Revisiting the legal regulation of digital identity in the light of global implementation and local difference

This thesis aims to address a vital gap that has emerged in the digital identity regulatory discourse: how can the legal regulation of digital identity mirror the global nature of digital identity and be compatible with national local difference? Digital identity, or the digital representation of an individual, is a complex concept, which manifests in myriad forms (e.g. authenticators, claims, data or information, identifiers, presence, relationship representations and reputation) and natures. As such, it engages a gamut of legal domains ranging from criminal law, constitutional law, human rights law, law of identity schemes, contract law, intellectual property law, tort law and data protection law. Digital identity is global and local in its nature, influence and effects. Yet, the digital identity regulatory discourse has primarily developed in and focussed on the digitally advanced West, leaving out countries like India which are developing strong digital presences, with their own digital identity perceptions and needs. This situation is adverse to the sustained future of digital identity. Thus, the contribution of this thesis lies in filling this gap and preparing the ground for a dialogue between different countries with different national agendas through building international and local awareness of how similarities and differences operate in respect of digital identity, its regulation and providing a modest solution to help preserve the global and local dimensions of digital identity and its regulation. To this end, the thesis carried out comparative legal research on the legal regulation of digital identity using the UK and India as base jurisdictions. The original hypothesis was that that immense differences in the legal regulation of digital identity between the comparator countries would emerge. Yet, though differences were evident, considerable degrees of similarity also emerged, not just on the superficial level of mere identity of rules, but also in legal practice, in large part attributable to India’s penchant for legal transplants. While the transplantation of Western law did not result in a full-scale rejection of the transplanted laws in relation to digital identity in India, there are indications of anomalies caused by the imposition of Western cultural norms through law on an Indian society ill prepared for it. Thus there has resulted a tension between the local and the global, the indigenous and the externally imposed. The challenge is thus to resolve this, taking into account, on the one hand the need to maintain the global nature and relevance of digital identity and the other, the need to accommodate and be responsive to local differences. The thesis proposes a tentative solution called the tri-elemental framework (TeF) which draws from the Indian philosophical and legal concept of dharma (and its elements of Sad Achara, Vyavahara and Prayaschitta) and learns from the most universally relevant digital identity proposal, De Hert’s right to identity. The solution provides one way in which the law regulating digital identity, whatever its nature, can be made sense of and acquire cultural meaning appropriate to local contexts

Suggesting a Legal Framework to Construct the Arab Economic Union Post “Arab Uprising”

PhD thesisThroughout the past decade, major non-GCC countries in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA), also referred to as the “Arab Region” have undergone major structural changes and reforms in their political, legal, economic, military and social regimes. However, seven years ago, the trend of change took a serious and unprecedented diversion known as the “Arab Spring” and which has brought damaging security, economic and social repercussions and aftermaths on the Arab World in general. As a result, the long-awaited dream of Arab unity has been jeopardised more than ever. Nevertheless, history has proven that times of transition are times for change, and thus the current turbulent Arab situation could be utilised as the golden gate and one-time opportunity to achieve the desired transformation towards Arab economic integration and unification, which, if successful, could place the Arab World in pole positions along with global economic giants and gurus. This research represents a new regulatory approach to regional economic integration. The purpose of this research is to suggest legal, constitutional and structural frameworks for the creation of an Arab Economic Union. This research incorporates the findings of available and existing work on the various attempts of Arab economic integration, and it explores the development, failures and accomplishments in this sphere. In addition, the research fills into the gap of the existing work through exploring former experiences and suggesting a new innovative and speculative constitutional structure of the desired AEU. The research also displays the historic and current economic models and discusses the outcomes of main integration attempts. More importantly it suggests a comprehensive institutional structure for the desired AEU in a detailed manner, and observes economic operational liberty through the performance of currently existence trading blocs. Moreover, and in an unprecedented manner, this research discusses the role of Arab migrant workers’ remittances to enhance the development of the desired AEU. Over and above, the research demonstrates the New Arab Model through proposing the innovative “Shamgate Treaty” and argues that times of commotion, security instability and economic disorder pose the best time for change through economic unity based on common interests between member states, based on economic functionalism

Paradiplomacy and Protodiplomacy in World Practice: A Comparative Case Study of Conflict and International Development in Quebec, Catalonia and Kurdistan

In accordance with the growing engagement of substate entities (SE) in international affairs, paradiplomacy [foreign policy actions of SEs] and protodiplomacy [secessionist form of paradiplomacy] represent an expanding debate in which SEs are characterized as: (1) “complementary” or “extra” units to traditional states, (2) neofunctionalist constituents of [European] regional integration, and (3) constructivist [green, global or nationalist] units of global governance. The level/scope of sharing state-power is a key issue in the debates setting the frontiers for paradiplomacy, eventually limiting the political-economic space for substate development in a state-centric world of politics. Beyond the mainstream views, this study proposed a new model with SEs being the “Schumpeterian” pioneers of governance, international development and conflict. In the context of dynamically evolving global political economy and the deformation/failure of post-colonial states, SEs are increasingly “pro-active” units with state-alike functions of territoriality, security, constitution making, international agreements and even “hard-policy” engagement, clearly seen in the Kurdish regions. Comparing the key intrinsic case: the quadri-regional Kurdish paradiplomacy (between Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran) with Quebec and Catalonia, this study focuses on progressive vs. antagonist policies/practices of states towards SEs. Investigating the intersection between paradiplomacy, international development and conflict in divided societies, this study argues that progressive power-sharing yields superior outcomes compared to rigid centralized systems of state-power. Solid evidence shows how SEs have diverse enhanced roles of building capacity, resilience, and self-competency in various areas of policy through the use of paradiplomacy, with the premise of tackling contemporary challenges of world politics

The More the Merrier - Federated Learning from Local Sphere Recommendations

Part 6: MAKE SemanticsInternational audienceWith Google’s Federated Learning & Facebook’s introduction of client-side NLP into their chat service, the era of client-side Machine Learning is upon us. While interesting ML approaches beyond the realm of toy examples were hitherto confined to large data-centers and powerful GPU’s, exponential trends in technology and the introduction of billions of smartphones enable sophisticated processing swarms of even hand-held devices. Such approaches hold several promises: 1. Without the need for powerful server infrastructures, even small companies could be scalable to millions of users easily and cost-efficiently; 2. Since data only used in the learning process never need to leave the client, personal information can be used free of privacy and data security concerns; 3. Since privacy is preserved automatically, the full range of personal information on the client device can be utilized for learning; and 4. without round-trips to the server, results like recommendations can be made available to users much faster, resulting in enhanced user experience. In this paper we propose an architecture for federated learning from personalized, graph based recommendations computed on client devices, collectively creating & enhancing a global knowledge graph. In this network, individual users will ‘train’ their local recommender engines, while a server-based voting mechanism aggregates the developing client-side models, preventing over-fitting on highly subjective data from tarnishing the global model

Winona Daily News

https://openriver.winona.edu/winonadailynews/1551/thumbnail.jp