation

The business event industry was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a few weeks, all trade fairs, congresses and events were cancelled in the spring of 2020 and partly replaced by video-conferencing formats as fastest possible alternative in order to reach the goals of the respective industries at least digitally. After more than a year of pandemic, many marketing and business travel budgets were forced to either be cut, frozen, or shifted into online initiatives. The crisis winners of shifted budgets were, for example, the advertising business segments of social media business networks such as LinkedIn. Trade fairs were forced to leverage digital technologies and undergo a significant transformation of their business model in order to survive. This teaching case addresses various aspects of modern live communication in the business event industry and the challenge of combining these elements with digital technologies and services to create added value