The Expenses Scandal and the Politics of Electoral Reform

The scandal over MPs' expenses that erupted in 2009 was followed by a surge in discussion of electoral reform. A range of reforms to Westminster's existing electoral system are now high on the political agenda. This article examines the extent and the nature of the scandal's impact on the electoral reform debate and draws out comparative implications for the sorts of conditions that can force politicians to accept electoral reforms that they do not want. It finds that the expenses scandal significantly changed debate about some electoral reform topics, but not about others. It proposes three factors likely to increase the impact of scandal in sparking reform: that the scandal is seen as harming ordinary people in their daily lives; that reforms can readily be understood as likely to mitigate the sources of scandal; and that those reforms do not seriously harm politicians' own perceived interests.     

从“身份”到“场所”——属人法连结点的历史与发展

属人法连结点的发展大约经历了三个历史阶段:古罗马至19世纪是住所地主义形成时期;19世纪至20世纪中叶是国籍原则与住所地主义的并存时期;20世纪中叶至今是属人法连结点的新发展时期。其中,第二个历史阶段的起点并非是国内学界所公认的1804年《法国民法典》,而应是后来的孟西尼学说。国籍原则衰退后,住所的缺陷也逐渐显现出来。在第三个历史阶段,惯常居所替代了住所,成为属人法连结点在当代的新发展。     

Ownership of personal data in the Internet of Things

This article analyses, defines, and refines the concepts of ownership and personal data to explore their compatibility in the context of EU law. It critically examines the traditional dividing line between personal and non-personal data and argues for a strict conceptual separation of personal data from personal information. The article also considers whether, and to what extent, the concept of ownership can be applied to personal data in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT). This consideration is framed around two main approaches shaping all ownership theories: a bottom-up and top-down approach. Via these dual lenses, the article reviews existing debates relating to four elements supporting introduction of ownership of personal data, namely the elements of control, protection, valuation, and allocation of personal data. It then explores the explanatory advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches in relation to each of these elements as well as to ownership of personal data in IoT at large. Lastly, this article outlines a revised approach to ownership of personal data in IoT that may serve as a blueprint for future work in this area and inform regulatory and policy debates.     

A comparison of data protection legislation and policies across the EU

Although the protection of personal data is harmonized within the EU by Directive 95/46/EC and will be further harmonized by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, there are significant differences in the ways in which EU member states implemented the protection of privacy and personal data in national laws, policies, and practices. This paper presents the main findings of a research project that compares the protection of privacy and personal data in eight EU member states: France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The comparison focuses on five major themes: awareness and trust, government policies for personal data protection, the applicable laws and regulations, implementation of those laws and regulations, and supervision and enforcement.The comparison of privacy and data protection regimes across the EU shows some remarkable findings, revealing which countries are frontrunners and which countries are lagging behind on specific aspects. For instance, the roles of and interplay between governments, civil rights organizations, and data protections authorities vary from country to country. Furthermore, with regard to privacy and data protection there are differences in the intensity and scope of political debates, information campaigns, media attention, and public debate. New concepts like privacy impact assessments, privacy by design, data breach notifications and big data are on the agenda in some but not in all countries. Significant differences exist in (the levels of) enforcement by the different data protection authorities, due to different legal competencies, available budgets and personnel, policies, and cultural factors.     

Revisiting the Character of Congress

SUMMARY

This article examines how character assessments affected the electoral fortunes of incumbent members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the period from 1966-1996. The findings of several linear regressions suggest that party affiliation constrains both when voters react to allegations of scandalous behavior and how they react to different kinds of allegations. The electoral cycle assists incumbent members who have engaged in scandalous behavior escape retribution from their constituents, allowing the majority to be reelected. Also reviewed are findings from the 1998-2002 timeframe. It concludes that voters do concern themselves with character issues, but that the party affiliation of the member and the type of scandal work in concert with the electoral process to mitigate the negative impact on the vote.     

The British general election of 2010 under different voting rules

The 2010 British election resulted in what the British refer to as a “hung Parliament” for the first time in over a generation. This result further heightened the debate over the fairness and utility of the nation’s centuries-old first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. Survey data are used to simulate the election outcome under four different electoral systems beyond FPTP: round-robin pair-wise comparisons, the Borda count, the alternative vote, and Coombs' method. Results suggest that in 2010, the Liberal-Democrats were Condorcet preferred to all other parties and would have won a national election under every tested method except the alternative vote, the method supported by the Liberal-Democrats during the referendum in May 2011 and, of course, FPTP as actually used.     

