Vulnerable data subjects

Discussion about vulnerable individuals and communities spread from research ethics to consumer law and human rights. According to many theoreticians and practitioners, the framework of vulnerability allows formulating an alternative language to articulate problems of inequality, power imbalances and social injustice. Building on this conceptualisation, we try to understand the role and potentiality of the notion of vulnerable data subjects. The starting point for this reflection is wide-ranging development, deployment and use of data-driven technologies that may pose substantial risks to human rights, the rule of law and social justice. Implementation of such technologies can lead to discrimination systematic marginalisation of different communities and the exploitation of people in particularly sensitive life situations. Considering those problems, we recognise the special role of personal data protection and call for its vulnerability-aware interpretation. This article makes three contributions. First, we examine how the notion of vulnerability is conceptualised and used in the philosophy, human rights and European law. We then confront those findings with the presence and interpretation of vulnerability in data protection law and discourse. Second, we identify two problematic dichotomies that emerge from the theoretical and practical application of this concept in data protection. Those dichotomies reflect the tensions within the definition and manifestation of vulnerability. To overcome limitations that arose from those two dichotomies we support the idea of layered vulnerability, which seems compatible with the GDPR and the risk-based approach. Finally, we outline how the notion of vulnerability can influence the interpretation of particular provisions in the GDPR. In this process, we focus on issues of consent, Data Protection Impact Assessment, the role of Data Protection Authorities, and the participation of data subjects in the decision making about data processing.     

Intensive teaching in law subjects

The use of intensive teaching is increasing in Australian law schools. For some Australian law schools, most of their masters subjects are now taught on an intensive basis. This article reviews the literature on intensive teaching. The observation is made that there has been little discussion in the literature of the merits of such teaching in law schools. The article also reports the results of a statistical analysis comparing the student evaluations of a subject in the masters program of an Australian law school that was taught on an intensive basis with the student evaluations of the same subject taught by the same teacher across a full semester. Finally, the article reports the results of interviews with teachers at one Australian law school that makes extensive use of intensive teaching in its masters program. The teachers identify successful teaching techniques and they also identify some challenges with intensive teaching.     

Two kinds of rule regulating human subjects research

Alan Wertheimer argues that before we promulgate some rule regarding the conduct of research on human subjects we ethically ought to consider the consequences of the rule being followed. This ethical requirement has an exception, though, Wertheimer maintains: it doesn''t apply to rules that are not motivated by considerations of outcome. I agree that there is an exception to be made to Wertheimer''s proposed ethical requirement, but not Wertheimer''s exception. The important distinction is not that between rules motivated by considerations of outcome and rules motivated otherwise, but between rules designed to enforce ethics and rules not so designed. Before we promulgate the latter kind of rule, we are ethically required to consider the consequences of doing so. This is not so for the former kind of rule. My exception, unlike Wertheimer''s, yields the conclusion that we should promulgate, regardless of the consequences of doing so, a rule requiring that the potential benefit to the subject of participation in a study outweigh the risks. This rule is motivated by considerations of outcome, so it would land on the wrong side of Wertheimer''s divide. But it''s also designed to enforce ethics, so it lands on the correct side of my divide.