News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending July 26, 2019 ==================================================== The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: NOYB, Privacy International. NEWS ===== US: FTC approves $5 billion fine against Facebook ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US Federal Trade Commission has approved a fine of $5 billion against Facebook after an investigation sparked by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Cecilia Kang reports at the New York Times. The settlement, which has been criticized as not significant enough to the company, still must be approved by the Justice Department, which has rarely rejected an FTC settlement. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/technology/facebook-ftc-fine.html Indian digitization project plans to mine research papers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Long-time open information activist Carl Malamud is working with Indian researchers to build a store of text and images extracted from 73 million journal articles published between 1847 and the present that can be scanned and mined by computers for new insights, Priyanka Pulla reports at Nature. Malamud believes the database, to be held at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, is legal because no human will be allowed to read or search it, it is not connected to the internet, single articles can't be pulled out for perusal, and only non-commercial researchers may use it. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02142-1 US: Palantir's software directly powers anti-immigrant raids ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Palantir's data mining software has directly powered the accelerating number of workplace raids conducted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the company's staff are closely involved in ICE's operations, George Joseph reports for WNYC. The company faces a backlash from activists and its own staff at the same time that it is reportedly considering going public in 2020. At Motherboard, Caroline Haskins gives highlights of Palantir's top-secret manual for its Gotham service, which it supplies to law enforcement to underpin massive databases known as "fusion centers". The manual shows both how the software works and how police are taught to use it. https://www.wnyc.org/story/palantir-directly-powers-ice-workplace-raids-emails-show/ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kx4z8/revealed-this-is-palantirs-top-secret-user-manual-for-cops Unauthorized use of image databases fuels adoption of facial recognition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dozens of giant databases of facial images compiled by companies and researchers without oversight or their subjects' knowledge are being shared around the world to train facial recognition systems, Cade Metz reports at the New York Times. Images are scraped from social networks, photo sharing websites, and dating services, or sourced from government collections of driver's license and visa photos. The Brainwash database, compiled at Stanford University, includes 10,000 images from a local cafe; these were later used by Chinese academics associated with an AI company that provides surveillance technology to the Chinese government to monitor Uighurs. At the Washington Post, Drew Harwell learns from a cache of records that both the FBI and ICE are using facial recognition software to mine state driver's license photos without the knowledge or consent of either the public or lawmakers seeking matches for undocumented immigrants or crime suspects. At the Atlantic, Tiffany C. Li notes that these rapid, widespread deployments are legal, as they do not fall within our present conceptions of "privacy". https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/13/technology/databases-faces-facial-recognition-technology.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-find-state-drivers-license-photos-are-gold-mine-facial-recognition-searches https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/faceapp-reveals-huge-holes-todays-privacy-laws/594358/ Pearson Education moves textbooks to "digital first" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pearson Education is switching its business model to "digital first", Andrew Whalen reports at Newsweek. Beginning in the US and extending to other markets later, the company will cease updating print versions of its textbooks, which are typically updated every three years. Pearson claims the result will be to reduce prices for students while increasing its own revenues, but critics object that the move will shut down the market for renting second-hand textbooks and alienate the 92% of students who prefer print to ebooks. https://www.newsweek.com/textbook-colleges-cheap-publisher-pearson-ebook-resell-1449860 Privacy concerns lead German state to ban Microsoft Office 365 in schools ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The data protection commissioner in the German state of Hesse has ruled that it is illegal for schools to use Microsoft Office 365 because its standard configuration raises the possibility that US officials can access students' and teachers' personal information under the US CLOUD Act (2018), Cathrin Schaer reports at ZDNet. Students are generally unable to give consent, explains Austrian digital rights lawyer and NOYB founder Max Schrems, who is bringing a case in the European Court of Justice to challenge the US-EU Privacy Shield agreement. The software also represents a legal risk to local German authorities. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-office-365-banned-in-german-schools-over-privacy-fears/ FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== The dubious new technology of emotional recognition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting, ACLU's Jay Stanley analyzes a study of emotion recognition, as numerous new products claim to be able to determine emotions by analyzing facial expressions and other physiological signs. After reviewing more than 1,000 papers in the psychological literature, five scientists concluded that there is no scientific basis for the claim that an individual's emotional state can be inferred from their facial movements. https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/experts-say-emotion-recognition-lacks-scientific Chinese internet outstrips the US ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this summary, the South China Morning Post gives highlights of the annual China Internet report 2019. China far outstrips the US in internet users, mobile use, and, especially, mobile payments, and is leading in 5G. The report goes on to compare the arrays of technology companies, IPOs, and venture capital firms, and notes that globally startups are beginning to copy the most successful Chinese companies. https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/china-internet/ Options for data governance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting, Privacy International Mozilla-Ford Fellow, Valentina Pavel explores four possible futures for data governance: property rights that create data markets; direct payments for data as labor; nationalized data funds; and clear user rights. A rights regime puts more responsibility on individuals to manage their data, but principles such as data minimization, purpose specification, and fairness can reduce the burden. https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3088/our-data-future The truth of 2016 elections remains elusive ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this Guardian article, Carole Cadwalladr reviews Netflix's new documentary about the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal she was first to investigate, The Great Hack. While setting the film in its wider context of other recent books and articles on data and democracy, Cadwalladr asks when we will ever know the truth about the 2016 US presidential election and UK's EU referendum. The UK Press Gazette reports that Leave.EU funder Arron Banks has filed a libel suit against Cadwalladr for statements in recent speeches, and has issued a legal threat against Netflix for The Great Hack. In response, the Guardian publishes an open letter from press freedom campaigners and NGOs warning the UK government that the country's courts are being used to intimidate and silence journalists working in the public interest. