Say cheese! Privacy and facial recognition

The popular social networking site, Facebook, recently launched a facial recognition tool to help users tag photographs they uploaded to Facebook. This generated significant controversy, arising as much as anything, from the company’s failure to adequately inform users of this new service and to explain how the technology works.The incident illustrates the sensitivity of facial recognition technology and the potential conflict with data privacy laws. However, facial recognition has been around for some time and is used by businesses and public organisations for a variety of purposes – primarily in relation to law enforcement, border control, photo editing and social networking. There are also indications that the technology could be used by commercial entities for marketing purposes in the future.This article considers the technology, its practical applications and the manner in which European data protection laws regulate its use. In particular, how much control should we have over our own image? What uses of this technology are, and are not, acceptable? Ultimately, does European data protection law provide an adequate framework for this technology? Is it a framework which protects the privacy of individuals without unduly constraining the development of innovative and beneficial applications and business models?     

ECFA对海峡两岸区域金融合作的法律支撑分析

随着《海峡两岸经济合作框架协议》(ECFA)的签署,其对海峡两岸区域金融合作的法律支撑效应尽显。从法律定位角度分析,ECFA不仅涵盖两岸货物贸易、服务贸易(含金融服务),还涉及投资内容,完全符合世界贸易组织(WTO)认可的"深度PTA"特征。从金融合作的实质内容来看,ECFA在金融方面的全面渗透,广泛合作的态势对金融监管提出了严峻的挑战,要求两岸在监管方面也必须配套广泛性和协同性。截止目前,ECFA框架尚未达成解决解决争端的救济模式,但考虑以政治性、法律程序性混合机制公允、灵活解决争端应成为题中应有之义。     

Combatting benefits fraud

Benefit schemes for occupational injury are susceptible to fraud from internal sources, claimants and professionals involved in claims. The pressure to reduce expenditure, together with the changes to the public sector generally, have affected how the fraud is dealt with. One such scheme in Australia, the Workcover Corporation of South Australia, provides a case-study from the practitioner perspective on the analysis of fraud and the cost-effective targetting of resources for its prevention, detection and prosecution.Ben Wait is a financial analyst with Workcover Corporation. The article was written during his time as a researcher with the Unit and is written in a personal capacity.     

Laboratory evidence of unsuspected parental consanguinity among cases of disputed paternity

A search was conducted to find evidence of possible incestuous unions between the biologic parents of children involved in 2500 paternity cases. Suspicion was raised when either (1) a mother and her child possessed identical HLA phenotypes, or (2) the child appeared to be possibly homozygous for one maternal haplotype (i.e., one of the child's HLA haplotypes was a blank). These mother-child HLA-haplotype dualisms (MHDs) occurred in 5% of all cases. Frequency of exclusion of the accused men in cases demonstrating MHD, was compared with the remaining paternity cases.No significant difference was found in overall exclusion rates between MHD cases and controls when exclusion produced by HLA and red cell antigen systems were observed. However, there was a greater rate of exclusion in MHD cases when comparing exclusions produced by red cell antigen systems regardless of whether HLA tests excluded paternity (p < 0.025). MHD cases involving teenaged mothers differed from control cases in frequency of exclusion of paternity only on the basis of red cell antigen phenotyping (p < 0.005).The HLA system's usefulness in paternity testing is diminished when there is MHD; multiple, independently-inherited systems are relatively more useful in these circumstances.The search method detects only half of potential incest cases; proof of incest requires more extensive testing for homozygosity among other polymorphisms. Since calculations of likelihood of paternity are inappropriate in cases involving close consanguinity, detection and follow up studies are important.Data suggest that one-fifth of MHD cases may involve first degree consanguinity and that the incest rate among paternity cases may be as high as 2%.     

Age of attainment of mineralization stages of the permanent dentition.

The ages at which the maxillary and mandibular teeth of 121 boys and 111 girls reached 14 mineralization stages were determined from serial cephalograms at the Burlington Growth Centre. The present data are more comprehensive than any previously available and can be applied to chronological age determinations in juveniles of indefinite age, and of specimens in anthropological and forensic investigations. The sexes differed in the age at which they attained the stages of mineralization, with the canines demonstrating the greatest difference. In each sex, the ages at identical stages were similar for the corresponding teeth in the maxilla and mandible. Variability in age was greater among the males, especially for the first premolars, and increased with age, except for the third molars. Variability in age of third molar mineralization was greater in females and diminished among both sexes at late stages of root formation.