Location privacy: The challenges of mobile service devices

Adding to the current debate, this article focuses on the personal data and privacy challenges posed by private industry's use of smart mobile devices that provide location-based services to users and consumers. Directly relevant to personal data protection are valid concerns about the collection, retention, use and accessibility of this kind of personal data, in relation to which a key issue is whether valid consent is ever obtained from users. While it is indisputable that geo-location technologies serve important functions, their potential use for surveillance and invasion of privacy should not be overlooked. Thus, in this study we address the question of how a legal regime can ensure the proper functionality of geo-location technologies while preventing their misuse. In doing so, we examine whether information gathered from geo-location technologies is a form of personal data, how it is related to privacy and whether current legal protection mechanisms are adequate. We argue that geo-location data are indeed a type of personal data. Not only is this kind of data related to an identified or identifiable person, it can reveal also core biographical personal data. What is needed is the strengthening of the existing law that protects personal data (including location data), and a flexible legal response that can incorporate the ever-evolving and unknown advances in technology.postprin

Liability of Internet Host Providers in Defamation Actions: From Gatekeepers to Identifiers

Internet intermediary liabilities in defamation actions have posed vexing legal problems in the new Internet social era of Web 2.0, especially when users can generate and spread their own content anonymously without being easily identified. This often puts host providers of discussion forums in a difficult position. Interestingly, different legal approaches were put forward in three jurisdictions in 2013. First, the European Court of Human Rights held in Delfi AS v Estonia that an Internet news provider was liable for the comments posted by its readers despite the fact that it had removed the objectionable content upon receiving notice from the claimant. Second, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal decided on the liability of online service providers in the case of Oriental Press Group Ltd. v Fevaworks Solutions Ltd. It confirmed the decisions of the lower courts and ruled that the provider of an online discussion forum is liable for defamatory remarks posted by third parties, and that therefore when it has received notification from a complainant it has a duty to remove the defamatory remarks within a reasonable time. In both the Delfi and Feva judgments, what has been decided but far from settled is an online host provider’s duty to monitor. In contrast to these two positions, which treated host providers as gatekeepers, the third alternative was provided by the newly amended Defamation Act of the United Kingdom. To a great extent, the duties and liabilities of host providers under the new regime depend on whether the originator of the defamatory statement can be identified. In comparing and studying the approaches applied by the three above-mentioned legal regimes, this paper argues that it is necessary to have a special regulatory regime for Internet host providers. To be fair to host providers, users and victims of defamatory statements, clear guidelines on host providers’ monitoring duties and ground rules for users should be stated at the outset.preprin

Moving beyond Consent for Citizen Science in Big Data Health Research

Consent has been the cornerstone of personal data privacy regime. This notion is premised on the liberal tenets of individual autonomy, freedom of choice and rationality. More important, consent is only meaningful if data subjects are fully informed and parties are of equal bargaining power. Under orthodox framework, it is believed that privacy can be waived by consent. The above concern is particularly pertinent to citizen science in health and medical research, in which the nature of research is often data intensive with serious implication for individual’s privacy and other interests. Although there is no standard definition for citizen science, it includes generally the gathering and volunteering of data by non-professionals, the participation of non-experts in analysis and scientific experimentation, and public input into research and project. Citizens become experimenters, stakeholders, purveyors of data, research participants or even partners. Consent from citizen scientists is indispensable as it is a constitutive element for self-determination and self-empowerment for participants. Furthermore, consent from data subjects determines the responsibility and accountability of data users. Yet with the advancement of data mining and big data technologies, risks and harm of subsequent data use may not be known at the time of data collection. Progress of research often extends beyond the existing data. Namely, researchers of existing team or even third parties can match data sets to re-identify individuals. Furthermore, big data technology use and transfer of data for other unforeseen purposes maybe outside the control of the original research team. In other words, consent becomes problematic in citizen science in big data era. The model that one can fully specify the terms in notice and consent has become an illusion. Is consent still valid? Should it still be one of the critical criteria in citizen science health research which are collaborative and contributory by nature? With a focus on the issue of consent and privacy protection, this study will analyze not only the traditional informed consent model but also the alternative models of “open consent”, “portable consent,” “dynamic consent,” and “meta consent.” Facing the challenges that big data and citizen science pose to personal data protection and privacy, this paper explores the legal, social and ethical concerns behind the concept of consent. It argues that we need to move beyond the consent paradigm and take into account a much broader context of harm and risk assessment. Ultimately, what lies behind consent are the entailing values of autonomy, fairness and propriety in the name of research.postprin

Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong

Reviewpublished_or_final_versio

Revisiting Privacy and Dignity: Online Shaming in the Global E-Village

Since the introduction of new Web-based technology in the early 21st century, online shaming against those who have violated social norms has been proliferating fast in cyberspace. We have witnessed personal information of targeted individuals being disclosed and displayed for the purpose of humiliation and social condemnation by the anonymous Internet crowd, followed often by harassment and abusive behavior online and offline, resulting in serious disruption of personal life. While public shaming as a form of criminal sanction has been widely discussed in present literature, social policing by shaming transgressions via the Internet is largely a new terrain yet to be explored and studied. Drawing on socio-legal literature on shaming and punishment, and jurisprudence from the English Courts on defamation, harassment and misuse of personal information and the European Court of Human Rights on the relationship between the right to private life and dignity, the discussion will explain how the role of dignity has informed the development of the right to privacy where its value has played a distinctive role. This refers especially to the context in which the plaintiffs could be said to be partly at fault as transgressor-victims. It argues that the recognition and protection of the dignity and privacy of an individual is necessary in order to arrive at norms and values inherent in decent participation in the e-village. In this article, the term “dignity” refers to one’s innate personhood, integrity and self-respect.published_or_final_versio

Defaming by Suggestion: Searching for Search Engine Liability in the Autocomplete Era

Whilst different jurisdictions have yet to reach consensus on search engines’ liability for defamation, Internet giant Google is confronting judges and academics with another challenge: the basis of liability for defamation arising from its Autocomplete function. In 2014, for example, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance held that a claimant whose name was often paired with ‘triad member’ in Autocomplete had a good arguable case of defamation to proceed with and dismissed a claim of summary dismissal application made by Google in Dr Yeung Sau Shing Albert v Google Inc (Yeung v Google). Earlier, in 2013, the Federal Court of Germany held Google to be liable for violating a plaintiff’s personality rights and reputation for associating his name with ‘fraud’ and ‘Scientology’ in an Autocomplete search RS v Google). The legal debate over the liability arising from the Autocomplete function captures the empowering and forbidding power of search engines. In examining the legal reasoning behind the Hong Kong case of Yeung v Google and German case of RS v Google, and comparing the two, this article argues that the orthodox approach to fixing responsibility for defamation, based either on the established English common law notion of publisher or innocent disseminator or the existing categories of passive host, conduit and caching in the relevant European Union Directive, is far from adequate to address the challenges brought about by search engines and their Autocomplete function. Whilst orthodox common law is strict in imposing liability in the case of a person’s participation in publication, and is fixated on identifying his or her state of knowledge and extent of control in the defamation action, the European Union approach is preoccupied with the over-simplified binary of seeing an intermediary as either an active or passive entity. The legal challenge posed by search engines, however, stems from the fact that they run on artificial intelligence. The legal issue should be redirected towards examining the possible role played by the algorithm creators in the content or result generated. Thus, this article argues that, in its Autocomplete function, Google indeed plays a unique role in contributing to defamatory content. Although the Hong Kong Court has not delivered any definitive answer on the role and liability of Google Inc., in a summary application, the German Court has rightly recognised the novel legal challenge that search engine prediction technology presents and treated search engines as a special intermediary processor. In the ‘search-in-progress’ of Autocomplete, Google is neither entirely active nor entirely passive, but rather interactive. Thus, imposing liability on Google in a defamation action based on its Autocomplete function is justified in a notice-and-takedown regime when a substantive complaint has been made.preprin