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/20/the-great-hack-cambridge-analytica-scandal-facebook-netflix https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/carole-cadwalladr-will-defend-true-claims-about-brexiteer-aaron-banks-in-libel-battle/ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/20/arron-banks-netflix-threat-great-hack-documentary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/20/letter-press-freedom-campaigners-call-for-action-on-vexatious-lawsuits Populist leaders stress trade at the expense of automation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this discussion of Carl Benedikt Frey's recent book, The Technology Trap, John Harris argues that we do not focus nearly enough on computing power as a cause of the widespread economic disruption and rise of populism surrounding us as transformation of production and consumption continues. Technology and automation are largely ignored by modern populist leaders, who focus instead on globalization and trade. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/22/nigel-farage-donald-trump-talking-tech-revolution-automation-populists Regulation and new rules risk fracturing YouTube ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Medium's new digital video culture publication, FFWD, which he founded, Chris Stokel-Walker explains the impact of YouTube's new terms of service, which came into effect on July 22. Stokel-Walker believes that the fracturing of the platform that will result from diverging national regulations will eventually result in adopting a "lowest common denominator" regime. Also at FFWD, Amelia Tait explores how now-grown former child "reality TV" stars are finding their voices on YouTube, where they have a chance to reclaim their public image on their own terms. The same option may not be as available to today's crop of social media child stars, who have been groomed and presented by their parents, to whom the laws protecting child stars on film and TV sets do not apply. https://ffwd.medium.com/regulation-is-coming-to-youtube-and-its-going-to-be-ugly-ac385d340cd9 https://ffwd.medium.com/reality-tv-turned-these-kids-into-villains-youtube-gave-them-a-chance-to-set-the-record-straight-f29b0f4bc3bd *** DIARY ============== If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. DEF CON 27 ---------------------------------------- August 8-11, 2018 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA DEF CON is one of the oldest continuously running hacker conventions, and also one of the largest. The DEF CON 27 theme, in a way, responds to '1983' with new questions. What does it look like when we make the better choice? What kind of world do we hack together in the sunniest timeline? How does our real best-case scenario compare to the future we've been dreaming of for generations? https://defcon.org/index.html SOUPS 2019 ---------------------------------------- August 11-13, 2019 Santa Clara, California, USA The 2019 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners in human computer interaction, security, and privacy. The program will feature technical papers on aspects of privacy and security such as innovative functionality and design, field studies, usability evaluations of privacy features, and longitudinal studies. https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/call-for-papers Wikimania ---------------------------------------- August 14-18, 2019 Stockholm, Sweden Wikimania 2019 will be the 15th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 85th World Library and Information Congress ---------------------------------------- August 24-30, 2019 Athens, Greece The theme of IFLA's 2019 conference, "Libraries: dialogue for change", invites the library and information science international community to discuss, re-examine, re-think and re-interpret the role of libraries as promoters of change. In an era of rapid changes in the socio-economic-technological sphere, libraries ought to define their role as information providers, promoters of reading, settlers for the community they serve, key players in innovation, and leading actors for changes in society. A constant, open dialectic relationship between libraries and society will lead to well-informed citizens facilitating progress and development, implementing the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and leading to prosperity in all fields of the democratic society. https://2019.ifla.org/#news Techfestival ---------------------------------------- September 5-7, 2019 Copenhagen, Denmark Techfestival was created to find human answers to technological progress. In its third year, the festival will work across ten tracks to examine the ways technology shapes our societies, from building cities to exercising modern democracy. https://techfestival.co/ MozFest ---------------------------------------- October 21-27, 2019 London, UK MozFest 2019 is the tenth anniversary gathering of educators, activists, technologists, researchers, artists, and young people dedicated to creating a better, healthier internet. This year's theme is "More responsible artificial intelligence". https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Biometrics Congress ---------------------------------------- October 28-30, 2019 London, UK The Biometrics Institute Congress provides an independent platform where the international biometrics community can gather to conduct off-the-record discussion among the institute's multi-stakeholder community. In 2018, representatives from over 30 nations attended. This year's theme is making the world a safer place through the responsible and ethical use of biometrics in an era where laws and regulations are often unable to stay abreast of technology change and the business models based on it. https://www.biometricsinstitute.org/event/biometrics-congress-2019/ Web Summit ---------------------------------------- November 4-7. 2019 Lisbon, Portugal The Web Summit gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers, and heads of state to ask a simple question: where to next? In 2018, speakers included Margrethe Vestager, Tim Berners-Lee, and Microsoft CEO Brad Smith. https://websummit.com/ 18th Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society ---------------------------------------- November 11, 2019 London, UK The goal of this workshop, held in conjunction with the ACM CCS conference, is to discuss and find solutions to the privacy problems that result from the transformation of society brought by the Information Revolution. One of the major implications of this technological shift has been a massive increase in the collection, sharing, and analysis of personal data. The workshop will include academia, government, and industry, as well as communities such as law and business, who will present novel research on all theoretical and practical aspects of electronic privacy, as well as experimental studies of fielded systems. http://wpes.tech/ IGF Global ---------------------------------------- November 25-29, 2019 Berlin, Germany The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was set up in 2006 as an open discussion platform of the United Nations for key legal, political, social and technical issues relating to the internet. IGF's multi-stakeholder model aims to ensure that all relevant societal groups are equally involved in preparations and implementation: governments, civil society, business, academia, international organizations, and the technical community. This is particularly of note in terms of representatives from developing and newly industrializing countries, which otherwise tend to be under-represented. https://www.igf2019.berlin/ Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing ---------------------------------------- November 27-29, 2019 Tromsø, Norway The Munin Conference is an annual conference on scholarly publishing and communication, primarily revolving around open access, open data and open science. http://site.uit.no/muninconf/ CPDP 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 22-24, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The 2020 edition of Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection has issued a call for panels in all areas related to technological privacy and data protection. