Data protection on blockchain in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation

https://www.ester.ee/record=b5241039~S

GDPR and Biobanking

This open access book focuses on the discrepancies in biobank research regulations that are among the most significant hurdles to effective research collaboration. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has established stringent requirements for the processing of health and genetic data, while simultaneously allowing considerable multi-level exceptions for the purposes of scientific research. In addition to directly applicable exceptions, the GDPR places the regulatory responsibility for further defining how the Member States strike a balance between the individuals' rights and the public interest in research within their national legal orders. Since Member States' approaches to the trade-off between data subjects' rights on the one hand, and appropriate safeguards on the other, differ according to their ethical and legal traditions, their data protection requirements for research also differ considerably. This study takes a comprehensive approach to determine how the GDPR affects regulatory regimes on the use of personal data in biobanking research, with a particular focus on the balance between individuals' rights, public interest and scientific research. In this regard, it has two main goals: first, to scrutinize the GDPR research regime, its objective and constitutive elements, the impact it has on biobanking, and its role in a changing EU landscape post-Brexit; and second, to examine how various exceptions have been operationalized nationally, and what challenges and opportunities this diversification entails. The book not only captures the complexity GDPR creates for biobanking, but also sheds light on various approaches to tackling the corresponding challenges. It offers the first comprehensive analysis of GDPR for biobanking, and the most up-to-date overview of the national biobank regulatory frameworks in Europe

Anonymization procedures for tabular data: an explanatory technical and legal synthesis

In the European Union, Data Controllers and Data Processors, who work with personal data, have to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation and other applicable laws. This affects the storing and processing of personal data. But some data processing in data mining or statistical analyses does not require any personal reference to the data. Thus, personal context can be removed. For these use cases, to comply with applicable laws, any existing personal information has to be removed by applying the so-called anonymization. However, anonymization should maintain data utility. Therefore, the concept of anonymization is a double-edged sword with an intrinsic trade-off: privacy enforcement vs. utility preservation. The former might not be entirely guaranteed when anonymized data are published as Open Data. In theory and practice, there exist diverse approaches to conduct and score anonymization. This explanatory synthesis discusses the technical perspectives on the anonymization of tabular data with a special emphasis on the European Union’s legal base. The studied methods for conducting anonymization, and scoring the anonymization procedure and the resulting anonymity are explained in unifying terminology. The examined methods and scores cover both categorical and numerical data. The examined scores involve data utility, information preservation, and privacy models. In practice-relevant examples, methods and scores are experimentally tested on records from the UCI Machine Learning Repository’s “Census Income (Adult)” dataset

Global Sceptical Publics: From non-religious print media to ‘digital atheism’

Global Sceptical Publics is the first major study of the significance of different media for the (re)production of non-religious publics and publicity. While much work has documented how religious subjectivities are shaped by media, until now the crucial role of diverse media for producing and participating in religion-sceptical publics and debates has remained under-researched. With some chapters focusing on locations hitherto barely considered by scholarship on non-religion, the book places in comparative perspective how atheists, secularists and humanists engage with media – as means of communication and forming non-religious publics, but also on occasion as something to be resisted. Its conceptually rich interdisciplinary chapters thereby contribute important new insights to the growing field of non-religion studies and to scholarship on media and materiality more generally

Secret texts and cipherballots: secret suffrage and remote electronic voting

Una de les principals preocupacions sobre el vot telemàtic és com preservar el sufragi secret. La llista d’estudis que afirmen que el vot per Internet és incompatible amb el secret del vot és força extensa. Si bé estudis posteriors sobre experiències reals han tingut resultats més matisats, les preocupacions sobre el sufragi secret i el vot telemàtic es mantenen. Abordar aquestes preocupacions esdevé una obligació ineludible. En aquest context, la nostra recerca és novadora. En primer lloc, el nostre punt de partida no es basa en definicions legals preexistents que s'accepten com a donades. Partint de l'enfocament universalista del dret constitucional comparat, hem entès que el principi del sufragi secret transcendeix les opinions i convencions lligades a comunitats polítiques concretes. Aquesta concepció comú i bàsica s'ha traduït en tres estàndards: individualitat, confidencialitat i anonimat. Aquests estàndards s’han de satisfer en qualsevol canal de votació. En segon lloc, hem adoptat un enfocament més ampli en l’aplicació d’aquest principi al vot telemàtic. Hem demostrat que el sufragi secret es pot garantir mitjançant la llei, el codi informàtic, les normes i fins i tot el mercat. La normativa actual tendeix a ser limitada perquè recorre a analogies amb els canals de votació en paper i no reconeix les especificitats del vot telemàtic. Per contra, aquí hem examinat el paper que exerceixen (i les limitacions pròpies) del xifrat asimètric, l'anonimització basada en mix-nets o el recompte homomòrfic, i el vot múltiple.Una de las principales preocupaciones sobre el voto telemático es cómo garantizar el secreto del voto. La lista de autores que afirman que el voto por Internet es incompatible con el sufragio secreto es considerable. Aunque las conclusiones de estudios posteriores sobre experiencias reales hayan sido más matizadas, las preocupaciones sobre el sufragio secreto y el voto telemático se mantienen. Abordar estas preocupaciones constituye en una obligación ineludible. En este contexto, nuestra investigación es novedosa. En primer lugar, nuestro punto de partida no se basa en definiciones legales preexistentes que se aceptan como dadas. Partiendo del enfoque universalista del derecho constitucional comparado, hemos entendido que el principio del sufragio secreto trasciende las opiniones y convenciones ligadas a la cultura de comunidades políticas concretas. Esta concepción se ha traducido en tres normas: individualidad, confidencialidad y anonimato. Estas normas deberían aplicarse a cualquier canal de votación. En segundo lugar, hemos adoptado un enfoque más amplio sobre la aplicación de este principio. Hemos demostrado que el sufragio secreto puede garantizarse mediante la ley, el código, las normas e incluso el mercado. La normativa actual tiende a ser limitada porque recurre a analogías con los canales de votación en papel y no reconoce las especificidades del voto telemático.One of the key concerns about remote electronic voting is how to preserve secret suffrage. The list of authors who claim that Internet voting is incompatible with the secrecy of the vote is actually quite long. Even if later studies that analysed the actual implementation of remote electronic voting in public political elections had more nuanced findings, concerns about secret suffrage and remote electronic voting remain. Addressing these concerns becomes an inescapable obligation. In this context, our research is quite novel. First and foremost, our starting point is not based on pre-existing legal definitions that are accepted as given. Drawing from the universalist approach to comparative constitutional law, we have understood that the principle of secret suffrage exists in such a way that it transcends the culture bound opinions and conventions of particular political communities. This core understanding has been translated into three standards: individuality, confidentiality, and anonymity. These standards should apply to any voting channel. Second, we have taken a wider approach at the enforcement of this principle. We have showed that secret suffrage may be enforced through law, code, norms, and even the market. Current regulations tend to be constrained because they resort to analogies with paper-based voting channels and fail to acknowledge the specificities of remote electronic voting. In contrast, we have examined the role played by (and the limitations of) asymmetric encryption, anonymization based on mix-nets or homomorphic tallying, and of multiple voting to enforce secret suffrage