Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

The 2012 CLSR-LSPI seminar on privacy, data protection & cyber-security – Presented at the 7th international conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT law (LSPI) October 2–4, 2012, Athens

This has been a big year for privacy with so much going on within the EU regarding reform of data protection. What are the implications of reform here and what are the issues that concern us about the proposed new data protection regime contained in the proposed Regulation? We hear a lot about the ‘right to be forgotten’. How is that possible in the digital age within the online world? And what can be done about the big players who stand charged with the erosion of privacy viz Facebook, Google, Skype & YouTube etc? How can the law keep up with technological change when the latter is moving so fast e.g. with RFID, Cloud and social networking? To what extent can data breach notification, net neutrality and privacy impact assessment help and how should the law approach issues of liability and criminality in relation to privacy? What is the state of play too in the relationship between privacy policy and state surveillance and, given its implications for privacy, what obligations should governments adopt in response to cybersecurity regulation and data management? Is there a place for privacy self-regulation and if so in what respects and how effective are the Information Commissioners who often complain of being under resourced? In reviewing the way privacy law has emerged do we now need a completely new approach to the whole issue? Has the law crept into its present form simply by default? Do we need some new thinking now that reflects the fact that law is only one dimension in the battle for privacy? If so what are the other factors we need to recognise

The 2013 CLSR-LSPI seminar on electronic identity: The global challenge - Presented at the 8th International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy issues in IT Law (LSPI) November 11-15, 2013, Tilleke & Gibbins International Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand

We are the middle of a global identity crisis. New notions of identity are made possible in the online world where people eagerly share their personal data and leave ‘digital footprints'. Multiple, partial identities emerge distributed across cyberspace divorced from the physical person. The representation of personal characteristics in data sets, together with developing technologies and systems for identity management, in turn change how we are identified. Trustworthy means of electronic identification is now a key issue for business, governments and individuals in the fight against online identity crime. Yet, along with the increasing economic value of digital identity, there are also risks of identity misuse by organisations that mine large data sets for commercial purposes and in some cases by governments. Data proliferation and the non-transparency of processing practices make it impossible for the individual to track and police their use. Potential risks encompass not only threats to our privacy, but also knowledge-engineering that can falsify digital profiles attributed to us with harmful consequences. This panel session will address some of the big challenges around identity in the digital age and what they mean for policy and law (its regulation and protection). Questions for discussion include: What does identity mean today? What types of legal solutions are fit for purpose to protect modern identity interests? What rights, obligations and responsibilities should be associated with our digital identities? Should identity management be regulated and who should be held liable and for what? What should be the role of private and public sectors in identity assurance schemes? What are the global drivers of identity policies? How can due process be ensured where automated technologies affect the rights and concerns of citizens? How can individuals be more empowered to control their identity data and give informed consent to its use? How are biometrics and location tracking devices used in body surveillance changing the identity landscape

The 2014 CLSR-LSPI Lisbon seminar on ‘the digital citizen’ – Presented at the 9th International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Law (LSPI) 15–17 October 2014, Vieira De Almeida & Associados, Lisbon, Portugal

‘The Digital Citizen’ has become a buzzword in recent years as part of the social and economic agendas of many countries and as a key theme in the strategy for Europe 2020. In 2014, the Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, described its emergence as “people with greater access to information, people empowered to shape the world around them. More able to both learn: and participate”.1 Yet, while the benefits of this vision are clear, harnessing the opportunities on offer requires confronting significant challenges.In seeking to explore what this empowering concept means for law and policy-makers today, this Seminar is intended to encourage reflection upon how increasing digitisation and hyper-connectivity affects our day-to-day interactions with those in power, as well as the security and privacy issues arising from them. For example, in many countries the development of new forms of digital identity management enables citizens to assert their identity electronically in order to access public services (such as online access to their medical data). However, these can only work optimally when supported by citizen-centric policy and legal frameworks that are technology-neutral, trust enhancing and mutually recognised across borders.New data-driven and virtual relationships with governments also necessitate a reconsideration of the rights that digital citizen deserve. On the one hand, the ease with which increasing amounts of accessible personal data can be collected – overtly or covertly – and analysed by states about their citizens' raises concerns about lost privacy controls and substantial power imbalances (such as regarding storage and access rights to such data). On the other hand, massive improvements in accessing information permit opportunities for greater engagement with government by individuals, yet assume the rollout of better and faster internet connectivity for all citizens to participate. In turn, social media has demonstrated how ICT can facilitate collective citizen activism to pressure for societal change, alongside the power of sousveillance to act as a countervailing force to pervasive state monitoring.Also ripe for discussion is the notion of reciprocal responsibilities between citizens and governments. In the physical space, for example, concerns are mounting over the implications of the advent of cheap wearable computers and drones. In the virtual domain, the borderless nature of the online world and its distributed control has connotations for a wider concept of networked citizenship with attendant rights. This led the creator of the Web – Sir Tim Berners-Lee – to call for a Bill of Rights (a ‘Magna Carta for the Web’) in 2014, the Web's 25th birthday, to protect its users. Citizen rights that already exist relevant to the online environment are scattered across various laws and are not always easy to understand. The roles of transnational institutions in fostering closer international cooperation on ICT policy, as well as strengthening confidence in privacy, consumer and data protection rights online, are also topics for discussion in this respect.Questions for discussion include: What does digital citizenship mean today? What rights, obligations and responsibilities should be associated with digital citizenship? What types of legal solutions are fit for purpose to protect digital citizenship interests? What should be the role of public sectors in e-identity assurance schemes, such as regarding liability? Should e-identity management be regulated? How does digital citizenship relate to novel rights, such as a right to public-sector data and a right to be forgotten online, and how might these rights be enforced effectively? To what extent can law and policy support increase transparency and trust by citizens in the actions of their governments? How can privacy and security be guaranteed to citizens where automated technologies affect their rights and civil liberties? How are biometrics and location-tracking devices used by states in body surveillance changing the digital citizenship landscape? How can individuals be more empowered to control their personal data held by governments and give informed consent to its use? What are the global drivers of digital citizenship policies and international cooperation in rule making and standard setting, especially in relation to emerging sensor-embedded technologies that will change the lives of citizens dramatically in the future

Identity crisis: global challenges of identity protection in a networked world

Modern identity is valuable, multi-functional and complex. Today we typically manage multiple versions of self, made visible in digital trails distributed widely across offline and online spaces. Yet, technology-mediated identity leads us into crisis. Enduring accessibility to greater and growing personal details online, alongside increases in both computing power and data linkage techniques, fuel fears of identity exploitation. Will it be stolen? Who controls it? Are others aggregating or analysing our identities to infer new data about us without our knowledge or consent? New challenges present themselves globally around these fears, as manifested by concerns over massive online data breaches and automated identification technologies, which also highlight the conundrum faced by governments about how to safeguard individuals' interests on the Web while striking a fair balance with wider public interests. This paper reflects upon some of these problems as part of the inter-disciplinary, transatlantic ‘SuperIdentity’ project investigating links between cyber and real-world identifiers. To meet the crisis, we explore the relationship between identity and digitisation from the perspective of policy and law. We conclude that traditional models of identity protection need supplementing with new ways of thinking, including pioneering ‘technical-legal’ initiatives that are sensitive to the different risks that threaten our digital identity integrity. Only by re-conceiving identity dynamically to appreciate the increasing capabilities for connectivity between different aspects of our identity across the cyber and the physical domains, will policy and law be able to keep up with and address the challenges that lie ahead in our progressively networked world