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/call-for-panels FAT* 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 27-30, 2020 Barcelona, Spain ACM FAT* is an annual conference dedicating to bringing together a diverse community to investigate and tackle issues in this emerging area. Topics of interest include the theory and practice of fair machine learning, measurement and auditing of deployed systems, users' experience of algorithms, and the ethical, moral, social, and policy implications of big data and ubiquitous intelligent systems. https://fatconference.org/ Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit ---------------------------------------- February 19-21, 2020 Phoenix, Arizona, USA Attending the Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit is an opportunity for anyone seeking cross-disciplinary strategies and partnerships that deliver scalable, transferable, and equitable solutions to urban neighborhoods. https://meetingoftheminds.org/events/motm2020 We Robot 2020 ---------------------------------------- April 2-4, 2020 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada We Robot is an interdisciplinary conference on the legal and policy questions relating to robots. The increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere - from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, and even to the battlefield - disrupts existing legal regimes and requires new thinking on policy issues. The conference fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and those who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate. https://techlaw.uottawa.ca/werobot Global Privacy Summit ---------------------------------------- April 7-8, 2020 Washington, DC, USA Global Privacy Summit will gather more than 3,600 professionals from around the world for an outstanding program with a truly global focus. https://10times.com/global-privacy-summit re:publica 2020 ---------------------------------------- May 6-8, 2020 Berlin, Germany re:publica is Europe's largest internet and digital society conference. More than 19 500 participants from 80 countries came together to discuss current issues of digital society at the three-day festival. Participants represent a cross-section of (digital) society, which include professionals from economics, politics, business, hacker culture, NGOs, media, and marketing, as well as bloggers, activists, artists, and social media experts. https://re-publica.com/en *** This list is now managed by MailChimp. Hear more from the Information Program! ================================ If you have been forwarded this email by a friend and wish to subscribe to this fortnightly digest, please visit: https://opensocietyfoundations.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=52d98944f5466486ab8567329&id=1c0675de1d. 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June 2019 Archives
News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending June 28, 2019 ==================================================== The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Communia, Creative Commons, Open Rights Group. NEWS ===== US considers punishing local data storage laws by limiting access to work visas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US has told India it is considering limiting the number of H-1B visas issued to skilled workers from countries that require foreign companies to store data locally, Neha Dasgupta and Aditya Kalra report at Reuters. Indians currently receive an estimated 70% of these visas; the cap would be set between 10% and 15%. India's data storage laws particularly affect payments companies such as Mastercard and Visa. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-india-exclusive-idUSKCN1TK2LG Facebook-led consortium announces global digital currency ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has announced Libra, a digital currency to be governed by a consortium that includes Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Stripe, Uber, Lyft, and Spotify, as well as non-profits Kiva, and Women's World Banking, Frank Chaparro and Aislinn Keely report at The Block. Corporate members pay $10 million to participate. At the New York Times, Matt Stoller finds four problems: the commingling of user and financial data is dangerous for both privacy and security; insiders can selectively exploit data in anti-competitive ways; theft or hacking of Libra could place the entire financial system at risk; and Libra challenges national security and sovereignty. At the Guardian, Alex Hern finds that user activity on Facebook has dropped by almost 20% in the last year. At Pymnts.com, Karen Webster details Libra's system design, and explains why it won't bring financial inclusion for the world's 1.7 billion unbanked people as Facebook claims. Finally, at the Guardian, John Harris argues that Libra risks entrenching Facebook so deeply that governments will never be able to challenge it. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/06/14/facebooks-cryptocurrency-partners-revealed-we-obtained-the-entire-list-of-inaugural-backers/ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-currency-libra.html https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/20/facebook-usage-collapsed-since-scandal-data-shows https://www.pymnts.com/facebook/2019/what-the-launch-of-facebooks-libra-means-for-payments/ https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/06/18/what-will-it-take-for-facebooks-libra-to-help-the-unbanked-and-gain-traction-in-venezuela/ UK delays age verification system ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The UK has delayed implementing age verification for online pornography as required by the 2017 Digital Economy Act for at least six months because the government failed to notify the EU as required by the Technical Regulations Directive, Jim Watterson and Alex Hern report at the Guardian. The system was due to take effect on July 15. The news broke shortly after the Open Rights Group published a report on the system's implementation, which it says offers consumers little privacy protection and does not help them make informed choices. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/20/uks-porn-age-verification-system-to-be-delayed-indefinitely https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press/releases/2019/org-report:-bbfc-age-verification-standard-is-pointless,-misleading-and-potentially-dangerous Yemen: World Food Programme suspends aid to regions refusing biometrics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The World Food Programme is partially suspending food aid in the Houthi-controlled regions of Yemen because they refuse to accept a biometric registration system the WFP says is essential to controlling food aid and combating fraud, Aaron Martin and Linnet Taylor report at Global Data Justice. The Houthis argue that the biometrics program is part of an intelligence operation and is counter to national security. https://globaldatajustice.org/2019-06-21-biometrics-WFP/ Canada: copyright review recommends expanding fair dealing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 36 recommendations in Canada's five-yearly review of copyright law include expanding fair dealing, retaining internet safe harbor rules, and permitting circumvention of copy protection systems for lawful purposes such as exercising fair dealing rights, Timothy Vollmer reports for Creative Commons. At his blog, Michael Geist reviews the recommendations in detail, noting that the committee declined to recommend EU-style linking rights. At Communia, Paul Keller welcomes Canada's skepticism about the EU's approach to remuneration and online service provider liability. https://creativecommons.org/2019/06/06/new-canadian-report-offers-balanced-recommendations-for-progressive-copyright-reform/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2019/06/the-authoritative-canadian-copyright-review-report-industry-committee/ https://www.communia-association.org/2019/06/13/canadian-copyright-report-lets-wait-see-upload-filters-press-publishers-rights-will-fail/ Stress and low pay plague Facebook content moderators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Numerous Facebook content moderators working for the company's contractor, Cognizant, break their NDAs to tell The Verge's Casey Newton about their miserable and chaotic working conditions, the low pay, suicides, rapid turnover, and stress of reviewing disturbing content. Facebook, he concludes, needs to make contractors like Cognizant more accountable for their workers' mental health. In her newly-published book, Behind the Screen, Sarah T. Roberts reports on years of work investigating these invisible workers. https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== How to control artificial intelligence ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this video clip, Daniel Dennett's lecture argues that artificial general intelligence - synthetic consciousness - is possible, though distant, but human control will be essential for our own safety. In a paper for Artificial Intelligence and Law, Joanna J. Bryson, Mihailis E. Diamantis, and Thomas D. Grant conclude that conferring legal personhood on synthetic entities, which the EU is considering, creates too many difficulties regarding accountability for violations of the rights of humans. In late May, 42 countries adopted the OECD's principles on AI, which include holding organizations and individuals accountable for the systems they develop. In a blog posting, Bryson suggests holding AI accountable by keeping and securing logs; the car industry has been able to achieve this because it was already well-regulated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhsiFjDoxgk https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10506-017-9214-9 https://www.oecd.org/science/forty-two-countries-adopt-new-oecd-principles-on-artificial-intelligence.htm https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-smart-bureaucrats-guide-to-ai.html Expanding video analytics creates army of robot surveillance guards ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting, ACLU's Jay Stanley summarizes his new report on the coming army of robot surveillance guards that is being created by sophisticated, high-speed video analytics, already a $3.2 billion industry. Billions of actively watching cameras in dashboards, doorbells, automated stores, when combined, he writes, will represent "an extension of corporate and bureaucratic power". https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/army-robot-surveillance-guards-coming US: Platform safe harbor under threat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this lengthy article at Wired, Christine Biederman tells the story of the Backpage prosecution, which threatens to end the protection from liability for content users post afforded by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996. At The Verge, Adi Robertson interviews Jeff Kosseff about his new book, The Twenty-Six Words that Created the Internet, on the history of S230. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-feds/ https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-internet-law-twenty-six-words-that-created-the-internet-jeff-kosseff-interview The global landscape of local news ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this series of video clips, Index on Censorship and Global Journalist survey the landscape of local news, and finds deserts in the US and Mexico and constraints in India, Poland, and Argentina. British journalists, too, are losing confidence in their ability to hold powerful interests to account. The partners go on to suggest new business models and strategies for dealing with fake news. https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/06/global-journalist-local-news-in-global-decline/ African machine learning community blossoms ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article for MIT Technology Review, Karen Hao explores the African machine learning community, which is blossoming despite difficulties such as international travel. IBM Research has offices in Nairobi and Johannesburg; Google has opened a lab in Accra; and ICLR will host its flagship AI research conference in Addis Ababa next year. While the goals of these initiatives are the same as elsewhere - increasing access to health care, improving financial inclusion, enhancing food security, and improving government efficiency - the context provides new problems to explore. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613848/ai-africa-machine-learning-ibm-google/ US House Intelligence Committee hears testimony on deepfakes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this livestream from June 13, the US House Intelligence Committee hears testimony on the problem of deepfakes and artificial intelligence. Among those testifying about the future, legal challenges, and impact of deepfakes, University of Maryland professor and advocate Danielle Citron, co-founder of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), urges lawmakers to punish both producers and distributors. At the Huffington Post, Jesselyn Cook explores the impact of deepfake porn on the women whose faces are used without permission. CCRI has helped pass laws banning revenge porn in 38 US states. At the Guardian, Oscar Schwartz argues that deepfakes are a power problem, not a technology problem, and says technological solutions will not fix the "deep-seated social problem of truth decay and polarization". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLS9MlIWOk https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/deepfake-porn-heres-what-its-like-to-see-yourself_n_5d0d0faee4b0a3941861fced https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/deepfakes-facebook-silicon-valley-responsibility https://www.cybercivilrights.org/ *** DIARY ============== If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ORGCon ---------------------------------------- July 13, 2019 London, UK Themes for this year's ORGCon are digital privacy; free speech, censorship, and the role of algorithms; mass government surveillance; and data and democracy. https://orgcon.openrightsgroup.org/2019/ PETS 2019 ---------------------------------------- July 16-20, 2019 Stockholm, Sweden The 19th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium will bring together privacy experts from around the world to present and discuss recent advances and new perspectives on research in privacy technologies. PETS/PoPETs is the premier venue for novel applied and/or theoretical research into the design, analysis, experimentation, or fielding of privacy-enhancing technologies. https://petsymposium.org/ DEF CON 27 ---------------------------------------- August 8-11, 2018 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA DEF CON is one of the oldest continuously running hacker conventions, and also one of the largest. The DEF CON 27 theme, in a way, responds to '1983' with new questions. What does it look like when we make the better choice? What kind of world do we hack together in the sunniest timeline? How does our real best-case scenario compare to the future we've been dreaming of for generations? https://defcon.org/index.html