News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending December 11, 2020 ==================================================== 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 Open Society Foundations. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: EDRi, Panoptykon Foundation. NEWS ===== EU Digital Services Act Will Overhaul Platform Content Management ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The EU is preparing the Digital Services Act to overhaul how platforms such as Google and Facebook manage content, Silvia Amaro reports at CNBC. Competition chief Margrethe Vestager believes it's crucial that digital services be open about why and how the platforms control what we see. The new rules are predicted to require dramatic changes in Big Tech's business models and practices. The European Parliament has posted a briefing providing a pre-legislative synthesis of national, regional, and local positions on the prospective act. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/digital-services-act-how-the-eu-is-going-after-big-tech.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/659369/EPRS_BRI(2020)659369_EN.pdf Anti-Vaccination Misinformation Gains Traction in Unrelated Groups ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Vaccine misinformation that was circulating via now-removed large and influential anti-vaccine Facebook pages continues to circulate in smaller, better-connected groups that have shifted focus, Brandy Zadrozny reports at NBC News. A pre-print paper by George Washington University physicist Neil Johnson finds that groups for pet lovers, parent school groups, and yoga fans are increasingly connecting with the anti-vaccination movement. The London-based Center for Countering Digital Hate estimates that the anti-vaccination movement has gained 8 million followers since 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/covid-19-vaccines-face-varied-powerful-misinformation-movement-online-n1249378 Google Fires Leading AI Ethicist Timni Gebru ---------------------------------------------------------------------- After a dispute over a paper studying big AI language models like the one incorporated into Google's search engine, Google fired Timnit Gebru, the leader of Google's Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, Kim Lyons reports at The Verge. Gebru, known for her work on algorithmic bias, has said she felt she was being censored by the company. Eight hundred Google workers and more than 1,000 academic, industry, and civil society members have signed a letter of protest to support Gebru. At MIT Technology Review, Karen Hao finds that an early draft of the paper favors mitigating four main risks of large models: carbon footprint, increasing homogeneity, diverting research away from understanding in favor of language manipulation, and the potential for deception. At CBS News, Irina Ivanova reports that the US National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint that Google surveilled, interrogated, and then illegally fired two employees it suspected of workplace organizing. https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/5/22155985/paper-timnit-gebru-fired-google-large-language-models-search-ai https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-illegally-fired-workers-labor-organizing-allegation/ Kazakhstan Government Intercepts Secure Web Traffic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For the third time since 2015, in a "cybersecurity training exercise" the Kazakhstan government is forcing citizens in its capital, Nur-Sultan to install a root certificate on their devices as a condition for gaining access to foreign internet services, Catalin Cimpanu reports at ZDNet. The certificate, once installed, performs a man-in-the-middle attack that allows the government to intercept all secure web (HTTPS) traffic from users' devices. https://www.zdnet.com/article/kazakhstan-government-is-intercepting-https-traffic-in-its-capital/ Internet Society Funds Internet Engineering Task Force ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet Society (ISOC) has committed to supply the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) with an annual contribution of $41.4 million for the next six years, Kieren McCarthy reports at The Register. IETF will use the money for core operations and says the length of the commitment will permit it to engage in better financial planning. ISOC has also promised an additional $30 million over the same time period to match funds the IETF raises itself. The goal is to make IETF sustainable and self-sufficient at a time when the internet's basic protocols are beginning to modernize. https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/03/internet_society_ietf/ EU Campaign Seeks Ban on Biometric Mass Surveillance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Over 10,000 people have signed up to support EDRi's "Reclaim Your Face" campaign to demand a ban on biometric mass surveillance, Janosch Delcker reports at Politico. Part of the reason is that little if being heard about legal obligations to tThe campaign is supported by 12 EDRi member organizations, which are coordinating national campaigns in Italy, Serbia, Greece, Czechia, Netherlands, France, and Germany. https://www.politico.eu/article/activists-urge-eu-to-ban-live-facial-recognition-in-public-spaces/ https://edri.org/our-work/campaign-reclaim-your-face-calls-for-a-ban-on-biometric-mass-surveillance/ FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Facebook Oversight Board Begins Case Consideration ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Vice, David Gilbert lists the first six cases, selected from 20,000 submissions, to be considered by Facebook's official independent Oversight Board. Five were submitted by users; several question Facebook's decisions under its hate speech policy. The only one referred to the board by Facebook relates to the risk of offline harm caused by misinformation about COVID-19. Critics such as the experts who created the unaffiliated Real Facebook Oversight Board, complain that the most pressing issues, such as Steve Bannon's call to behead FBI director Christopher Wray and public health expert Antony Fauci, are not being considered. At the Guardian, Rebecca Ratcliffe cites an Amnesty International report that accuses Facebook and YouTube of complicity in Vietnam's "industrial-scale" censorship and repression. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxj4w/here-are-the-first-6-cases-before-facebooks-toothless-supreme-court https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/01/facebook-youtube-google-accused-complicity-vietnam-repression Exploring the Internet's White Supremacist Ecosystem ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this audio clip at NPR, Sam Sanders interviews Talia Lavin about her year undercover infiltrating extremist online communities, which led to her new book, Culture Warlords. Adopting personas such as a white Midwestern American female in search of a husband and a West Virginia man with a pickup truck, Lavin finds that anti-Semitism is an essential part of white supremacy and that the biggest promulgators of online hate are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram. At ZDNet, Wendy M. Grossman reviews the book. At The Conversation, Julia Posetti, Jackie Harrison, and Silvio Waisbord say their survey of 1,210 international media workers finds that online attacks on female journalists are increasingly spilling over into offline violence, leading women to withdraw from frontline reporting and public engagement. The newly-released New Zealand Commission report on the Christchurch shootings finds the attacker was a "lone wolf " who "spent much time" accessing extreme right-wing content online, which "may have contributed to his actions". https://www.npr.org/2020/11/04/931527391/white-supremacy-and-its-online-reach https://www.zdnet.com/article/culture-warlords-book-review-into-the-heart-of-online-darkness/ https://theconversation.com/online-attacks-on-female-journalists-are-increasingly-spilling-into-the-real-world-new-research-150791 https://chchroyalinquiry.cwp.govt.nz/ How to Reform Adtech ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this report, "To Track or Not To Track? Towards Privacy-Friendly and Sustainable Online Advertising", the Panoptykon Foundation shows that it's possible to reform the adtech industry without bankrupting online publishers. To make that happen, however, European policy makers must enforce GDPR and create incentives for adopting alternatives through new regulations. https://en.panoptykon.org/privacy-friendly-advertising Tyler Cowen Interviews Wikipedian-in-Chief Jimmy Wales ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this episode of the Conversations with Tyler podcast, Tyler Cowen interviews Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on the subject of content moderation, the threat posed by Trump's demands that Congress repeal Section 