Liable, but Not in Control? Ensuring Meaningful Human Agency in Automated Decision-Making Systems

Automated decision making is becoming the norm across large parts of society, which raises interesting liability challenges when human control over technical systems becomes increasingly limited. This article defines "quasi-automation" as inclusion of humans as a basic rubber-stamping mechanism in an otherwise completely automated decision-making system. Three cases of quasi- automation are examined, where human agency in decision making is currently debatable: self- driving cars, border searches based on passenger name records, and content moderation on social media. While there are specific regulatory mechanisms for purely automated decision making, these regulatory mechanisms do not apply if human beings are (rubber-stamping) automated decisions. More broadly, most regulatory mechanisms follow a pattern of binary liability in attempting to regulate human or machine agency, rather than looking to regulate both. This results in regulatory gray areas where the regulatory mechanisms do not apply, harming human rights by preventing meaningful liability for socio-technical decision making. The article concludes by proposing criteria to ensure meaningful agency when humans are included in automated decision-making systems, and relates this to the ongoing debate on enabling human rights in Internet infrastructure

Comparing Travel Time Estimates of Routing Applications in Vienna.

How are travel times displayed by different navigation apps? Do the way in which these work differ for different modes of transportation? We found unexpected divergence in the way travel time is displayed both between apps and within apps, when conducting testing on travel routing apps in Vienna. As a result, this paper will provide a brief overview of how travel times are displayed by commonly used apps in Vienna and how these differ. In conclusion, we will suggest different avenues for additional research based on these findings and illustrate the challenges of user accountability associated with these apps

Governance of Digitalization in Europe A contribution to the Exploration Shaping Digital Policy - Towards a Fair Digital Society? BertelsmannStiftung Study

Digital policy is a unique policy area. As a cross-cutting policy issue, it has an impact not only on individual areas of regulation but on almost all other policy areas as well. Aspects of digital policy such as data regimes, cybersecurity and standardization issues are relevant not only to the the future of the internet or 5G mobile communications infrastructure, but to other areas of our lives to which they are closely linked, which range from automated driving to digital assistance systems in education and healthcare to the digitalization of sectors such as agriculture and construction. Nevertheless, regulation efforts have thus far been primarily sector-specific and national in their scope. With a few exceptions, such as the EU’s controversial General Data Protection Regulation, there are few digital policy frameworks in place for Europe that defines and integrates basic principles for broad application. Instead, we face a situation in which a variety of approaches stand side by side, at times complementing each other but also – all too often – competing with each other in ways that foster inconsistencies. The development of Europe’s 5G infrastructure is illustrative of this state of affairs. Despite the presence of what were originally uniform objectives across Europe, 28 nationally distinct tendering procedures with different requirements have since emerged. As a result, we must now find ways to manage the problems associated with having three or more networks per country, high costs, a difficult debate over security and the threat of dependency on non-EU providers