SOUPS 2019 ---------------------------------------- August 11-13, 2019 Santa Clara, California, USA The 2019 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners in human computer interaction, security, and privacy. The program will feature technical papers on aspects of privacy and security such as innovative functionality and design, field studies, usability evaluations of privacy features, and longitudinal studies. https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/call-for-papers Wikimania ---------------------------------------- August 14-18, 2019 Stockholm, Sweden Wikimania 2019 will be the 15th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 85th World Library and Information Congress ---------------------------------------- August 24-30, 2019 Athens, Greece The theme of IFLA's 2019 conference, "Libraries: dialogue for change", invites the library and information science international community to discuss, re-examine, re-think and re-interpret the role of libraries as promoters of change. In an era of rapid changes in the socio-economic-technological sphere, libraries ought to define their role as information providers, promoters of reading, settlers for the community they serve, key players in innovation, and leading actors for changes in society. A constant, open dialectic relationship between libraries and society will lead to well-informed citizens facilitating progress and development, implementing the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and leading to prosperity in all fields of the democratic society. https://2019.ifla.org/#news Techfestival ---------------------------------------- September 5-7, 2019 Copenhagen, Denmark Techfestival was created to find human answers to technological progress. In its third year, the festival will work across ten tracks to examine the ways technology shapes our societies, from building cities to exercising modern democracy. https://techfestival.co/ MozFest ---------------------------------------- October 21-27, 2019 London, UK MozFest 2019 is the tenth anniversary gathering of educators, activists, technologists, researchers, artists, and young people dedicated to creating a better, healthier internet. This year's theme is "More responsible artificial intelligence". https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Biometrics Congress ---------------------------------------- October 28-30, 2019 London, UK The Biometrics Institute Congress provides an independent platform where the international biometrics community can gather to conduct off-the-record discussion among the institute's multi-stakeholder community. In 2018, representatives from over 30 nations attended. This year's theme is making the world a safer place through the responsible and ethical use of biometrics in an era where laws and regulations are often unable to stay abreast of technology change and the business models based on it. https://www.biometricsinstitute.org/event/biometrics-congress-2019/ Web Summit ---------------------------------------- November 4-7. 2019 Lisbon, Portugal The Web Summit gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers, and heads of state to ask a simple question: where to next? In 2018, speakers included Margrethe Vestager, Tim Berners-Lee, and Microsoft CEO Brad Smith. https://websummit.com/ 18th Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society ---------------------------------------- November 11, 2019 London, UK The goal of this workshop, held in conjunction with the ACM CCS conference, is to discuss and find solutions to the privacy problems that result from the transformation of society brought by the Information Revolution. One of the major implications of this technological shift has been a massive increase in the collection, sharing, and analysis of personal data. The workshop will include academia, government, and industry, as well as communities such as law and business, who will present novel research on all theoretical and practical aspects of electronic privacy, as well as experimental studies of fielded systems. http://wpes.tech/ IGF Global ---------------------------------------- November 25-29, 2019 Berlin, Germany The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was set up in 2006 as an open discussion platform of the United Nations for key legal, political, social and technical issues relating to the internet. IGF's multi-stakeholder model aims to ensure that all relevant societal groups are equally involved in preparations and implementation: governments, civil society, business, academia, international organizations, and the technical community. This is particularly of note in terms of representatives from developing and newly industrializing countries, which otherwise tend to be under-represented. https://www.igf2019.berlin/ Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing ---------------------------------------- November 27-29, 2019 Tromsø, Norway The Munin Conference is an annual conference on scholarly publishing and communication, primarily revolving around open access, open data and open science. http://site.uit.no/muninconf/ CPDP 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 22-24, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The 2020 edition of Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection has issued a call for panels in all areas related to technological privacy and data protection. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/call-for-panels FAT* 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 27-30, 2020 Barcelona, Spain ACM FAT* is an annual conference dedicating to bringing together a diverse community to investigate and tackle issues in this emerging area. Topics of interest include the theory and practice of fair machine learning, measurement and auditing of deployed systems, users' experience of algorithms, and the ethical, moral, social, and policy implications of big data and ubiquitous intelligent systems. https://fatconference.org/ Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit ---------------------------------------- February 19-21, 2020 Phoenix, Arizona, USA Attending the Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit is an opportunity for anyone seeking cross-disciplinary strategies and partnerships that deliver scalable, transferable, and equitable solutions to urban neighborhoods. https://meetingoftheminds.org/events/motm2020 We Robot 2020 ---------------------------------------- April 2-4, 2020 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada We Robot is an interdisciplinary conference on the legal and policy questions relating to robots. The increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere - from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, and even to the battlefield - disrupts existing legal regimes and requires new thinking on policy issues. The conference fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and those who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate. https://techlaw.uottawa.ca/werobot Global Privacy Summit ---------------------------------------- April 7-8, 2020 Washington, DC, USA Global Privacy Summit will gather more than 3,600 professionals from around the world for an outstanding program with a truly global focus. https://10times.com/global-privacy-summit re:publica 2020 ---------------------------------------- May 6-8, 2020 Berlin, Germany re:publica is Europe's largest internet and digital society conference. More than 19,500 participants from 80 countries came together to discuss current issues of digital society at the three-day festival. Participants represent a cross-section of (digital) society, which include professionals from economics, politics, business, hacker culture, NGOs, media, and marketing, as well as bloggers, activists, artists, and social media experts. https://re-publica.com/en *** This list is now managed by MailChimp. Hear more from the Information Program! ================================ If you have been forwarded this email by a friend and wish to subscribe to this fortnightly digest, please visit: https://opensocietyfoundations.