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?     

Human dignity in concept and practice

Policy Sciences - Dignity seems to be something that virtually all people want. It is a seminal expression of the human experience that gains authority through the convergent demands of people...     

Under the quasi-judicial state: H-1B employment rights in an era of judicial retrenchment

Foreign workers holding H-1B visas gained recourse to federal employment rights under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) for the very first time when Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT90). This paper examines H-1B employment rights enforcement under the INA as it has intersected with broader features of the American legal system: what political scientists call judicial retrenchment and the quasi-judicial state. I first show how H-1B rights, already limited by the domestic politics that shaped the IMMACT, became subject to judicial retrenchment when the federal courts confined H-1B disputes under the INA to the quasi-judicial state at the Department of Labor (DOL). I then use published data on DOL investigation outcomes, published and unpublished administrative case records, and judicial cases reviewing agency action to examine the extent to which and how H-1B workers can use the quasi-judicial state to solve workplace problems. My empirical findings contribute to a new understanding of the relationship between rights retrenchment, the judiciary, and the rise of alternatives to court in immigration and employment law and point to possible fine-grained changes for future immigration reform.