A children’s rights perspective on the responsibility of social network site providers

It is the aim of this paper to analyse this issue from a children’s right perspective and to identify a theoretical, broader basis that can be used by policymakers to persuade social network site providers to enhance their Corporate Social Responsibility efforts to provide young users with a communication and interaction platform that respects and helps realising their fundamental rights.status: publishe

Making GDPR Usable: A Model to Support Usability Evaluations of Privacy

We introduce a new model for evaluating privacy that builds on the criteria proposed by the EuroPriSe certification scheme by adding usability criteria. Our model is visually represented through a cube, called Usable Privacy Cube (or UP Cube), where each of its three axes of variability captures, respectively: rights of the data subjects, privacy principles, and usable privacy criteria. We slightly reorganize the criteria of EuroPriSe to fit with the UP Cube model, i.e., we show how EuroPriSe can be viewed as a combination of only rights and principles, forming the two axes at the basis of our UP Cube. In this way we also want to bring out two perspectives on privacy: that of the data subjects and, respectively, that of the controllers/processors. We define usable privacy criteria based on usability goals that we have extracted from the whole text of the General Data Protection Regulation. The criteria are designed to produce measurements of the level of usability with which the goals are reached. Precisely, we measure effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction, considering both the objective and the perceived usability outcomes, producing measures of accuracy and completeness, of resource utilization (e.g., time, effort, financial), and measures resulting from satisfaction scales. In the long run, the UP Cube is meant to be the model behind a new certification methodology capable of evaluating the usability of privacy, to the benefit of common users. For industries, considering also the usability of privacy would allow for greater business differentiation, beyond GDPR compliance.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, and appendixe

The distance selling directive: consumer champion or complete irrelevance?

This paper investigates the origins, significant content, UK and EU implementation and outcomes of Directive 97/7/EC on distance selling, hereafter referred to as the Distance Selling Directive (DSD). The DSD has been implemented in national legislation by all EU Member States. In the UK this legislation was the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000 No. 2334), hereafter referred to as the CPDSR

Innovation and social learning in higher education institutions

Considering the existing experiences and the concrete needs of the hearing - impaired and visually - impaired groups for accessing HEI programmes, this handboook brings some important innovations: 1. A functional approach, proposing the methods and procedures to be used for developing and delivering ICT based learning offer valid also for these target group (not specially done for them, but designed in such a way that correspond also to their specific needs). This is that will support the target groups in their education and also social inclusion. 2. A subsequent proposal of a kind of “Quality Label”, to establish quality standards and assessment procedures and instruments to be used for evaluating whether Higher Educational Institutions’ offers and training programmes correspond to the ISOLearn standards regarding the accessibility of these groups to their learning offer. 3. Both the Handbook and the “Quality Label” should be tested on a specific qualification which should become a benchmark for the HEI ICT based learning programmes. The concrete experience will demonstrate the benefits for all the stakeholders (e.g. HEI and disadvantaged groups) of promoting social learning approach in HEI.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

All or nothing: this is the question? The application of article 3(2) Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC to the Internet

The Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (hereinafter the “Directive”) was passed in 1995 to harmonise the national data protection laws within the European Community with the aim of protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals including their privacy as set out under Art. 1 of the Data Protection Directive. The rules governing the processing of personal data are deemed to be inapplicable in the two instances outlined by Art.3(2). Processing of personal data taking place as part of activities falling outside of Community law are excluded from the DPD. The Directive is also deemed to be inapplicable if the processing of personal data is undertaken by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity. It is the second part of Art. 3(2), which is examined in more detail. The ruling by the European Court of Justice in Lindqvist provides us with a fresh opportunity to re-examine whether the policy justifications for the exclusion under Art 3(2) continue to remain relevant in the light of widespread use of new technologies such as blogs, podcasts and web pages for processing and distributing information. Greater clarity regarding the implication of new communication technologies for DPD policy is necessary if the laws on data protection are to evolve in a coherent and principled manner