230, which protects Wikipedia from intermediary liability, and Wikipedia's unique position in the internet landscape. The Hindustan Times reports that the Indian government has asked Wikipedia to remove a map that shows the region Aksai Chin as part of China. https://cowenconvos.libsyn.com/jimmy-wales https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delete-map-that-shows-aksai-chin-as-part-of-china-india-tells-wikipedia/story-TCT6rUz89TU2wrN8k7HwOL.html Nature Journals Adopt Controversial Open Access Fee Structure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Forbes, Madhukar Pai argues that Nature's newly-announced open access fees for its journals conflict with its recent "diversity commitment" pledging faster movement toward equity for under-represented groups. The 20-plus scientists he interviews find the fees "extraordinarily high" and exclusionary; publisher representative James Butcher called their concerns "valid" but defended the fees on the basis of the publisher's cost overheads. Pai concludes by pushing universities to de-emphasize prestige journals. https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhukarpai/2020/11/30/how-prestige-journals-remain-elite-exclusive-and-exclusionary/?sh=5ba3fdd14d48 Signal Spreads End-to-End Encryption ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this Wired article, Andy Greenburg explains the wide adoption of Signal, the encryption protocol used by the eponymous messaging app as well as Facebook's WhatsApp and, now, Android messaging. Popularly, the answer is Signal's reputation as a well-designed open source protocol; technically, experts like its implementation of the privacy protecting technique "perfect forward secrecy". https://www.wired.com/story/signal-encryption-protocol-hacker-lexicon/ Investigation Finds Rape Videos Infest Pornhub ---------------------------------------------------------------------- At the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof reports the results of his lengthy investigation of the world's tenth-most-visited website, Pornhub, which sells itself as "the cheery, winking face of naughty" and finds dozens of user-posted rape videos available for viewing or download, either way resulting in revenues for Pornhub's owner, Mindgeek. Kristof struggles for solutions, but suggests allowing only verified users to post videos, banning downloads, and increasing moderation. At industry news site Xbiz, Gustavo Turner calls Kristof's article "emotional pornography" and disputes his approach. AP News reports that in response to Kristof's article Mastercard and Visa are investigating of their business relationship with the site, and Pornhub has hired a law firm to conduct an independent content review, will ban downloads, and announce criteria for verifying users. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.xbiz.com/news/256091/op-ed-new-york-times-fights-pornhub-with-emotional-pornography https://apnews.com/article/mastercard-visa-pornhub-relationship-754c1968076b4b4fa4e657ee9641fd57 https://apnews.com/article/pornography-fb5e6c853a162d73e353768f51c1adce *** DIARY ============== *** In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please follow your organization's travel guidelines, and check links to events listed below regularly for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.*** If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ONLINE EVENTS Workshop on the Economics of Information Security ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Online from Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Online from Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ ONGOING Ada Lovelace Institute ---------------------------------------- London's Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. The October 29 event considers what forms of mandatory reporting can help achieve public sector accountability. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/events/ Bace Cybersecurity Institute ---------------------------------------- Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a "fireside" discussion of with prominent women in security, a discussion of the security problems in online voting, and methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing. https://www.bacesecurity.org/page/2686 Benchmark Initiative ---------------------------------------- The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude (https://vimeo.com/user40391998/videos). https://benchmarkinitiative.com/event Civic Hall ---------------------------------------- New York's Civic Hall has moved a number of events online. Recent events include political influence, a session on designing stories to expose racial inequities, and an interactive discussion of the new book by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. https://civichall.org/event-calendar/ Data & Society ---------------------------------------- Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats for the rest of 2020. Databites: https://datasociety.net/library/design-justice/ Network Power Hours: https://datasociety.net/library/community-and-accessibility-online/ EFF ---------------------------------------- EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation. https://www.eff.org/events/list?type=event Future in Review ---------------------------------------- Future in Review is running a series of online "FiReSide" events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle. https://www.futureinreview.com/fireside/ Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020 ---------------------------------------- The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/ London Futurists ---------------------------------------- The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter's new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude. https://londonfuturists.com/forthcoming-meetings/ https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/ Open Data Institute ---------------------------------------- The ODI's Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music. https://theodi.org/events/talks/ Open Rights Group ---------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG's data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/ Public Knowledge ---------------------------------------- Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic. https://www.publicknowledge.org/events/ RUSI ---------------------------------------- London's Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring. https://rusi.org/event/mapping-pandemic-policing-uk-during-covid-19 Singularity University ---------------------------------------- Singularity University's upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries. https://su.org/events/ PHYSICAL WORLD EVENTS MOVED ONLINE Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ MozFest 2021 ---------------------------------------- March 2021 Amsterdam, The Netherlands MozFest programs and events are co-created by a group of dynamic, vibrant and varied community collaborators, all working towards one goal: the opportunity for everyone to live a healthy online life. https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Wikimania 2021 ---------------------------------------- TBD Bangkok, Thailand Wikimania 2020, now Wikimania 2021, will be the 16th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020 Thotcon ---------------------------------------- May 14-15, 2021 Chicago, Illinois, USA The 11th Chicago-based Thotcon hacking conference is a non-commercial event intended to combine a top-quality information security conference with a casual and social experience. https://thotcon.org/ TILTing Perspectives ---------------------------------------- May 19-21, 2021 Tilburg, the Netherlands TILTing perspectives 2021 brings together, for the seventh time, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society to share insights, exchange ideas, and formulate, discuss, and suggest answers to contemporary challenges related to technological innovation. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/events/tilting-perspectives Privacy Law Scholars 2021 ---------------------------------------- June 3-4, 2021 TBC Washington, DC, USA Privacy Law Scholars is a paper workshop intended to improve the quality of legal scholarship in the area of privacy. Participants submit works-in-progress for workshop discussions led by commenters on the papers. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/2020-privacy-law-scholars-conference/ Digitising Early Childhood ---------------------------------------- June 2021 Milan, Italy Contemporary children and their parents are inventing what it is to have a digital childhood, and in doing so are introducing families, schools and policy makers to new ways of thinking, doing and being. This conference discusses and expands research trajectories through these uncertainties and aims to build bridges across the different disciplines and strands of research in this area. It will forge a new way forward and consolidate the base of what we already know, revealing what we have yet to investigate and address, and what important insights are emerging that must be taken seriously. http://www.digitisingearlychildhood.com/2020-conference.html CPDP LatAm 2021 ---------------------------------------- Postponed from June 23-25, 2020 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The first Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection Latin America will be held in conjunction with the first Latin American Privacy Law Scholars conference and MyData's first Latin American meeting. The theme will be "Data Protection in Latin America: Democracy, Innovation, and Regulation". The organizers hope it will be a unique opportunity to bring together varied and complementary perspectives on data protection and its impact on democracy, innovation, and regulation in Latin America. https://cpdp.lat/en/ DEF CON 29 ---------------------------------------- August 5-8, 2021 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Def Con is one of the oldest and best-attended hacker conferences. Each year it attracts thousands of professional and amateur security researchers. https://www.defcon.org Singularity University Global Summit 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 23-25, 2021 Los Angeles, California, USA Global Summit 2021 Singularity University's premier annual gathering brings together 2,000 changemakers for talks on AI, augmented/virtual reality, blockchain, the future of work, impact, investing, robotics and more. https://su.org/summits/su-global-summit/ World Library and Information Congress 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 2021 Rotterdam, Netherlands WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). https://2020.ifla.org/ *** 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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December 2020 Archives
News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending November 27, 2020 ==================================================== 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 Open Society Foundations. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: EDRi, EFF, InternetLab, Open Rights Group. NEWS ===== False Claims of US Election Fraud Circulate on Social Media ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Disinformation about voter fraud has been repeatedly plugged by influential social media accounts for months, led by US president Donald Trump, Marianna Spring reports at the BBC. "Stop the Steal" groups on Facebook have amassed more than a million members, although several were removed after users posted threats of violence. Experts are concerned that the public's faith in democracy will be eroded as a result. At the New York Times, Sheera Frenkel reports that the independent Transparency.tube report finds that YouTube videos endorsing false claims of widespread election fraud were viewed more than 138 million times in the week of the election. The BBC reports that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and government and fact-checking organizations will collaborate to stop COVID-19 vaccine misinformation from circulating. Currently, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate says 95% of such material on social media is not removed. At Reuters, Elizabeth Culliford and Katie Paul report that Facebook estimates that ten to 11 of every 10,000 content views during the third quarter of 2020 included hate speech. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-55009950 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/technology/election-misinformation-often-evaded-youtubes-efforts-to-stop-it.html https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55005385 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-content/facebook-estimates-hate-speech-seen-in-1-out-of-1000-views-on-its-platform-idUSKBN27Z2R0 Facebook, Google, and Twitter Oppose Pakistani Censorship Law ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Through the Asia Internet Coalition, which represents numerous technology companies, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have threatened to leave Pakistan because they are alarmed by new censorship laws, the Associated Press reports at The Hindustan Times. The laws give the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority the power to remove and block digital content that poses harm, intimidates, or "excites disaffection" toward the government or hurts the integrity, security, and defense of Pakistan in other ways, and allow for fines of up to $3.14 million for failing to block content deemed to be in violation. Social media companies are also required to provide any information or data in unencrypted format to the country's designated investigation agency. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/google-facebook-and-twitter-threaten-to-leave-pakistan-over-new-rules/story-LIBChHJbeR9Vjy2CYJs9dJ.html UK: Japan-UK Trade Deal Threatens Privacy Standards ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Politics.co.uk, Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock summarizes the recently announced UK-Japan deal, which commits the UK to accepting lower privacy standards for data transfers and undermines algorithmic transparency and access to source code, and may limit the right to repair. It also makes intermediary liability contingent on copyright enforcement. The government has provided very little detail to either the public or Parliament. At EDRi, ORG goes into more detail about why the deal is likely to make it impossible for the EU to grant the UK an adequacy ruling under the GDPR. https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2020/11/19/uk-japan-deal-dismantles-uk-s-privacy-protections https://edri.org/our-work/uk-japan-trade-agreement-violates-data-protection-rights/ Japanese Companies and Banks Experiment with Digital Currencies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- More than 30 Japanese firms including brokerages, telecommunications firms, utilities, and retailers, as well as the country's three biggest banks will experiment next year with providing a private digital currency to promote digitization, Leika Kihara reports at Reuters. In addition, the Bank of Japan plans to issue a digital yen. In a podcast for FinTech Australia, David Birch, author of The Currency Cold War, discusses the future of digital currencies and the battle for global economic power between the US and China. https://www.reuters.com/article/banking-digital-currencies-japan/japan-inc-to-begin-experiments-issuing-digital-yen-idINKBN27Z0I6 https://tieronepeople.com/2020/08/18/david-birch-currency-cold-war/ Airports Adopt Facial Recognition for Travelers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Policy Options, Tamir Israel reports that airports across the world are embedding facial recognition in border crossings and boarding procedures claiming it will increase efficiency, security, and safety even though the technology is error-prone and racially biased. Israel warns that its adoption as proof of identity or nationality is dangerous for refugees and others and threatens human rights. A report from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic documents this adoption, warns of the intrusive surveillance it brings, and calls for a reset. At the Guardian, Katy Fallon reports that Tendayi Achiume, the UN's special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, has called for a moratorium on the use of surveillance technologies including AI lie detector tests, iris scans for refugees, and voice imprinting software in asylum applications. At Papers Please, Edward Hasbrouck says the recent US General Administration Office report on the use of facial recognition on travelers fails to address numerous legal and constitutional issues. At the New York Times, Shira Ovide argues that despite its flaws, given the right policies and oversight facial recognition can be a valuable tool for law enforcement. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2020/facial-recognition-is-transforming-our-borders-and-we-are-not-prepared/ https://cippic.ca/en/news/facial_recognition_transforming_our_borders https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/nov/11/un-warns-of-impact-of-smart-borders-on-refugees-data-collection-isnt-apolitical https://papersplease.org/wp/2020/09/03/gao-report-on-dhs-use-of-facial-recognition-on-travelers/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/technology/facial-recognition-software-police.html FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Privacy Makes Progress in Brazil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting at EFF, Katitza Rodriguez summarizes InternetLab's fifth annual report on telecom privacy and data protection in Brazil. This edition finds that half of its eight featured telecom providers for mobile and broadband services have made significant progress in data protection since 2019, but notes they also signed non-transparent data-sharing agreements with states and municipalities to help them combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint letter, Access Now and Direitos na Rede Coalition express their concern that three of the nominated directors of the Brazilian Data Protection Authority are members of the armed forces; they ask the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the Global Privacy Assembly to emphasize the importance of an independent DPA when engaging with the Brazilian government on data protection matters. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/internetlabs-report-sets-direction-telecom-privacy-brazil https://www.accessnow.org/joint-letter-dpa-brazil-military/ OpenStreetMap Has Become Critical Infrastructure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this posting at Medium, Joe Morrison discovers that OpenStreetMap, which was founded as a collaborative atlas by a few British graduate students in 2004, is now critical infrastructure for some of the most-used software and the recipient of investment and contributions from Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. Increasing corporate involvement is creating dissent within OSM's diverse and vibrant community; 1.5 million people have contributed to the atlas, which incorporates 4.5 million changes per day. https://joemorrison.medium.com/openstreetmap-is-having-a-moment-dcc7eef1bb01 Systemic Racism Inside Scientific Funding ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Cell, Kaful Dzirasa examines systemic racism within US scientific funding despite ten years of effort by the National Institutes of Health to address the problem, and argues that the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the black community is further proof of the desperate need for equity. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31223-X#%20 Privacy Is Hard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this paper for the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Alessandro Acquisti, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein review streams of social science literature to find that although consumers fundamentally care about online privacy it's prohibitively difficult for individuals to protect themselves. Policy intervention, the remaining option, is often blocked by powerful interests that oppose it. In a paper for New Media & Society, Taj Morse and Michael Birnhack study attitudes towards privacy after death and find that users fall into three groups: one whose preferences and actions match; one who fail to act to implement their interest in privacy, extending the "privacy paradox" after death; and a third who wish to share their data posthumously but also fail to act, which the authors dub the "inverted privacy paradox". https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3688497 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3727874 Big Tech Prepares for Different Joe Biden ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In a podcast at Bloomberg, Gigi Sohn explains why Silicon Valley expects to see a different Joe Biden from the one who left the vice-presidency four years ago, though she thinks it will be difficult to find remedies for platform power that Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Sohn would prefer the government to create a regulatory agency to oversee the technology companies rather than break them up. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2020-11-14/big-tech-prepares-for-different-joe-biden-this-time-podcast Fixing the Internet: Third-Party Doctrine ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this third episode of EFF's podcast series, "How to Fix the Internet", Danny O'Brien, Cindy Cohn and Jumana Musa discuss the third-party doctrine, which allows government and law enforcement ready access to communications metadata, where contents of messages require a court order. This hole in US privacy law, originally conceived with physical envelopes in mind but broadly repurposed, enables highly invasive traffic analysis. EFF believes a warrant should be required. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/podcast-episode-fixing-digital-loophole-fourth-amendment *** DIARY ============== *** In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please follow your organization's travel guidelines, and check links to events listed below regularly for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.*** If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ONLINE EVENTS TICTec Seminars ---------------------------------------- mySociety is running a series of events between September and November on open data (September 22), digitizing parliaments (October 20), and the climate crisis (November, day TBC). https://tictec.mysociety.org/seminars/2020 Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, 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? https://websummit.com/ Workshop on the Economics of Information Security ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ ONGOING Ada Lovelace Institute ---------------------------------------- London's Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. The October 29 event considers what forms of mandatory reporting can help achieve public sector accountability. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/events/ Bace Cybersecurity Institute ---------------------------------------- Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a "fireside" discussion of with prominent women in security, a discussion of the security problems in online voting, and methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing. https://www.bacesecurity.org/page/2686 Benchmark Initiative ---------------------------------------- The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude (https://vimeo.com/user40391998/videos). https://benchmarkinitiative.com/event Civic Hall ---------------------------------------- New York's Civic Hall has moved a number of events online. Recent events include political influence, a session on designing stories to expose racial inequities, and an interactive discussion of the new book by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. https://civichall.org/event-calendar/ Data & Society ---------------------------------------- Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats for the rest of 2020. Databites: https://datasociety.net/library/design-justice/ Network Power Hours: https://datasociety.net/library/community-and-accessibility-online/ EFF ---------------------------------------- EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation. https://www.eff.org/events/list?type=event Future in Review ---------------------------------------- Future in Review is running a series of online "FiReSide" events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle. https://www.futureinreview.com/fireside/ Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020 ---------------------------------------- The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/ London Futurists ---------------------------------------- The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter's new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude. https://londonfuturists.com/forthcoming-meetings/ https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/ Open Data Institute ---------------------------------------- The ODI's Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music. https://theodi.org/events/talks/ Open Rights Group ---------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG's data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/ Public Knowledge ---------------------------------------- Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic. https://www.publicknowledge.org/events/ RUSI ---------------------------------------- London's Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring. https://rusi.org/event/mapping-pandemic-policing-uk-during-covid-19 Singularity University ---------------------------------------- Singularity University's upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries. https://su.org/events/ PHYSICAL WORLD EVENTS Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ MozFest 2021 ---------------------------------------- March 2021 Amsterdam, The Netherlands MozFest programs and events are co-created by a group of dynamic, vibrant and varied community collaborators, all working towards one goal: the opportunity for everyone to live a healthy online life. https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Wikimania 2021 ---------------------------------------- TBD Bangkok, Thailand Wikimania 2020, now Wikimania 2021, will be the 16th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020 Thotcon ---------------------------------------- May 14-15, 2021 Chicago, Illinois, USA The 11th Chicago-based Thotcon hacking conference is a non-commercial event intended to combine a top-quality information security conference with a casual and social experience. https://thotcon.org/ TILTing Perspectives ---------------------------------------- May 19-21, 2021 Tilburg, the Netherlands TILTing perspectives 2021 brings together, for the seventh time, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society to share insights, exchange ideas, and formulate, discuss, and suggest answers to contemporary challenges related to technological innovation. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/events/tilting-perspectives Privacy Law Scholars 2021 ---------------------------------------- June 3-4, 2021 TBC Washington, DC, USA Privacy Law Scholars is a paper workshop intended to improve the quality of legal scholarship in the area of privacy. Participants submit works-in-progress for workshop discussions led by commenters on the papers. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/2020-privacy-law-scholars-conference/ Digitising Early Childhood ---------------------------------------- June 2021 Milan, Italy Contemporary children and their parents are inventing what it is to have a digital childhood, and in doing so are introducing families, schools and policy makers to new ways of thinking, doing and being. This conference discusses and expands research trajectories through these uncertainties and aims to build bridges across the different disciplines and strands of research in this area. It will forge a new way forward and consolidate the base of what we already know, revealing what we have yet to investigate and address, and what important insights are emerging that must be taken seriously. http://www.digitisingearlychildhood.com/2020-conference.html CPDP LatAm 2021 ---------------------------------------- Postponed from June 23-25, 2020 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The first Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection Latin America will be held in conjunction with the first Latin American Privacy Law Scholars conference and MyData's first Latin American meeting. The theme will be "Data Protection in Latin America: Democracy, Innovation, and Regulation". The organizers hope it will be a unique opportunity to bring together varied and complementary perspectives on data protection and its impact on democracy, innovation, and regulation in Latin America. https://cpdp.lat/en/ DEF CON 29 ---------------------------------------- August 5-8, 2021 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Def Con is one of the oldest and best-attended hacker conferences. Each year it attracts thousands of professional and amateur security researchers. https://www.defcon.org Singularity University Global Summit 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 23-25, 2021 Los Angeles, California, USA Global Summit 2021 Singularity University's premier annual gathering brings together 2,000 changemakers for talks on AI, augmented/virtual reality, blockchain, the future of work, impact, investing, robotics and more. https://su.org/summits/su-global-summit/ World Library and Information Congress 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 2021 Rotterdam, Netherlands WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). https://2020.ifla.org/ *** 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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News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending November 13, 2020 ==================================================== 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 Open Society Foundations. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Citizen Lab, EFF, Ian Brown, Open Rights Group. NEWS ===== US Elects Democrat Joe Biden as 46th President ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Multiple US media outlets have projected that Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States, defeating incumbent Donald Trump, Marguerite Reardon reports at CNet. Reardon considers Biden's potential influence on technology policy, including infrastructure, broadband deployment, security, digital divide, intermediary liability, and monopolistic practices. At Substack, Matt Stoller surveys, more specifically, Biden's possible approach to bringing antitrust actions against the companies. At AdWeek, Scott Nover suggests that Biden will push tougher enforcement on antitrust, privacy, misinformation, and China, while resurrecting network neutrality. At Law360, Dani Kass says that Biden's record on intellectual property and recent statements suggest he will protect US IP via trade enforcement and anti-piracy measures and tackle drug pricing (despite his history of favoring Big Pharma). https://www.cnet.com/news/biden-beats-trump-heres-what-it-means-for-tech/ https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-would-president-biden-approach https://www.adweek.com/media/what-to-expect-how-a-biden-administration-would-tackle-tech-policy/ https://www.law360.com/ip/articles/1321697 US Department of Justice Files Antitrust Complaint Against Google ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US Department of Justice, joined by 11 states, has issued an antitrust suit against Google, the largest against a technology company since its late-1990s complaint against Microsoft, Brian Fung reports at CNN. The suit alleges that Google pays billions of dollars a year to device and browser manufacturers to be their default search engine, allowing it to own or control roughly 80% of search queries in the US. At The Conversation, Hemant K. Bhargava suggests that the agreement under which Google pays Apple $8 to $12 billion a year to make its search engine the default on iOS is itself potentially illegal behavior - on the part of Apple. At Substack, Matt Stoller calls the case a "carbon copy" of the DoJ's Microsoft complaint and calls it a stunning victory for anti-monopolists. At Netzpolitik, Brussels journalist Alexander Fanta and Ingo Dachwitz publish their study of Google's strategic funding of the media industry. Since 2013, Google has handed €200 million in cash to leading media companies, as well as funding fellowships, media conferences, and journalism research, all while resisting political efforts to force the company to share advertising revenues with the publishing industry. The Free Press Journal reports that the US Federal Trade Commission could follow up with an antitrust suit against Facebook by the end of November that could force the company to unwind past acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Separately, the EU has sent a statement of objections to Amazon over the use of seller data and has begun a second antitrust investigation into Amazon's possible preferential treatment of its own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use the company's fulfillment and delivery services. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/technology/apple-google-search-antitrust.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/20/tech/doj-google-antitrust-case/index.html https://theconversation.com/google-antitrust-case-suggests-apple-should-be-in-the-department-of-justices-crosshairs-too-148691 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/antitrust-suit-against-google-watershed-moment-0 https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-google-suit-were-all-anti-monopolists https://twitter.com/FantaAlexx/status/1320626012372242432 https://netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2020/10/AH103_Google_Executive_Summary_ENG.pdf https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/antitrust-probe-us-federal-trade-commission-could-sue-facebook-by-november-end-says-report https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2077 California Legislation Increases Data Protection Rights ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US state of California has passed Proposition 24, the California Privacy Rights Act, which adds to the 2019 California Consumer Privacy Act, Sara Morrison reports at Vox. The CPRA grants additional rights and closes loopholes in the earlier law, and also makes it harder to weaken legislatively. At CNN, Sara Ashley O'Brien reports that California also passed Proposition 22, which exempts Uber, DoorDash, and Lyft from classifying drivers as employees. Labor and union organizers, who opposed the proposition, are concerned it will lower labor standards across the entire delivery and logistics industry. https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21534746/california-proposition-24-digital-privacy-results https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/04/tech/california-proposition-22/index.html Transnational Digital Repression Spreads Across the World ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saudi Arabia, China, and Rwanda, among others, lead the world in transnational digital repression, Citizen Lab reports, based on an annotated bibliography it has compiled of summarized relevant media reports, technical reports, and academic literature on states' use of digital tools to exert pressure on citizens living