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=52d98944f5466486ab8567329&id=1c0675de1d. You can also read more about our work on the Open Society Foundations website: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/information-program Our mailing address is: Open Society Foundations, 7th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP, United Kingdom This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending June 14, 2019 ==================================================== The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Centrum Cyfrowe, Communia, EDRi, EFF, noyb, Open Knowledge Foundation. NEWS ===== Poland files legal complaint against the EU Copyright Directive ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Poland, which opposed the Copyright Directive the EU passed in March, has filed a complaint against the new rules in the Court of Justice of the European Union, Cory Doctorow reports at BoingBoing. At The Parliament Magazine, Martin Banks reports that former Scottish MEP Catherine Stihler, now chief executive of the Open Knowledge Foundation, welcomes the complaint against "this chilling attack on freedom of expression". In a posting at Communia, Natalia Mileszyck gives further background on the complaint, deplores regrets the political aspect of what should be a non-partisan complaintmatter, and notes that the Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation has filed an FOI request for a copy of the text of the complaint. https://boingboing.net/2019/05/26/filternet-well.html https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/former-mep-welcomes-polish-complaint-over-new-eu-copyright-directive https://www.communia-association.org/2019/06/01/copyright-directive-challenged-cjeu-polish-government/ Irish Supreme Court allows Schrems complaint against Facebook to proceed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Irish Supreme Court has refused Facebook's application to block the referral of Max Schrems' case against Facebook to the Court of Justice of the European Union, Schrems reports at noyb. The case began in 2013, when Edward Snowden's revelation that Facebook allows the US government to engage in "mass processing" of Europeans' personal data despite the EU's data protection laws led Max Schrems to bring a complaint to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. CJEU will hear the case on July 9, and after that the Commissioner will finally have to rule on the original complaint. https://edri.org/facebook-fails-to-avoid-cjeu-judgment-on-nsa-case/ Czech Republic: Court allows data retention law to stand ---------------------------------------------------------------------- After 14 years, the Czech Constitutional Court has rejected Iuridicum Remedium's proposal to declare the Czech data retention law unconstitutional, IuRe reports at EDRi. The law was enacted as the Czech Republic's national implementation of the EU Data Retention Directive, which the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled invalid in 2014. https://edri.org/czech-constitutional-court-rejects-complaint-on-data-retention/ https://edri.org/data-retention-eu-commission-inconclusive-about-potential-new-legislation/ Amazon Ring doorbells create police-sponsored private surveillance network ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amazon's camera-equipped Ring doorbells and Neighbors app are creating widespread private surveillance networks promoted by police departments offering discounts on the devices, Alfred Ng reports at CNet. In some of these deals, police require recipients to turn over footage on request. Ring responds that it does not support such conditions. On Twitter, Access Now's Amie Stepanovich posts the Ring's terms of service, which grant Ring and its licensees a royalty-free perpetual license to all videos the doorbells record. At the Guardian, Erin Durkin reports that 130 Brooklyn residents have filed a formal complaint with the state to block their landlord from installing a facial recognition-operated building access control system, a practice that is quietly spreading. The tenants believe the system is discriminatory and intended to fuel gentrification. https://www.cnet.com/features/amazons-helping-police-build-a-surveillance-network-with-ring-doorbells/ https://twitter.com/astepanovich/status/1136696387104575488 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/may/29/new-york-facial-recognition-cameras-apartment-complex Chinese censors erase memories of Tiananmen Square ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Vice, David Gilbert documents China's efforts to erase the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre from the internet. Inside China, more than 10,000 domains, including Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and a blacklist of over 300 words keeps all mention of the protests from view. In the lead-up to the 30th anniversary, the Chinese government forced the social media platform Weibo to shut down comments and block international users from logging in. The result is "collective amnesia" and a generation deliberately kept in ignorance of its country's past. The Weiboscope project is documenting how older Chinese citizens mark the anniversary, but many use codes younger people don't understand. Cate Cadell interviews content screening workers at Beijing Bytedance who say that the censorship is largely automated and very accurate, and news is rejected unless it comes from state-controlled media first. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xge3b/chinese-dissidents-are-running-out-of-ways-to-remember-tiananmen-square https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/30-years-tiananmen-square-state-chinese-censorship-and-digital-surveillance https://theintercept.com/2019/06/07/china-bans-the-intercept-and-other-news-sites-in-censorship-black-friday/ US technology companies oppose Huawei ban ---------------------------------------------------------------------- US technology companies, particularly chip makers, are seeking exceptions from the Trump administration's ban on selling to China's Huawei claiming it will undermine their profits and ability to innovate, Reed Albergotti reports for the Washington Post. At Quartz, John Detrixhe reviews the ban's other consequences, which are now beginning to surface. Google claims Huawei's likely move to fork Android will damage US national security; Facebook is barring Huawei from pre-installing its apps; and self-driving cars may be delayed because Huawei is the only supplier that as yet can supply reliable 5G equipment. At Nikkei Asian Review, Toyoki Nakanishi suggests that although users can still download these apps, updates will fail because they won't have Android updates . At the Washington Post, Jordan Link details Huawei's deeply embedded position in Africa. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/07/huawei-ban-threatens-us-national-security-tech-companies-warn-trump-administration/ https://qz.com/1638782/google-warns-against-cutting-huawei-off-from-its-android-os/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/10/what-do-we-know-about-huaweis-africa-presence/ FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Ransomware attack paralyzes Baltimore government systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this podcast from WNYC, city hall reporter Emily Sullivan and Syracuse University professor Lee W. McKnight discuss the ransomware attack that has denied the city of Baltimore and its residents access to government systems for a month. The city refuses to pay the demanded BTC13 (about $100,000), a responsible decision that will nonetheless is likely cost the city over $10 million and months of downtime . There have been at least 169 such attacks on US state and local governments, including the city of Atlanta, since 2013. Governments are soft targets because overworked staff and budget constraints leave few resources for security, training, or modernizing systems. Baltimore's attack was traced to a two-year-old unpatched vulnerability. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/ransomware-attack-leaves-baltimore-locked-out-city-hall Privatization, platformization, and domination: the challenges of smart cities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this op-ed at The Globe and Mail, Rutgers law professor Ellen P. Goodman discusses the lessons she and Julia Powles learned from their newly-published study of the Sidewalk Labs development in Toronto. Goodman advises residents of cities with similar projects to keep their eye on the curb: who will gather and govern the data there? Who will be in charge of enforcing the law? Who will collect the penalties for infractions? How those contracts are awarded can make the difference between public space and vendor lock-in. In the paper, they discuss the challenges of privatization, platformization, and domination in more depth. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-curb-its-enthusiasm-why-sidewalk-labs-fast-moving-plans-for-toronto/ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3390610 Workshop studies the economics of information security ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this series of postings at Light Blue Touchpaper, Cambridge security engineer Ross Anderson liveblogs the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (remotely, because Anderson, along with two prominent cryptographers, was unable to obtain a US visa to attend in person). Among the wide range of topics are AI in military decision making, the lack of incentives for companies to invest in cybersecurity, trust in algorithms, and the behavioral aspects of privacy. https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2019/06/05/shb-2019-liveblog/#comments Uber forges destructive path through society ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at American Affairs, transport expert Hubert Horan reviews the risks to society posed by Uber, which his financial analysis shows is unlikely to ever become sustainably profitable. We all share the damage: Uber uses its (artificial) market power to depress drivers' pay, solves no structural industry problems, and has survived only by burning billions of dollars in subsidies while engaging in "legal disobedience, competitor sabotage, harassment of critical journalists and of people who sued Uber, obstruction of local law enforcement, and intellectual property theft". Crucial to Uber's success is convincing local governments to cede control of the taxi industry from democratically accountable regulators to private investors - a campaign copy-and-pasted from a 1990s Koch brothers-funded effort to deregulate the taxi industry. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/ubers-path-of-destruction/ Academics protest Palantir privacy conference sponsorship ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this opinion piece at the Guardian, Marisa Franco summarizes the letter signed by more than 140 academics, including Naomi Klein and Douglas Rushkoff, asking the Privacy Law Scholars conference and the University of California at Berkeley, where the conference was held in late May, to drop Palantir as a sponsor because it helps Immigration and Customs Enforcement separate families and deport immigrants. The letter also calls on the conference co-founders, Chris Hoofnagle and Daniel Solove, to resign from the company's advisory board on privacy and civil liberties. In 2018, DATACTIVE boycotted the Amsterdam Privacy Conference for accepting Palantir's sponsorship. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/31/palantir-berkeley-immigrant-families-apart https://data-activism.net/2018/09/why-we-wont-be-at-apc-2018/ Tim Berners-Lee seeks to revive communities and networks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting, Ethan Zuckerman watches Jonathan Zittrain and Tim Berners-Lee discuss the latter's Solid, a new protocol for personal clouds, and Inrupt, the company he's founded to promote it, as positive means to revive the sociotechnical system of networks and communities that Facebook has overwhelmed. Berners-Lee believes Solid stands a chance at widespread adoption because it does not disrupt what's already in place. Zuckerman is also working on methods of creating new communities for small groups and sees Solid as a potential underpinning. http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/06/06/sir-tim-versus-black-mirror/ *** DIARY ============== If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. Data for Policy ---------------------------------------- June 11-12, 2019 London, UK The fourth international Data for Policy conference has "Digital Trust and Personal Data" as its main theme. The conference will also welcome contributions in the broader data science for government and policy discussions. In particular, the organizers encourage submissions around the value and harm of using data in the public sector, deployment experience in government, "digital ethics" and "ethics engineering" concepts, personal data sharing frameworks and technologies, transparency in machine learning processes, analytics at source, and secure data transaction methodologies. http://dataforpolicy.org/ RightsCon 2019 ---------------------------------------- June 11-14, 2019 Tunis, Tunisia RightsCon Tunis will continue to be a space for civil society, technologists, businesses, startups, public servants, and lawyers to connect, collaborate, build strategies, draft declarations, and move forward real-world change. Whether in provocative plenaries, intimate roundtables, informal meetings, or the lively Community Village, RightsCon Tunis will help shape the future of human rights in the digital age. https://www.rightscon.org/about/ The Web That Was ---------------------------------------- June 19-21, 2019 Amsterdam, Netherlands As the first generation of web users ages, the early web has become simply another object of nostalgia. The third biennial Research Infrastructure for the Study of Archived Web Materials (RESAW) conference will rethink our relationship to the web's past and the past web, and consider how to reconstruct and re-evaluate its history. The conference will host a lecture-performance by Geert Lovink and guests on the history and preservation of Amsterdam's early internet culture. https://thewebthatwas.net Africa Data Protection and Privacy Conference ---------------------------------------- June 24-28, 2019 Accra, Ghana The first Africa Data Protection and Privacy Conference, convened by the Network of African Data Protection Authorities and Ghana Data Protection Commission, will bring together established authorities in Africa and their Global North counterparts for thought leadership, insight, best practice, high level strategic content, and networking, providing a critical platform for promoting Africa's drive for data protection and privacy laws in Africa. https://www.ardppc.com/eng/ LIBER 2019 ---------------------------------------- June 26-28, 2019 Dublin, Ireland The LIBER Conference 2019 will be held in collaboration with CONUL, the Consortium of National and University Libraries for the island of Ireland. The conference brings library directors and their staff together for three days of networking and collaboration. The goal of the conference is to identify the most pressing needs for research libraries, and to share information and ideas for addressing those needs. https://liberconference.eu/dublin2019/ ORGCon ---------------------------------------- July 13, 2019 London, UK Themes for this year's shortly-to-be-announced ORGCon are digital privacy; free speech, censorship, and the role of algorithms; mass government surveillance; and data and democracy. https://orgcon.openrightsgroup.org/2019/ PETS 2019 ---------------------------------------- July 16-20, 2019 Stockholm, Sweden