Nilai-Nilai Pendidikan Islam Dalam Novel Sang Pemimpi Karya Andrea Hirata

Pendidikan merupakan suatu kebutuhan manusia. Pendidikan juga menjadi sarana atau jembatan dalam pelestarian, pengembangan kebudayaan dan kehidupan sesuai dengan tuntutan masyarakat. Pendidikan yang baik adalah pendidikan yang tidak hanya mendekati pendidikan intelektual saja, tetapi juga memperhatikan aspek moral dan akhlaq sehingga tidak terkesan hanya mentransferkan ilmu pengetahuan kepada peserta didik, tetapi memberikan nilai-nilai kehidupan berupa akhlaq dan moral kepada peserta didiknya. Pendidikan Islam sarat dengan nilainilai yang dikandungnya, dimplementasikan oleh semua muslim dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Nilai-nilai tersebut juga tersirat maupun tersurat, terdapat dalam proses belajar mengajar, sumber belajar, dan media pembelajaran termasuk novel. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengidentifikasi nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam yang terkandung dalam novel Sang Pemimpi, dan mengidentifikasi kelebihan dan kekurangan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam. Penelitian ini termasuk penelitian kepustakaan atau library research, karena data yang diambil dari khasanah kepustakaan yang terdiri dari data primer dan data sekunder. Data yang diambil dari dokumentasi yang berhubungan dengan hal-hal atau variable yang berupa transkip, buku, surat kabar, majalah, dan lain sebagainya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif-induktif dalam menganalisa data. Nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam yang terkandung dalam novel Sang Pemimpi, yaitu: nilai keikhlasan, nilai taubat, nilai kesabaran, nilai kejujuran, nilai ketekunan, nilai kesungguhan, nilai berbakti kepada orang tua, nilai rendah hati, nilai kesederhanaan, nilai ketakwaan, dan nilai kasih sayang. Kelebihan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam adalah: Memberikan banyak gambaran dari nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam, menampilkan tokoh yang realistis dan manusiawi, dan menampilkan cerita sesuai tujuan pendidikan Islam. Sedangkan kekurangan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam adalah novel ini tidak menceritakan dengan jelas proses kembali para tokoh dari jalan yang salah menuju jalan yang benar

Nilai-Nilai Pendidikan Islam Dalam Novel Sang Pemimpi Karya Andrea Hirata

Pendidikan merupakan suatu kebutuhan manusia. Pendidikan juga menjadi sarana atau jembatan dalam pelestarian, pengembangan kebudayaan dan kehidupan sesuai dengan tuntutan masyarakat. Pendidikan yang baik adalah pendidikan yang tidak hanya mendekati pendidikan intelektual saja, tetapi juga memperhatikan aspek moral dan akhlaq sehingga tidak terkesan hanya mentransferkan ilmu pengetahuan kepada peserta didik, tetapi memberikan nilai-nilai kehidupan berupa akhlaq dan moral kepada peserta didiknya. Pendidikan Islam sarat dengan nilainilai yang dikandungnya, dimplementasikan oleh semua muslim dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Nilai-nilai tersebut juga tersirat maupun tersurat, terdapat dalam proses belajar mengajar, sumber belajar, dan media pembelajaran termasuk novel. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengidentifikasi nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam yang terkandung dalam novel Sang Pemimpi, dan mengidentifikasi kelebihan dan kekurangan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam. Penelitian ini termasuk penelitian kepustakaan atau library research, karena data yang diambil dari khasanah kepustakaan yang terdiri dari data primer dan data sekunder. Data yang diambil dari dokumentasi yang berhubungan dengan hal-hal atau variable yang berupa transkip, buku, surat kabar, majalah, dan lain sebagainya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif-induktif dalam menganalisa data. Nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam yang terkandung dalam novel Sang Pemimpi, yaitu: nilai keikhlasan, nilai taubat, nilai kesabaran, nilai kejujuran, nilai ketekunan, nilai kesungguhan, nilai berbakti kepada orang tua, nilai rendah hati, nilai kesederhanaan, nilai ketakwaan, dan nilai kasih sayang. Kelebihan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam adalah: Memberikan banyak gambaran dari nilai-nilai pendidikan Islam, menampilkan tokoh yang realistis dan manusiawi, dan menampilkan cerita sesuai tujuan pendidikan Islam. Sedangkan kekurangan novel Sang Pemimpi dalam perspektif pendidikan Islam adalah novel ini tidak menceritakan dengan jelas proses kembali para tokoh dari jalan yang salah menuju jalan yang benar