Access and Reuse of Machine-Generated Data for Scientific Research

Data driven innovation holds the potential in transforming current business and knowledge discovery models. For this reason, data sharing has become one of the central points of interest for the European Commission towards the creation of a Digital Single Market. The value of automatically generated data, which are collected by Internet-connected objects (IoT), is increasing: from smart houses to wearables, machine-generated data hold significant potential for growth, learning, and problem solving. Facilitating researchers in order to provide access to these types of data implies not only the articulation of existing legal obstacles and of proposed legal solutions but also the understanding of the incentives that motivate the sharing of the data in question. What are the legal tools that researchers can use to gain access and reuse rights in the context of their research

From data subjects to data suspects: challenging e-proctoring systems as a university practice

E-proctoring is a set of software and tools to monitor students’ behaviour during online examinations. Many universities have implemented this type of invigilation in response to the lockdowns during the pandemic to guarantee the validity and the integrity of exams. However, the intrusiveness of such technology into the students’ personal environment along with major accuracy problems (e.g., in authenticating black students) has attracted the scrutiny of various European data protection authorities and, more recently, equality bodies. In this paper, we critically approach the European normative framework available in countering the risks and situations of harms generated by e-proctoring through the lenses of data protection and anti-discrimination law. This work, in particular, is one of the first to systematise and analyse the corpus of online proctoring-related decisions that have emerged in the EU over the past three years. After an overview of the technical aspects of such technology and an outline of the legal issues debated in the literature, the paper will reconstruct and discuss the convergences and divergences in how courts and independent authorities have assessed the lawfulness of online invigilation tools. In our analysis, we observe that such instruments were evaluated differently depending on the concrete features implemented. However, with some notable exceptions, the General Data Protection Regulation and the anti-discrimination framework have largely proven helpful to combat the most intrusive forms of e-proctoring deployment or to mitigate their risks. Nevertheless, to ensure a safer and fairer educational environment, we conclude that a few crucial issues—including the effectiveness of the collective enforcement of rights, discriminatory effects for people not covered by a protected ground, and the governance of edTech within the university—should be further taken into account

From data subjects to data suspects : challenging e-proctoring systems as a university practice

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Didattica di emergenza o Emergency Remote Teaching: un'analisi empirica in tema di privacy e diritto d'autore dei termini e condizioni dei servizi online più diffusi

Questo Working Paper si propone di fare luce su aspetti critici e potenziali problematiche nascoste nella “giungla” di termini e condizioni delle piattaforme online più diffuse per la didattica di emergenza. L’obiettivo è quello di verificare se le informazioni fornite agli utenti di tali servizi possano considerarsi sufficientemente chiare, esaustive ed appropriate affinché i docenti possano svolgere le attività didattiche ed interagire con i propri studenti senza preoccuparsi di possibili conseguenze giuridiche sfavorevoli, dando libero sfogo alla loro creatività e contando su un’adeguata tutela della loro privacy. A tal fine, lo studio qui presentato esamina termini e condizioni di servizio, privacy policy e community guideline (di seguito, collettivamente, termini) di nove servizi online selezionati tra quelli più comunemente utilizzati dai docenti universitari in Europa per l’insegnamento nelle recenti circostanze di ER

Appetite Control across the Lifecourse: The Acute Impact of Breakfast Drink Quantity and Protein Content. The Full4Health Project

Understanding the mechanisms of hunger, satiety and how nutrients affect appetite control is important for successful weight management across the lifecourse. The primary aim of this study was to describe acute appetite control across the lifecourse, comparing age groups (children, adolescents, adults, elderly), weight categories, genders and European sites (Scotland and Greece). Participants (n = 391) consumed four test drinks, varying in composition (15% (normal protein, NP) and 30% (high protein, HP) of energy from protein) and quantity (based on 100% basal metabolic rate (BMR) and 140% BMR), on four separate days in a double-blind randomized controlled study. Ad libitum energy intake (EI), subjective appetite and biomarkers of appetite and metabolism (adults and elderly only) were measured. The adults’ appetite was significantly greater than that of the elderly across all drink types (p 0.004) and in response to drink quantities (p 0.001). There were no significant differences in EI between age groups, weight categories, genders or sites. Concentrations of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and peptide YY (PYY) were significantly greater in the elderly than the adults (p 0.001). Ghrelin and fasting leptin concentrations differed significantly between weight categories, genders and sites (p 0.05), while GLP-1 and PYY concentrations differed significantly between genders only (p 0.05). Compared to NP drinks, HP drinks significantly increased postprandial GLP-1 and PYY (p 0.001). Advanced age was concomitant with reduced appetite and elevated anorectic hormone release, which may contribute to the development of malnutrition. In addition, appetite hormone concentrations differed between weight categories, genders and geographical locations

The Creative Commons licenses

L’emploi largement répandu des licences Creative Commons, en vue de partager des oeuvres non logicielles, justifie le choix de leur consacrer une étude, afin d’apprécier leur rapprochement actuel au régime légale de la propriété littéraire et artistique et afin d’envisager de conciliations prospectives. L’étude relève la singularité de Creative Commons en tant que système de gestion des droits d’auteur ; ce dernier, composé d’une série de licences, est guidé par une association de promotion du partage d’oeuvres et mu par une idéologie fondée sur l’autonomie de la volonté des auteurs. L’hypothèse de notre étude repose sur la variété constatée des libertés accordées par les licences. Ces dernières se transforment en une série d’outils standardisés qui s’imposent progressivement comme une norme pour la jouissance partagée d’oeuvres – tout en se fondant sur les règles du droit d’auteur. En même temps, l’étude des conséquences de la mise en oeuvre de chaque licence illustre la création d’asymétries entre les acteurs du partage. Notamment, si la distinction entre utilisation commerciale et non commerciale – introduite par les licences – constitue un outil deconciliation du régime propriétaire avec celui du partage créatif, l’utilisation de la notion ambiguë d'utilisation non commerciale influence le sort des licences et complique le processus évolutif des oeuvres partagées. L’affinement de la variété des licences conduit l’étude à s’atteler à l’examen des mécanismes prospectifs afin d’aboutir à une coordination des licences avec le droit d’auteur qui serait fondée sur le principe fondateur de Creative Commons, à savoir l’essai de rééquilibrage des intérêts impliqués au droit d’auteur.The widespread use of the Creative Commons licenses for the sharing of non-software works demonstrates the imperative to devote a study to the licenses in question. The goal of the study is to assess the current links of the licenses to the legal regime of intellectual property in order to suggest prospective ones. The study underlines the singularity of Creative Commons as a copyright management system, which consists of a series of licenses and is guided by an association promoting the sharing of works and by an ideology based on the autonomy of the authors. The premise of the thesis is founded on the variety of freedoms granted by the licenses. The licenses transform into a series of standardized tools that are gradually imposed as a standard for the sharing of works while relying on the rules of copyright. At the same time, the analysis of the consequences of the implementation of each license demonstrates the asymmetries created between the agents involved in the sharing process. In particular, our study shows that although the distinction between commercial and non commercial introduced by the licenses acts as a conciliation tool between the proprietary regime and that of the creative sharing, the introduction of an ambiguous concept - that of non-commercial use - influences the fate of licenses and complicates the evolutionary process of shared works. One way to resolve this tension proposed by our thesis is to review prospective mechanisms that would achieve a level of coordination between the licenses and copyright based on the founding principle of Creative Commons, which is the rebalancing of the interests involved in copyright