Serge Gutwirth’s research while affiliated with Vrije Universiteit Brussel and other places

Several European Commission's initiatives have been resorting to ethics in policy discourses as a way to govern and regulate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of invocations of ‘ethics’, especially concerning the recent debate on (the regulation of) Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be referred to as the ‘ethification’ phenomenon. This article aims to elucidate the benefits and drawbacks of the ethification of ICT governance, and its effects on the articulations of law, technology and politics in democratic constitutional states. First, the article will provide a mapping to locate where the ethics work is being produced in the EU. Second, the authors will distinguish different types of ethics based on the mapping. Third, the ethification phenomenon will be analyzed through the concepts of boundary and convergence work, where we will both see that it plays the role of ‘normative glue’ between interests of different practices to reach a common goal, but also tracing or obfuscating boundaries to claim autonomy from the law and exclude forms of non-genuine ethics. Fourth, we inquire into the nature of ethics as a practice and the consequences of ethification for the law.

Dans cette contribution les auteurs présentent certains passages cruciaux du parcours de recherche de Paolo Grossi afin de les lier à leurs travaux concernant les questions juridiques posées par les communs de la terre et les écologies locales.

On 25 July 2018, Confédération paysanne and Others v. Premier mi-nistre et Ministère de l'Agriculture, de l'Agroalimentaire et de la Forêt, the Court of Justice of the European Union rendered a controversial ruling in the C-528/16 case. Taking a precautionary stance, the CJEU unambiguously stated that the EU's legislation on genetically modified organisms is applicable to plants fabricated with new genetic modification techniques. The judgement unleashed a storm of protest and intensive lobbying by interested actors within a conglomerate of industry, science and innovation, who pressed European and national authorities to exempt these new GMOs from the obligations foreseen by European GMO-law. In this article the authors follow the debate and show how legal, scientific, economic and political arguments are used pell-mell, without much attention to their characteristic differences and consequences. Mixing up the regimes of law, science, innovation and politics is all the more detrimental, since it blurs and undermines the possibilities of a salutary cosmopolitics that would be up to the task of setting the beacons for our future agricultural and food policies.

The subjects of this volume are more relevant than ever, especially in light of the raft of electoral scandals concerning voter profiling. This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It is one of the results of the twelfth annual International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection, CPDP, held in Brussels in January 2019. The book explores the following topics: dataset nutrition labels, lifelogging and privacy by design, data protection iconography, the substance and essence of the right to data protection, public registers and data protection, modelling and verification in data protection impact assessments, examination scripts and data protection law in Cameroon, the protection of children's digital rights in the GDPR, the concept of the scope of risk in the GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulation. This interdisciplinary book has been written at a time when the scale and impact of data processing on society – not only on individuals, but also on social systems – is becoming ever starker. It discusses open issues as well as daring and prospective approaches, and will serve as an insightful resource for readers with an interest in computers, privacy and data protection.

This paper examines some of the tensions between the ideals and the operationalisation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It does so through reflections on research into integrating assessments of various kinds in the context of complex, emerging technologies. Its aim is to address some aspects of what actually happens, as new collaborations are sought out across institutional cultures and scientific disciplines. It is especially interested in those kinds of ‘integrations of assessments’ that take place, or will take place, as assessors of various flavours, seek out closer collaborations with scientists, innovators, industrialists and policy makers. Situated within the broader horizon of an empirical investigation into integration of assessments (www.epinet.no) it recounts three (practical and theoretical) lessons for RRI.

The subjects of Privacy and Data Protection are more relevant than ever, and especially since 25 May 2018, when the European General Data Protection Regulation became enforceable. This volume brings together papers that offer conceptual analyses, highlight issues, propose solutions, and discuss practices regarding privacy and data protection. It is one of the results of the eleventh annual International Conference on Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection, CPDP 2018, held in Brussels in January 2018. The book explores the following topics: biometrics and data protection in criminal justice processing, privacy, discrimination and platforms for men who have sex with men, mitigation through data protection instruments of unfair inequalities as a result of machine learning, privacy and human-robot interaction in robotized healthcare, privacy-by-design, personal data protection of deceased data subjects, large-scale face databases and the GDPR, the new Europol regulation, rethinking trust in the Internet of Things, fines under the GDPR, data analytics and the GDPR, and the essence of the right to the protection of personal data. This interdisciplinary book was written while the reality of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 was becoming clear. It discusses open issues and daring and prospective approaches. It will serve as an insightful resource for readers with an interest in computers, privacy and data protection. https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/data-protection-and-privacy-9781509926206/

This report relates to the empirical work conducted under the Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research (PRINTEGER) research project on research integrity and scientific misconduct.1 It briefly presents the general requirements of fairness in procedures (Section 1), introduces the variety of structures in place for the follow-up of allegations of misconduct (Section 2), and reviews the specific requirements for the fairness of the procedures to follow up allegations of misconduct as derived from existing codes and legislation on research integrity, taking also into account insights from the practical adjudication of cases and relevant policy and legislative documents (Section 3). This report complements and builds upon the analysis of normative instruments presented in PRINTEGER Deliverable DIII.4, and aims to inform both training materials and policy recommendations prepared in the PRINTEGER project.

The present deliverable combines a study of relevant legal requirements, codes and legislation (Section 1), in particular searching for remarkable commonalities and salient frictions, with a discussion on some of the upcoming regulatory challenges in the area of research integrity and scientific misconduct (Section 2). The selection of analysed instruments reflects the geographical spread of the PRINTEGER research project but is not exclusively limited to it, and includes references to international instruments as well as policy documents when suitable for contextualisation and assessment of the issues at stake.

A l’aune de la mise en œuvre du Règlement Général de Protection des Données (RGPD) en mai 2018, le débat sur la propriété de l’information et le ownership of data bat son plein. Les discussions sur le contrôle des données se déroulent passionnément, et elles ont, du moins pour des vétérans de la recherche en matière de protection des données à caractère personnel comme Yves Poullet et un des soussignés, quelque chose de redondant, d’irrationnellement insistant et répétitif – bref, de déjà-vu. Comme s’il s’agissait d’un obstacle qu’on retrouve fatalement après chaque contournement, de nouveau devant soi, malgré toutes les bonnes raisons qu’on avait eues pour le croire franchi une fois pour toutes, il y a déjà bien longtemps. Dans ce chapitre nous tenterons de comprendre l’insistance têtue de certains à réaffirmer - encore et encore - que les données à caractère personnel pourraient, voir devraient être qualifiées juridiquement en tant que « biens » passibles de « propriété », ou en tout cas susceptibles de « ownership ». S’intéresser à « l’éternel retour » de cette revendication est déjà, en soi, rendre hommage à Yves Poullet, qui, du début de sa carrière, a pris part à ce débat en lui donnant forme de façon décisive.