A simpler solution for offshoring personal information?

This article looks at the European Commission’s recent revisions to the controller-processor model clauses to allow the transfer of personal data to processors and sub-processors based outside of the EEA. These new sub-processing provisions are the subject of a recent opinion by the Article 29 Working Party that is both helpful and is likely to ease the use of these clauses. However, many of the other problems associated with the use of these clauses remain, especially the lengthy and bureaucratic filing and approval requirements mandated under many national laws.     

Democratic babies? Françoise Dolto,Benjamin Spock and the ideology of post-war parenting advice

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the political implications of a subject not always thought of as directly political, but which has an important ideological component: child-rearing advice. The period after 1945 offers an important example of how this topic can interact with developments in political ideology. This article takes the example of France, with substantial comparative reference to the US and Britain. It argues that the mid-twentieth century was characterized by a move from a hygienist and behaviourist approach to child rearing to a more liberal, humanist approach informed by Freudian psychoanalysis. This occurred significantly later in France – in the 1970s – than in Britain or the US, where it is associated with the years immediately after World War II. Through a comparison of two celebrated childcare experts who epitomized the change – Françoise Dolto in France, Benjamin Spock in the US – the paper explores the reasons for this temporal discrepancy. It shows that Anglo-American experts believed that the widespread application of psychoanalytic theory would help produce democratic citizens and ward off the dangers of authoritarian personalities. In France, psychoanalytic approaches became allied with conservative Catholic views of the family and women’s roles, with implications for family policy into the twenty-first century.     

Real-time forensic DNA analysis at a crime scene using a portable microchip analyzer

An integrated lab-on-a-chip system has been developed and successfully utilized for real-time forensic short tandem repeat (STR) analysis. The microdevice comprises a 160-nL polymerase chain reaction reactor with an on-chip heater and a temperature sensor for thermal cycling, microvalves for fluidic manipulation, a co-injector for sizing standard injection, and a 7-cm-long separation channel for capillary electrophoretic analysis. A 9-plex autosomal STR typing system consisting of amelogenin and eight combined DNA index system (CODIS) core STR loci has been constructed and optimized for this real-time human identification study. Reproducible STR profiles of control DNA samples are obtained in 2 h and 30 min with ≤0.8 bp allele typing accuracy. The minimal amount of DNA required for a complete DNA profile is 100 copies. To critically evaluate the capabilities of our portable microsystem as well as its compatibility with crime scene investigation processes, real-time STR analyses were carried out at a mock crime scene prepared by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO). Blood stain sample collection, DNA extraction, and STR analyses on the portable microsystem were conducted in the field, and a successful “mock” CODIS hit was generated on the suspect's sample within 6 h. This demonstration of on-site STR analysis establishes the feasibility of real-time DNA typing to identify the contributor of probative biological evidence at a crime scene and for real-time human identification.     

Religion und Sozialintegration

This paper examines the role of religion as a source of social capital in Germany. In addition to networks of civic engagement and informal social connections with family and friends, the identity- and status-bridging nature of these networks are also considered. Results based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) suggest that both, subjective religiosity and public religious practice, have a positive impact on social integration in Germany. But religious traditions – Catholicism, Protestantism, other Christians and Islam – differ in this regard. While attending religious services leads to larger friendship networks and increased sociability in all religions, civic engagement is only fostered by Christian religiosity and in particular Protestantism. However, none of the religious traditions encourages identity- or status-bridging social capital.     

A Hard Time to Be a Father?: Reassessing the Relationship Between Law,Policy, and Family (Practices)

This article seeks to unpack the way in which a constellation of ideas around what it means to speak of 'good fatherhood' has come to inform a series of debates, after the election of the New Labour government in 1997, around the content and contours of paternal responsibility. Via a focus on family law and recent developments around the idea of 'work-life' balance, it discusses the concepts underpinning present debates. In questioning the still-powerful (if frequently unspoken) influence of social constructionist ideas of sex/gender, it explores and question how men's 'family practices' have been understood.