The 19th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium will bring together privacy experts from around the world to present and discuss recent advances and new perspectives on research in privacy technologies. PETS/PoPETs is the premier venue for novel applied and/or theoretical research into the design, analysis, experimentation, or fielding of privacy-enhancing technologies. https://petsymposium.org/ DEF CON 27 ---------------------------------------- August 8-11, 2018 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA DEF CON is one of the oldest continuously running hacker conventions, and also one of the largest. The DEF CON 27 theme, in a way, responds to '1983' with new questions. What does it look like when we make the better choice? What kind of world do we hack together in the sunniest timeline? How does our real best-case scenario compare to the future we've been dreaming of for generations? https://defcon.org/index.html SOUPS 2019 ---------------------------------------- August 11-13, 2019 Santa Clara, California, USA The 2019 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS) will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners in human computer interaction, security, and privacy. The program will feature technical papers on aspects of privacy and security such as innovative functionality and design, field studies, usability evaluations of privacy features, and longitudinal studies. https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2019/call-for-papers Wikimania ---------------------------------------- August 14-18, 2019 Stockholm, Sweden Wikimania 2019 will be the 15th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 85th World Library and Information Congress ---------------------------------------- August 24-30, 2019 Athens, Greece The theme of IFLA's 2019 conference, "Libraries: dialogue for change", invites the library and information science international community to discuss, re-examine, re-think and re-interpret the role of libraries as promoters of change. In an era of rapid changes in the socio-economic-technological sphere, libraries ought to define their role as information providers, promoters of reading, settlers for the community they serve, key players in innovation, and leading actors for changes in society. A constant, open dialectic relationship between libraries and society will lead to well-informed citizens facilitating progress and development, implementing the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and leading to prosperity in all fields of the democratic society. https://2019.ifla.org/#news Biometrics Congress ---------------------------------------- October 28-30, 2019 London, UK The Biometrics Institute Congress provides an independent platform where the international biometrics community can gather to conduct off-the-record discussion among the institute's multi-stakeholder community. In 2018, representatives from over 30 nations attended. This year's theme is making the world a safer place through the responsible and ethical use of biometrics in an era where laws and regulations are often unable to stay abreast of technology change and the business models based on it. https://www.biometricsinstitute.org/event/biometrics-congress-2019/ Web Summit ---------------------------------------- November 4-7. 2019 Lisbon, Portugal The Web Summit gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers, and heads of state to ask a simple question: where to next? In 2018, speakers included Margrethe Vestager, Tim Berners-Lee, and Microsoft CEO Brad Smith. https://websummit.com/ 18th Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society ---------------------------------------- November 11, 2019 London, UK The goal of this workshop, held in conjunction with the ACM CCS conference, is to discuss and find solutions to the privacy problems that result from the transformation of society brought by the Information Revolution. One of the major implications of this technological shift has been a massive increase in the collection, sharing, and analysis of personal data. The workshop will include academia, government, and industry, as well as communities such as law and business, who will present novel research on all theoretical and practical aspects of electronic privacy, as well as experimental studies of fielded systems. http://wpes.tech/ IGF Global ---------------------------------------- November 25-29, 2019 Berlin, Germany The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was set up in 2006 as an open discussion platform of the United Nations for key legal, political, social and technical issues relating to the internet. IGF's multi-stakeholder model aims to ensure that all relevant societal groups are equally involved in preparations and implementation: governments, civil society, business, academia, international organizations, and the technical community. This is particularly of note in terms of representatives from developing and newly industrializing countries, which otherwise tend to be under-represented. https://www.igf2019.berlin/ Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing ---------------------------------------- November 27-29, 2019 Tromsø, Norway The Munin Conference is an annual conference on scholarly publishing and communication, primarily revolving around open access, open data and open science. http://site.uit.no/muninconf/ CPDP 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 22-24, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The 2020 edition of Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection has issued a call for panels in all areas related to technological privacy and data protection. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/call-for-panels FAT* 2020 ---------------------------------------- January 27-30, 2020 Barcelona, Spain ACM FAT* is an annual conference dedicating to bringing together a diverse community to investigate and tackle issues in this emerging area. Topics of interest include the theory and practice of fair machine learning, measurement and auditing of deployed systems, users' experience of algorithms, and the ethical, moral, social, and policy implications of big data and ubiquitous intelligent systems. https://fatconference.org/ Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit ---------------------------------------- February 19-21, 2020 Phoenix, Arizona, USA Attending the Meeting of the Minds Annual Summit is an opportunity for anyone seeking cross-disciplinary strategies and partnerships that deliver scalable, transferable, and equitable solutions to urban neighborhoods. https://meetingoftheminds.org/events/motm2020 We Robot 2020 ---------------------------------------- April 2-4, 2020 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada We Robot is an interdisciplinary conference on the legal and policy questions relating to robots. The increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere - from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, and even to the battlefield - disrupts existing legal regimes and requires new thinking on policy issues. The conference fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and those who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate. https://techlaw.uottawa.ca/werobot *** This list is now managed by MailChimp. Hear more from the Information Program! ================================ If you have been forwarded this email by a friend and wish to subscribe to this fortnightly digest, please visit: https://opensocietyfoundations.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=52d98944f5466486ab8567329&id=1c0675de1d. You can also read more about our work on the Open Society Foundations website: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/information-program Our mailing address is: Open Society Foundations, 7th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP, United Kingdom This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
