Property and the cloud

Data is a modern form of wealth in the digital world, and massive amounts of data circulate in cloud environments. While this enormously facilitates the sharing of information, both for personal and professional purposes, it also introduces some critical problems concerning the ownership of the information. Data is an intangible good that is stored in large data warehouses, where the hardware architectures and software programs running the cloud services coexist with the data of many users. This context calls for a twofold protection: on one side, the cloud is made up of hardware and software that constitute the business assets of the service provider (property of the cloud); on the other side, there is a definite need to ensure that users retain control over their data (property in the cloud). The law grants protection to both sides under several perspectives, but the result is a complex mix of interwoven regimes, further complicated by the intrinsically international nature of cloud computing that clashes with the typical diversity of national laws. As the business model based on cloud computing grows, public bodies, and in particular the European Union, are striving to find solutions to properly regulate the future economy, either by introducing new laws, or by finding the best ways to apply existing principles.     

Data integration in IoT ecosystem: Information linkage as a privacy threat

Internet of things (IoT) is changing the way data is collected and processed. The scale and variety of devices, communication networks, and protocols involved in data collection present critical challenges for data processing and analyses. Newer and more sophisticated methods for data integration and aggregation are required to enhance the value of real-time and historical IoT data. Moreover, the pervasive nature of IoT data presents a number of privacy threats because of intermediate data processing steps, including data acquisition, data aggregation, fusion and integration. User profiling and record linkage are well studied topics in online social networks (OSNs); however, these have become more critical in IoT applications where different systems share and integrate data and information. The proposed study aims to discuss the privacy threat of information linkage, technical and legal approaches to address it in a heterogeneous IoT ecosystem. The paper illustrates and explains information linkage during the process of data integration in a smart neighbourhood scenario. Through this work, the authors aim to enable a technical and legal framework to ensure stakeholders awareness and protection of subjects about privacy breaches due to information linkage.     

European national news

This article tracks developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications and provides a concise alerting service of important national developments. It is co-ordinated by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe. This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to complement the Journal's feature articles and briefing notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening “on the ground” at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.     

The ICO and artificial intelligence: The role of fairness in the GDPR framework

The year 2017 has seen many EU and UK legislative initiatives and proposals to consider and address the impact of artificial intelligence on society, covering questions of liability, legal personality and other ethical and legal issues, including in the context of data processing. In March 2017, the Information Commissioner's Office (UK) updated its big data guidance to address the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and to provide (GDPR), which will apply from 25 May 2018.This paper situates the ICO's guidance in the context of wider legal and ethical considerations and provides a critique of the position adopted by the ICO. On the ICO's analysis, the key challenge for artificial intelligence processing personal data is in establishing that such processing is fair. This shift reflects the potential for artificial intelligence to have negative social consequences (whether intended or unintended) that are not otherwise addressed by the GDPR. The question of ‘fairness’ is an important one, to address the imbalance between big data organisations and individual data subjects, with a number of ethical and social impacts that need to be evaluated.     

European national news

This article tracks developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications and provides a concise alerting service of important national developments. It is co-ordinated by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe. This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to complement the Journal's feature articles and briefing notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening “on the ground” at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.     

基于外贸视角的经济增长方式转型——以长江三角洲地区为例

中国发达地区传统的经济增长方式转型是牵引中国经济持续发展的主要动力。从对外贸易的角度审视,尽管长江三角洲地区外贸总量快速增长,但加工贸易增值系数和经济效益不高,在全球产业链中处于低端。以往依靠税收优惠和稀缺土地资源进行的招商引资,在带动地区经济规模的扩张和外贸粗放增长的同时,也产生了成本上升和资源无法支撑外贸继续发展的副作用。频繁遭遇的各种贸易壁垒,则从国外市场的需求和生产技术国际标准方面,构成了对长三角地区外贸发展模式的倒逼机制。增强自主技术创新的能力,积极探索引资方式的创新,稳步推进“走出去”的多元化战略,建设和完善高效应对贸易摩擦的机制,才能实现经济持续、稳健、快速的发展。     

大数据技术运用嵌入“智慧党建”的底层逻辑与发展图景北大核心SSCI

《中共中央关于加强党的政治建设的意见》明确提出了运用大数据等新兴技术推进“智慧党建”的要求。虽然相关实践活动得以积极开展,但目前对于大数据技术运用嵌入“智慧党建”的底层逻辑和发展图景还缺乏更清晰的认识。“智慧党建”的规定性要求与主要趋向应集中体现于蓄力智能创新、强化党的领导、加强政治建设、运用新兴技术及建设系统体系诸方面。相关底层逻辑应聚焦于增强“智慧党建”的感知化、互联化、智能化、科学性及安全性等方面。相关发展图景应围绕着在“智慧党建”中不断强化政治统领作用、推动党员坚定理想信念、提升组织活动的质与效、增进与群众的血肉联系、加强执纪守法管控力度、促动优良制度生成优化及实现监督监控工作创新等层面而展开。     

Digital traces and physical activities: opportunities,challenges and pitfalls

The strong integration of consumer electronics in everyday life offers many new investigative opportunities. In particular, digital traces from smartphones, smartwatches and activity trackers can now increasingly be used to infer information about actions performed by their users in the physical world that might not be obtainable from any other types of forensic evidence.While potentially very valuable from an investigative perspective, making forensically justifiable statements about such traces can sometimes be more difficult than expected. Requirements for this have not yet received much attention in the digital forensic literature. To help filling this gap, we describe the principles we use in determining the evidential value of such traces, which emphasize the need for experimental verification. For such research, aimed at determining the evidential value of these traces, we coin the term data2activity.In this paper, we devote attention to the potential and limitations of data2activity traces, focusing on challenges and giving two examples to illustrate potential pitfalls in interpreting data. Finally, future research directions into data2activity traces are indicated that, in our opinion, should be given attention. These include development of future-proof data acquisition and storage methodology, enabling division-of-effort and sharing of information, as well as development of labeling methodology for free-living experiments.