From Identity Verification to Behavior Prediction: Ethical Implications of Second Generation Biometrics

In this article, we will compare ethical issues raised by first and second generation biometrics. First generation biometrics use characteristics readily visible to the naked eye to ensure that the person identified is the person he claims to be, whereas second generation biometrics focus on behavioral patterns with the aim of predicting suspicious behavior or hostile intentions. While the collection of biometric features for identification is visible to the person involved, capturing biometric features from a distance may go unnoticed. Our study of a range of U.S. and European projects of second generation biometrics, particularly of Future Attribute Screening Technology and Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behaviour and Threats in crowded Spaces, shows that if data subjects are not aware of the processing of their data, and if behavioral patterns are interpreted without any knowledge of the subject's will and motives, there are risks of discrimination and stigmatization. Thus, second generation biometrics raise some new ethical concerns besides issues of integrity, privacy, and data protection and further underscore the importance of the principle of informed consent in order to maintain public trust.     

论有限责任公司股东的同意权与优先购买权

《公司法》第35条对有限责任公司股权的向外转让规定其他股东的同意权和优先购买权,以期作为限制。但实践中关于如何理解该条的限制颇有歧义。要正确地理解该条,必须在澄清法条含义的基础上,理顺有限责任公司对外转让股权的规范。由于同意权纯粹只起到摆设的作用,故应该废除同意权,同时完善优先购买权,更好地协调有限责任公司的人合性与资合性。     

患者不予签字同意的问题研究

知情同意是患者最基本的权利。知情同意一般分为四个环节:告知、知情、同意、签字。其中,"签字"是知情同意的最终行为方式。由于其在具体实践中常受到告知方式、理解能力、意识状态、法理缺陷等诸多因素的影响而突显出它的复杂性。我国于20世纪70年代后期开始将知情同意引入,并逐渐由医师执业道德范畴过渡到了法律规范的范畴。知情同意在我国发展的几十年中,最为典型的形式就是术前签字制度。文章将集中对患者不予签字同意进行分析和阐述,并从一般状态、患者或近亲属无明确意思表示以及紧急情况三个方面提出笔者的几点设想。     

“Walls made out of paper”: Witnessing wit and how I learned to drive

The article proposes an alternative performative methodology for displaying sexuality in public spaces called queer curatorship. Specifically, it examines Isaac Julien's film The Attendant and a Chicago leathersex museum (The Leather Archives &; Museum) wherein histories of sadomasochistic sex practices and slavery dangerously crisscross on the surface of objects. Tyburczy posits that sites that feature materials such as real Antebellum slave whips alongside objects used as instruments of consensual pleasure and pain offer unique opportunities to reconfigure, recode, and reanimate epistemological frameworks for understanding the history of sexual equipment, the perversion and eroticization of power exchange, and the mutually constitutive relationship between histories of eroticism and histories of discipline. Cultivating the visual lessons learned from The Attendant into new curatorial models enacted during her tenure as a museum curator at the Leather Archives &; Museum, Tyburczy ultimately proposes queer curatorship as an experimental museum practice that stages alternative configurations between objects and bodies in space to alter the historical relationship of race, sex, and power as they relate to particular objects and acts, in this instance the use of whips in interracial scenes of sex and violence.     

浅析精神病住院患者的知情同意权

知情同意权作为医患关系中的主要问题之一,正受到越来越多人的关注。由于我国目前还没有统一的《精神卫生法》,关于精神病住院患者的知情同意权尚无明文规定,致使患者在治疗中的知情同意权时常受到医生的忽视。对该立法缺失现象及产生的原因加以阐述,对精神病患者享有知情同意权所具有的重要意义进行分析,提出关于对该方面进行立法完善的看法,以期对我国《精神卫生法》的制定有所启发。     

John Locke,the state of nature and terrorism

This paper examines John Locke's political theory in order to see if it can offer any important insights into how to deal with international terrorism. The paper begins by outlining the central aspects of Locke's social contract theory and the way that Locke thinks that it is mirrored in international relations. A general definition of ‘state of nature’ and ‘legitimate common authority’ is offered that is then applied to both civil conflict and international terrorism. The situation that nation-states find themselves in with respect to international terrorist organisations is then analysed in terms of these concepts. The United Nations and the European Union are then examined in order to see if they fulfil the criteria of legitimate common authority necessary to deal with international terrorism in a just and unbiased manner.     