Realising the Public Person

In response to a crisis of representative democracy in many Western countries, (local) governments have introduced instruments to circumvent political parties in order to establish more direct links between citizens and governments. One of these instruments is rendering electoral systems more personal, that is by giving more weight to preferential voting. Preferential voting is important since it constitutes a major element of the personal vote and it determines whether parties or voters are the main decision-makers in designating representatives. We have investigated, in relation to the local elections in Flanders (Belgium), in what kind of municipalities voters are most likely to cast a preferential vote, whether the electoral reform granting voters more power has had an effect, and if it has had an effect, in what kind of municipalities. We have put forward five groups of explanatory variables: socio-demographic, political, social capital, geographic and ballot form variables. Our analysis shows that variables from each group correlate significantly with the percentage of preferential votes, with population density and electronic voting as most important variables. A comparison between the 1994 and 2006 elections often yields the reverse picture: characteristics of municipalities that have a positive effect on the percentage of preferential votes cast have a negative impact on the evolution of preferential voting and vice versa (electronic voting being an exception). This results in the only obvious effects of the electoral reform being seen in urban municipalities, because elsewhere local politics was already to a large extent personalised by politicians being locally known. We could conclude that in these rural municipalities the electoral reform was superfluous.     

Data protection in Europe – Some thoughts on reading the academic manifesto

The commentary by academics on the proposed European General Data Protection Regulation in [2013] 29 CLSR 180 has provoked thoughts in response. The responder strongly agrees with the doubts expressed about the definition of personal data, anonymisation and the identifiability of individuals. On the other hand, he disagrees with the views on consent and legitimacy and proposes support for a risk-based approach to data protection. He suggests that data protection does not need to be defended from the attack that it stifles business, but is justifiable for its assertion of fundamental rights. In conclusion, he shares the criticism of the European Commission's delegated and implementing powers and is concerned that the Regulation will be rushed to a conclusion for reasons of political ambition.     

Privacy by design and anonymisation techniques in action: Case study of Match technology

Privacy by Design is now enjoying widespread acceptance. The EU has recently expressly included it as one of the key principles in the revised data protection legal framework. But how does Privacy by design and data anonymisation work in practise? In this article the authors address this question from a practical point of view by analysing a case study on EU Financial Intelligence Units (“FIUs”) using the Ma³tch technology as additional feature to the existing exchange of information via FIU.NET decentralised computer network. They present, analyse, and evaluate Ma³tch technology from the perspective of personal data protection. The authors conclude that Ma³tch technology can be seen as a valuable example of Privacy by Design. It achieves data anonymisation and enhances data minimisation and data security, which are the fundamental elements of Privacy by Design. Therefore, it may not only improve the exchange of information among FIUs and allow for the data processing to be in line with applicable data protection requirements, but it may also substantially contribute to the protection of privacy of related data subjects. At the same time, the case study clearly shows that Privacy by Design needs to be supported and complemented by appropriate organisational and technical procedures to assure that the technology solutions devised to protect privacy would in fact do so.     

The retention of personal information online: A call for international regulation of privacy law

New technologies permit online businesses to reduce expenses and increase efficiency by, for example, storing information in “the cloud”, engaging in online tracking and targeted advertising, location and tracking technologies, and biometrics. However, the potential for technology to facilitate long term retention of customers' personal information raises concerns about the competing right of individuals to the privacy of their personal information. Although the European Commission has recently released a proposal for regulation to “provide a data subject with the right to be forgotten and to erasure”, neither the OECD Privacy Guidelines nor the APEC Privacy Framework includes any requirement to delete personal information. While New Zealand includes a “limited retention principle” in the Privacy Act 1993, apart from one limited exception the privacy principles cannot be enforced in court. Taking New Zealand privacy law as an example, this paper examines the issue of retention of customer data, explains why this is a serious problem and argues that although it could be addressed by appropriate amendments to domestic laws, domestic privacy legislation may not be sufficient in an online environment. In the same way as other areas of law, such as the intellectual property regime, have turned to global regulatory standards which reflect the international nature of their subject matter, international privacy regulation should be the next stage for the information privacy regime.