Take 2: Personal data and dynamic IPs – time for clarity?

Damian Clifford and Jessica Schroers, legal researchers at KU Leuven, look at whether dynamic IP addresses fall within the scope of European Data Protection legislation given the identifiability of users based on the processing of IP addresses. In this post, they examine the written submissions and the hearing of the the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which provide some direction on whether dynamic IP addresses can be interpreted as personal data

Integrative advertising : the marketing 'dark side' or merely the emperor's new clothes?

This paper assesses the move towards more 'integrative advertising' methods which rely on the mixing of commercial and non-commercial content, and the suitability of the current EU legislative framework to deal with such developments. In essence, the paper examines the 'identification' and 'transparency' principles in the context of online advertising. This analysis allows for the drawing of conclusions vis-à-vis future policy initiatives and enforcement challenges. The paper states that for true advertising literacy mere identification of commercial communications is insufficient and that efforts need to be made in order to educate consumers (especially children) to allow for the continuing relevance and reliance on the notion of the average consumer

Gender incongruence in children, adolescents, and adults.

More individuals are requesting medical assistance for gender uncertainty or dysphoria and provision of adult NHS gender identity services (GIS) is changing. Despite minimal medical input to polarised debates, several issues are potentially concerning: reports of poor care; rapid rises in referrals of children and young people to GIS; public conflation of biological sex with socially influenced gender roles; and extensive uncertainty in the evidence base to guide practice. Medical practice should happen within robust human rights frameworks where individual patients always have their concerns heard. Generalists, with expertise in whole-person care, handling uncertainty and complexity, have a key role when consulted by identity-questioning and transgender individuals for routine care, gender identity concerns, treatments recommended by private or NHS services, or for referral. Presentations with prior emotional trauma, co-existing mental or neurodevelopmental issues, or ‘bridging hormones’ requests may make primary care professionals uneasy. Without a considered approach to practice, high-quality evidence and guidance, a policy of active ‘affirmation’ and ‘treat or refer’ may lead to more people receiving medical interventions with uncertain outcomes

Dark Patterns and the Legal Requirements of Consent Banners: An Interaction Criticism Perspective

User engagement with data privacy and security through consent banners has become a ubiquitous part of interacting with internet services. While previous work has addressed consent banners from either interaction design, legal, and ethics-focused perspectives, little research addresses the connections among multiple disciplinary approaches, including tensions and opportunities that transcend disciplinary boundaries. In this paper, we draw together perspectives and commentary from HCI, design, privacy and data protection, and legal research communities, using the language and strategies of "dark patterns" to perform an interaction criticism reading of three different types of consent banners. Our analysis builds upon designer, interface, user, and social context lenses to raise tensions and synergies that arise together in complex, contingent, and conflicting ways in the act of designing consent banners. We conclude with opportunities for transdisciplinary dialogue across legal, ethical, computer science, and interactive systems scholarship to translate matters of ethical concern into public policy.Comment: 18 page

Contact-Tracing Technologies and the Problem of Trust—Framing a Right of Social Dialogue for an Impact Assessment Process in Pandemic Times

While technologies offer potentially powerful tools to help address complex social challenges, experience shows that they may fail to meet expectations and may also raise challenges of their own, including for privacy and other data rights. To what extent can these difficulties be ascribed to a lack of public trust undermining the technologies’ effectiveness and disputing their legitimacy? The Australian and Dutch pandemic contact-tracing apps considered in this article suggest part of an answer to this question. As our case studies show, the greater efforts made by the Dutch Government to address a range of rights and provide for wide consultation in the CoronaMelder app’s various impact assessments paid off in terms of a better-designed app that was more broadly conversant with human rights than its Australian COVIDSafe counterpart, and was also more trusted—even if these benefits were still marginal compared to manual contact-tracking, especially in already marginalised communities. We argue that the Dutch experience should now be taken further to frame a right of social dialogue allowing data rights subjects to participate fully in the impact assessment process. We hope (and expect) this would result in better decision-making and improved public trust in ‘truly trustworthy’ technologies developed and deployed in response to a pandemic. However, ultimately, our more basic argument is that rights, premised on dignity and liberty, are of value and should be respected, including—indeed especially—in pandemic times

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Advancements in dementia research, diagnostics and care in Latin America : highlights from the 2023 Alzheimer's association international conference satellite symposium in Mexico City

While Latin America (LatAm) is facing an increasing burden of dementia due to the rapid aging of the population, it remains underrepresented in dementia research, diagnostics and care. In 2023, the Alzheimer’s Association hosted its eighth Satellite Symposium in Mexico, highlighting emerging dementia research, priorities, and challenges within LatAm. A wide range of topics were covered, including epidemiology, social determinants, dementia national plans, risk reduction, genetics, biomarkers, biobanks, and advancements in treatments. Large initiatives in the region including intra-country support showcased their efforts in fostering national and international collaborations; genetic studies unveiled the unique genetic admixture in LatAm; emerging clinical trials discussed ongoing culturally specific interventions; and the urgent need to harmonize practices and studies, improve diagnosis and care and implement affordable biomarkers in the region was highlighted

The Developments in Ethnographic Studies of Organizing: Towards Objects of Ignorance and Objects of Concern

In this introduction to the Special Issue, we review the rich tradition of ethnographic studies in organisation studies and critically examine the place of ethnography in organisation studies as practised in schools of business and management. Drawing on the findings of the articles published here, we reflect on the need for a significant extension of the content and syllabus of our discipline to include what we call objects of concern and objects of ignorance. The articles we publish show that decision makers in organizations are not always humans, and nor can we assume the human and its groups monopolise the capacity for agency in organisation. Where we still labour in organisation theory with dualisms such as structure or agent, or subject and object, these articles trace objects and their relations which point to new forms of non-human co-ordination and agency. The organisational realities to which these objects give rise demand careful methodological enquiry, and we show that recent experiments in a genre we call ‘post-reflexive ethnography’ are likely to prove helpful for developing ethnographic enquiry in contemporary organisation