The NHS Information Revolution: ‘Choice of Control’ to ‘Choice’ and ‘Control’

This paper provides a novel and critical analysis of the necessary and important balance between ‘individual privacy’ and ‘collective transparency’. We suggest that the onset of the Information Revolution has created a dilemma for the National Health Service (NHS) in terms of how it addresses its obligation to use information to improve best practice in healthcare for society (‘collective transparency’) whilst also keeping sensitive personal information confidential (‘individual privacy’). There is clearly a need to consider both whether the NHS is balancing this critically important informational relationship and whether its approach is fit for purpose. We argue that the NHS's ‘proxy-individual’ information guardian role could inadvertently mask individuals' intended roles, effectively circumventing autonomy-based laws by limiting the power of individuals to be autonomous. In this article we have identified three issues – first the prevailing ‘Mindset’ (the ‘M’) of ‘privacy’, which is viewed as individualistic, resulting in an overpowering concept of confidentiality; second, the quality and control of Information (the first ‘I’); and third, the concept of innovation (the second ‘i’), which is being used as a ‘solution’ rather than a vehicle for transparency. Indeed, transparency is our target of ‘best practice,’ and we suggest that individual privacy and collective transparency are best embedded within a complementary privacy framework that offers a better fit than the current split of control between the roles of the NHS and the roles of the individual. It is suggested that when facilitated by transparency, ‘control’ and ‘privacy’ form a continuum, aligning through the desire for choice. Therefore, the choice of control could facilitate control and choice. Together, they could replace the concept of privacy by empowering ‘informed patients’ to support the NHS's ‘No decision about me, without me’ pledge.     

受害人同意和风险自负在体育运动侵权领域的应用

和一般的侵权领域相比,体育侵权由于其固有的风险的存在而具有特殊性.一直以来,我国适用受害人同意作为体育侵权领域的免责事由,文章认为,英美法国家的风险自负原则更适用于体育侵权领域.这里谈到的体育侵权主要是指过失侵权,而受害人同意只是适用在故意侵权领域;体育侵权损害的产生是受害人反对的结果,而受害人同意的损害结果这是受害人积极追求的结果,等等的不同点告诉我们,引进风险自负原则作为免责事由是可能、可行而且是必须的.     

医疗行为中患者承诺的一般效力与例外——个人自决权与社会连带之限制的平衡

本文从患者承诺作为医疗行为的正当性根据出发,从比较法的视角观察了医疗行为中患者承诺的一般有效要件及特殊情形下的豁免与例外等诸种情形,用尊重个人自决权和社会连带之限制的理论阐释了前述情形,最后通过对＂安乐死＂的简要分析初步回答了如何平衡患者的个人自决权与社会连带之限制这一问题。     

The lore of sexual difference in social and legal discourse on ‘date rape’

Using a framework informed by Foucauldian discourse theory and feminist accounts of sexual difference, this paper investigates the process of attrition in cases initially recorded as rape and in which complainant and suspect are known to each other. Having particular regard to police and prosecutor decision-making in the processing of such cases, the authors consider discourses that utilise conceptions of sexual difference, which work to normalise and privilege cultural assumptions about male desires and conduct in sexual relations. In illuminating the manner in which the traditional binary categories of sexual difference is put to work, the authors argue that socio-legal debates over the phenomenon commonly described as ‘date rape’ have over-simplistically inverted these categories. The authors further argue that this inversion operates to women's detriment and fails to advance a sufficiently nuanced understanding of complex issues implicated in rapes committed against women by men they know. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.