About Migration Flows and Sentiment Analysis on Twitter Data: Building the Bridge Between Technical and Legal approaches to data protection

Sentiment analysis has always been an important driver of political decisions and campaigns across all fields. Novel technologies allow automatizing analysis of sentiments on a big scale and hence provide allegedly more accurate outcomes. With user numbers in the billions and their increasingly important role in societal discussions, social media platforms become a glaring data source for these types of analysis. Due to its public availability, the relative ease of access and the sheer amount of available data, the Twitter API has become a particularly important source to researchers and data analysts alike. Despite the evident value of these data sources, the analysis of such data comes with legal, ethical and societal risks that should be taken into consideration when analysing data from Twitter. This paper describes these risks along the technical processing pipeline and proposes related mitigation measures

Safeguarding the Evidential Value of Forensic Cryptocurrency Investigations

Analyzing cryptocurrency payment flows has become a key forensic method in law enforcement and is nowadays used to investigate a wide spectrum of criminal activities. However, despite its widespread adoption, the evidential value of obtained findings in court is still largely unclear. In this paper, we focus on the key ingredients of modern cryptocurrency analytics techniques, which are clustering heuristics and attribution tags. We identify internationally accepted standards and rules for substantiating suspicions and providing evidence in court and project them onto current cryptocurrency forensics practices. By providing an empirical analysis of CoinJoin transactions, we illustrate possible sources of misinterpretation in algorithmic clustering heuristics. Eventually, we derive a set of legal key requirements and translate them into a technical data sharing framework that fosters compliance with existing legal and technical standards in the realm of cryptocurrency forensics. Integrating the proposed framework in modern cryptocurrency analytics tools could allow more efficient and effective investigations, while safeguarding the evidential value of the analysis and the fundamental rights of affected persons

D2.3 Report on human rights, ethical, societal and data protection risks assessments

This report aims to identify the specific legal and ethical risks posed by the project in relation to the obligations derived from the legal and ethical framework. It includes an Ethical and Societal Impact Assessment and a Data Protection Impact Assessment, which take particular attention to the project research activities related to the creation of the EUMigraTool (EMT) and the processing of migrants' personal data. As a result of these impact assessments, a set of mitigation measures are presented to minimise the identified ethical, societal, and legal risks

D2.5 Report on the Legal, Societal Impact and Ethical Monitoring of the ITFLOWS

This Deliverable includes insights in the ad hoc and ongoing monitoring process of the project both from an internal and external perspective with the aim of ensuring the implementation of the ITFLOWS Regulatory model at all stages of the project research activities and particularly with regard to the EUMigraTool. For better oversight it distinguishes between data protection perspective (FIZ), the ethical perspective (UAB), the societal perspective otherwise known as the human rights considerations (BUL) and the gender perspective (UAB). It also includes the external and independent monitoring carried out by the Independent Ethics Board, the Data Protection Advisor, and the Independent Gender Committee. This report is the first version of the Report on the legal, societal impact and ethical monitoring of ITFLOWS. As the monitoring process is ongoing, its outcomes will be shared within the project over the course of the project on a regular basis. The overall results and an evaluation of the process will be included in the second and final version of the report in M3

D2.1 Report on the ITFLOWS International and European Legal Frameworks on Migrants And Refugees and ITFLOWS Ethical Framework

This report sets the International and EU legal and ethical basis upon which the ITFLOWS research, activities and recommendations will be based. The ITFLOWS project develops tools that will allow carefully selected entities to predict migration flows and will support them to prepare in advance the reception and integration of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in a coordinated, efficient and effective manner. It will also be used as the basis of ITFLOWS work, all the requirements that the partners will have to fulfil for any action relating to the project. It ensures that the EUMigraTool and all other deliverables will be in line with all International and EU law norms relevant to migration and refugee legislation. It also is the basis for any research and activity facilitating integration. Special focus is paid on the General Data Protection as well as the potential ethical implications that need to be taken into consideration during the ITFLOWS research

Optogenetic tools for manipulation of cyclic nucleotides functionally coupled to cyclic nucleotide‐gated channels

Background and Purpose The cyclic nucleotides cAMP and cGMP are ubiquitous second messengers regulating numerous biological processes. Malfunctional cNMP signalling is linked to diseases and thus is an important target in pharmaceutical research. The existing optogenetic toolbox in Caenorhabditis elegans is restricted to soluble adenylyl cyclases, the membrane‐bound Blastocladiella emersonii CyclOp and hyperpolarizing rhodopsins; yet missing are membrane‐bound photoactivatable adenylyl cyclases and hyperpolarizers based on K+ currents. Experimental Approach For the characterization of photoactivatable nucleotidyl cyclases, we expressed the proteins alone or in combination with cyclic nucleotide‐gated channels in muscle cells and cholinergic motor neurons. To investigate the extent of optogenetic cNMP production and the ability of the systems to depolarize or hyperpolarize cells, we performed behavioural analyses, measured cNMP content in vitro, and compared in vivo expression levels. Key Results We implemented Catenaria CyclOp as a new tool for cGMP production, allowing fine‐control of cGMP levels. We established photoactivatable membrane‐bound adenylyl cyclases, based on mutated versions (“A‐2x”) of Blastocladiella and Catenaria (“Be,” “Ca”) CyclOp, as N‐terminal YFP fusions, enabling more efficient and specific cAMP signalling compared to soluble bPAC, despite lower overall cAMP production. For hyperpolarization of excitable cells by two‐component optogenetics, we introduced the cAMP‐gated K+‐channel SthK from Spirochaeta thermophila and combined it with bPAC, BeCyclOp(A‐2x), or YFP‐BeCyclOp(A‐2x). As an alternative, we implemented the B. emersonii cGMP‐gated K+‐channel BeCNG1 together with BeCyclOp. Conclusion and Implications We established a comprehensive suite of optogenetic tools for cNMP manipulation, applicable in many cell types, including sensory neurons, and for potent hyperpolarization.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Peer Reviewe