abroad to constrain dissident political or social action. Further research is needed to understand how to address this repression once identified, and to understand the impact on targets. https://citizenlab.ca/2020/11/annotated-bibliography-transnational-digital-repression/ Canadian Internet Regulation Bill Expands Regulation of Speech ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Canada's Internet Regulation bill is expected to grant the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission extensive new powers to regulate internet-based video streaming services, including mandating payments to support Canadian content production and discoverability requirements, Michael Geist reports at his blog. Geist, who characterizes the bill as "get money from web giants", argues that all of these proposed reforms are based on fictions but do represent significant new regulation of speech. https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2020/11/heritage-minister-steven-guilbeaults-get-money-from-web-giants-internet-regulation-bill-an-unauthorized-backgrounder/ Open Rights Group Launches Legal Action Against UK Information Commissioner's Office ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and UCL academic Michael Veale have launched a legal action against the UK's Information Commissioner's Office over the latter's decision in September 2020 to close their complaint against the adtech industry practice of real-time bidding, Carly Page reports at Forbes. Veale and ORG executive director Jim Killock brought the original complaint in September 2018; in June 2019 the ICO found the adtech industry to be in breach of data protection law. The ICO said it wanted to avoid placing undue pressure on any industry during the coronavirus crisis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlypage/2020/11/05/uk-privacy-watchdog-faces-legal-action-for-quietly-closing-adtech-gdpr-complaint/ FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Internet Governance Forum ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On this YouTube page, the Internet Governance Forum has posted videos of the pre-events for this year's meeting. Of particular interest are a session on stalkerware and helping victims of domestic violence, and another on child rights, safety, and lessons from the pandemic led by Baroness Beeban Kidron, whose 5Rights Foundation advocates for children's privacy. https://www.youtube.com/user/igf/videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc3qQAraKDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwcFLbU93fw Chinese Draft Data Protection Law Follows Lead of GDPR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at LinkedIn, Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna summarizes China's draft data protection law. Most of the 13 key points she picks out loosely match provisions in the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, such as the right to access, copy, correct, complete, delete personal information and get explanations. The new law will apply to all companies offering services and products inside China or analyzing the activities of people inside China; fines may be as high as 5% of a company's turnover. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinas-draft-personal-information-protection-law-13-zanfir-fortuna The Face of Facebook in India Resigns ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the Mumbai Mirror, Kunal Purohit discusses the resignation of Facebook India's public policy head, Ankhi Das, after reports linked her to India's ruling BJP party. Purohit chronicles her nine years of acting as the company's chief lobbyist in its biggest global market; she was hired to protect the company from government regulation. However, over time her role grew to include influence over numerous other departments, including content moderation. At Fast Company, Alex Pasternack profiles the work of former Facebook ads team employee James Barnes, who in 2016 worked for the Trump campaign's Project Alamo data operation and in 2020 turned his inside knowledge to building a system to motivate young Democratic-leaning voters to turn out to vote. https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-read/when-fb-lost-face/articleshow/78973906.cms https://www.fastcompany.com/90570689/acronym-james-barnes-facebook-2020-campaign-advertising Five Myths About Misinformation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the Washington Post, sociologist Brendan Nyhan debunks five myths about misinformation. He finds that filter bubbles are often overstated, that most people have varied information diet, that the "backfire effect" is exaggerated, and that most people can distinguish between truth and distortion. The bigger problem, he concludes, that partisanship undermines accountability. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-misinformation/2020/11/06/b28f2e94-1ec2-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html Interoperability as a Tool to Boost Competition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting, Jonathan Todd summarizes Ian Brown's new research paper on interoperability as a tool to give the EU the means to boost competition in digital markets. Requiring the largest platforms to implement interoperability would force them to compete on the merits of their products and services, enable new market entrants to offer real choice, and enable society to benefit from network effects without giving any one provider market power. https://www.ianbrown.tech/2020/10/01/interoperability-as-a-tool-for-competition-regulation-2/ https://www.openforumeurope.org/publications/ofa-research-paper-interoperability-as-a-tool-for-competition-regulation/ Section 230, Intermediary Liability, and Competition ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In a posting for Verfassungsblog, cyber rights lawyer Mike Godwin discusses the political and legislative background of intermediary liability, enshrined in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is under review in the US Congress. If the goal is competition among content hosting companies, he writes, best not to alter S230, as today's most successful companies are best placed to adapt, while biased content moderation leaves a market opening for a new service. https://verfassungsblog.de/on-publishers-carriers-and-bookstores/1 *** DIARY ============== *** In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please follow your organization's travel guidelines, and check links to events listed below regularly for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.*** If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ONLINE EVENTS TICTec Seminars ---------------------------------------- mySociety is running a series of events between September and November on open data (September 22), digitizing parliaments (October 20), and the climate crisis (November, day TBC). https://tictec.mysociety.org/seminars/2020 Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, 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? https://websummit.com/ Workshop on the Economics of Information Security ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ ONGOING Ada Lovelace Institute ---------------------------------------- London's Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. The October 29 event considers what forms of mandatory reporting can help achieve public sector accountability. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/events/ Bace Cybersecurity Institute ---------------------------------------- Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a "fireside" discussion of with prominent women in security, a discussion of the security problems in online voting, and methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing. https://www.bacesecurity.org/page/2686 Benchmark Initiative ---------------------------------------- The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude (https://vimeo.com/user40391998/videos). https://benchmarkinitiative.com/event Civic Hall ---------------------------------------- New York's Civic Hall has moved a number of events online. Recent events include political influence, a session on designing stories to expose racial inequities, and an interactive discussion of the new book by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. https://civichall.org/event-calendar/ Data & Society ---------------------------------------- Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats for the rest of 2020. Databites: https://datasociety.net/library/design-justice/ Network Power Hours: https://datasociety.net/library/community-and-accessibility-online/ EFF ---------------------------------------- EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation. https://www.eff.org/events/list?type=event Future in Review ---------------------------------------- Future in Review is running a series of online "FiReSide" events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle. https://www.futureinreview.com/fireside/ Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020 ---------------------------------------- The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/ London Futurists ---------------------------------------- The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter's new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude. https://londonfuturists.com/forthcoming-meetings/ https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/ Open Data Institute ---------------------------------------- The ODI's Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music. https://theodi.org/events/talks/ Open Rights Group ---------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG's data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/ Public Knowledge ---------------------------------------- Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic. https://www.publicknowledge.org/events/ RUSI ---------------------------------------- London's Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring. https://rusi.org/event/mapping-pandemic-policing-uk-during-covid-19 Singularity University ---------------------------------------- Singularity University's upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries. https://su.org/events/ PHYSICAL WORLD EVENTS POSTPONED International Open Data Conference ---------------------------------------- New date in 2021 TBC Nairobi, Kenya The sixth edition of IODC will be hosted by the government of Kenya with support from the OD4D Network, IDRC, and the World Bank. The conference program will be co-created with the community via an open call for proposals to ensure a diverse agenda of interactive sessions, workshops, and ancillary events. A special focus will be placed on building bridges with the broader data community, exploring how to bring the power of the newest technologies to some of the world's oldest problems, and creating new models for collaboration in order to drive social and economic value from open data in Africa and around the world. https://opendatacon.org/ Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ MozFest 2021 ---------------------------------------- March 2021 Amsterdam, The Netherlands MozFest programs and events are co-created by a group of dynamic, vibrant and varied community collaborators, all working towards one goal: the opportunity for everyone to live a healthy online life. https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Wikimania 2021 ---------------------------------------- TBD Bangkok, Thailand Wikimania 2020, now Wikimania 2021, will be the 16th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020 Thotcon ---------------------------------------- May 14-15, 2021 Chicago, Illinois, USA The 11th Chicago-based Thotcon hacking conference is a non-commercial event intended to combine a top-quality information security conference with a casual and social experience. https://thotcon.org/ TILTing Perspectives ---------------------------------------- May 19-21, 2021 Tilburg, the Netherlands TILTing perspectives 2021 brings together, for the seventh time, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society to share insights, exchange ideas, and formulate, discuss, and suggest answers to contemporary challenges related to technological innovation. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/events/tilting-perspectives Privacy Law Scholars 2021 ---------------------------------------- June 3-4, 2021 TBC Washington, DC, USA Privacy Law Scholars is a paper workshop intended to improve the quality of legal scholarship in the area of privacy. Participants submit works-in-progress for workshop discussions led by commenters on the papers. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/2020-privacy-law-scholars-conference/ Digitising Early Childhood ---------------------------------------- June 2021 Milan, Italy Contemporary children and their parents are inventing what it is to have a digital childhood, and in doing so are introducing families, schools and policy makers to new ways of thinking, doing and being. This conference discusses and expands research trajectories through these uncertainties and aims to build bridges across the different disciplines and strands of research in this area. It will forge a new way forward and consolidate the base of what we already know, revealing what we have yet to investigate and address, and what important insights are emerging that must be taken seriously. http://www.digitisingearlychildhood.com/2020-conference.html CPDP LatAm 2021 ---------------------------------------- Postponed from June 23-25, 2020 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The first Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection Latin America will be held in conjunction with the first Latin American Privacy Law Scholars conference and MyData's first Latin American meeting. The theme will be "Data Protection in Latin America: Democracy, Innovation, and Regulation". The organizers hope it will be a unique opportunity to bring together varied and complementary perspectives on data protection and its impact on democracy, innovation, and regulation in Latin America. https://cpdp.lat/en/ DEF CON 29 ---------------------------------------- August 5-8, 2021 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Def Con is one of the oldest and best-attended hacker conferences. Each year it attracts thousands of professional and amateur security researchers. https://www.defcon.org Singularity University Global Summit 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 23-25, 2021 Los Angeles, California, USA Global Summit 2021 Singularity University's premier annual gathering brings together 2,000 changemakers for talks on AI, augmented/virtual reality, blockchain, the future of work, impact, investing, robotics and more. https://su.org/summits/su-global-summit/ World Library and Information Congress 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 2021 Rotterdam, Netherlands WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). https://2020.ifla.org/ *** 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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News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending October 23, 2020 ==================================================== 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 Open Society Foundations. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Access Now, Article 19, Citizen Lab, Derechos Digitales, EDRi, EFF, Fundación Karisma, Open Rights Group, Privacy International, R3D, SPARC, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. NEWS ===== China Publishes Draft Data Protection Law ---------------------------------------------------------------------- China has published its draft data protection law, Cao Siqi and Chen Qingqing report at Global Times. Companies in violation could face fines of up to CNY50 million ($7.4 million), or 5% of their previous year's turnover; however legal experts say the law does not provide significant punishment for data breaches. Infrastructure operators and entities that send significant amounts of personal information overseas will require a security assessment from the Chinese authorities. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203363.shtml Five Eyes Alliance Calls for Encryption Backdoors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, along with government representatives for Japan and India, have published a statement calling on technology companies to come up with a solution for providing law enforcement access to end-to-end encrypted communications, Catalin Cimpanu reports at ZDNet. The call for backdoors includes encrypted instant messaging, custom encrypted applications, device encryption, and encryption across integrated platforms. In response, the Global Encryption Coalition, whose members include ACLU, Article 19, Citizen Lab, Derechos Digitales, EFF, Fundación Karisma, Open Rights Group, Privacy International, R3D, and Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, calls the statement "ill-considered". https://www.zdnet.com/article/five-eyes-governments-india-and-japan-make-new-call-for-encryption-backdoors/ https://www.globalencryption.org/2020/10/cdt-gpd-and-internet-society-reject-time-worn-argument-for-encryption-backdoors/ New Cambridge Analytica Documents Show Electoral Lawbreaking ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission that the 2016 campaign to elect Donald Trump broke election rules by coordinating behind the scenes with the Super PAC Make American Number 1, Garance Burke reports at AP. The complaint is based on a new cache of documents obtained from former Cambridge Analytica insider Brittany Kiser. Both the Super PAC and Cambridge Analytica were owned by billionaire Robert Mercer. In a Twitter thread, Carole Cadwalladr, who originally broke the Cambridge Analytica story, ties together details of the case relating to the UK's 2016 EU referendum vote: the documents show that Aggregate IQ, which was contracted by Dominic Cummings for the pro-Leave campaign, was, despite many denials, operating as a single entity with Cambridge Analytica. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-political-action-committees-elections-campaigns-42a5705b23bbbc780083f57b071bbcb0 https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/131737980318456627 Sandvine Equipment Used for Internet Censorship in Fifteen Countries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US private equity-based company Sandvine has sold its network traffic management equipment to governments in Belarus, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, who have used it to impose politically motivated censorship of the internet, Ryan Gallegher reports at Bloomberg. Sandvine has canceled its end user license agreement with Belarus, calling the country's use of its equipment "a human rights violation", and US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has called on the company to reassess its deals in other countries where its equipment could be used to limit internet freedom. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-08/sandvine-s-tools-used-for-web-censoring-in-more-than-a-dozen-nations Pandemic Fuels Worldwide Digital Repression ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Political leaders worldwide are using the pandemic as a pretext to limit access to information, censor criticism, build new technological systems of social control, and expand surveillance, Adrian Shahbaz and Allie Funk find in the latest Freedom House report. Even before the pandemic, this year had already seen numerous blocks on independent news sites and arrests on dubious charges of spreading misinformation, as well as a trend toward splintering the internet. In a blog posting, Reuters Institute fellow Richard Allan, director of policy in Europe for Facebook between 2009 and 2019, discusses the hard choices that must be made to solve the conflict between data protection laws and the desire for free data flows. The Economist reports that a new study finds a link between the rise of populist parties and incumbents' loss of support, and the rise in mobile internet access since 2010. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2020/pandemics-digital-shadow https://regulate.tech/data-your-place-or-mine-28th-sept-2020/ https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/10/faith-in-government-declines-when-mobile-internet-arrives Facebook Deletes QAnon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has announced it will delete all QAnon pages, groups, and Instagram accounts and its Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce the policy, Matt Stieb reports at New York Magazine. At Bloomberg, Mark Bergen and Joshua Brustein report that YouTube will follow suit if QAnon or other conspiracy theories target specific people or groups; they are hoping to continue to facilitate news and political commentary on its service while expanding its hate and harassment policies to include conspiracies justifying real world violence. At Rolling Stone, EJ Dickson reported in July that TikTok had begun banning hashtags associated with QAnon. At CNN, Bronte Lord and Richa Naik interview a former QAnon follower who believes a period of depression led him to be taken in. After two years, logical inconsistencies led him to question his beliefs and find the subReddits r/Qult_Headquarters and QAnonCasualties and their communities of support. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/facebook-bans-qanon-accounts-across-all-its-platforms.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-15/youtube-follows-facebook-in-banning-qanon-but-with-caveats https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/16/tech/qanon-believer-how-he-got-out/index.html FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Facebook's Algorithm Changes Deliberately Throttled Left-Wing News Sites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the Wall Street Journal, Deepa Seetharaman and Emily Glazer trace Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's development into an active political operator. Since 2016, Zuckerberg has focused on making sure Facebook wouldn't be seen as partisan while maintaining relationships with Jared Kushner and others in the Trump administration. In late 2017, when Facebook changed its algorithm to de-emphasize political news and saw an outsize impact on conservatives, Facebook redesigned the algorithms to have greater impact on left-wing sites such as Mother Jones. In 2019, Zuckerberg blocked the local news sites network Courier Newsroom as a "partisan-backed site". In a Twitter thread, Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery details the impact of these decisions, which have cost the site between $400,000 and $600,000 a year. At Mother Jones, editorial director Ben Dreyfuss details the history of his magazine's relations with Facebook. At Columbia Journalism Review, Emily Bell and Sara Sheridan explain why distinguishing partisan-backed sites from news is so difficult for Google and Facebook. At the New York Times, Davey Alba and Jack Nicas report that the gap left by the closure of an estimated 2,100 local newspapers across the US is being filled by a nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites that publish propaganda ordered up by Republican groups and PR operatives. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-11602853200 https://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery/status/1317191129964556288 https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/10/now-we-know-facebook-made-changes-to-show-you-less-news-from-mother-jones https://www.cjr.org/analysis/google-and-facebook-have-a-news-labeling-problem.php https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html Vaccine Acceptance Requires Building Trust ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the New York Times, Jenny Anderson profiles anthropologist Heidi Larson, founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project. The problem in vaccine hesitancy, Larson says, is not misinformation but a lack of trust. Persuading people to rethink their beliefs requires understanding and answering individuals' real concerns rather than simply telling them facts public health authorities think they need to know. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/health/coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-larson.html UK NGOs Face Constrained Future ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting at Bond Funding Group, Mike Wright find that only 48% of its 93 UK NGO member respondents are likely to still be in operation in 2022 owing to the combined impact of Brexit, the recession, cuts to official development assistance, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Most expect their income to drop and are implementing cost-cutting measures such as redundancies, pay freezes, recruitment freezes, and furloughs. Small NGOs are particularly vulnerable to closure./ https://www.bond.org.uk/news/2020/10/falling-income-redundancies-and-programme-cuts-can-ngos-survive-the-next-two-years Institutional Blind Spots Fuel Persistence of Legacy Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Medium, former Dot Everyone director Rachel Coldicutt discusses the institutional blind spots and complexities that lead to dangerously bad decisions such as Public Health England's mistaken reliance on an antiquated Excel spreadsheet to manage positive COVID tests. Legacy technologies and ignored individual employees who know how to run the systems they're embedded in are everywhere because relying on human ingenuity is cheaper than investing in more modern technology. The situation is made worse when those in charge buy quick-fix technology - in the UK government's case, Palantir's Foundry system - without ensuring that the eventual users understand what they're doing. At New York Magazine, Sharon Weinberger studies how Palantir, now on the eve of going public, has marketed itself as superior technology while losing half a billion dollars a year,. https://medium.com/@rachelcoldicutt/magical-thinking-and-maintenance-61aeeb796043 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/09/inside-palantir-technologies-peter-thiel-alex-karp.html EU: Placing Human Rights at the Center of the Digital Services Act ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On this page, Access Now provides three position papers whose policy recommendations are intended to put users' rights at the center of the EU's in-progress Digital Services Act, an initiative to regulate online digital platforms. Access Now proposes gradually increasing responsibilities for gatekeeper companies, building in redress for people using the platforms, and learning from GDPR to create an effective oversight body. In a blog posting, EDRi executive director Claire Fernandez explains why the legislation is important and outlines EDRi's efforts to push it in the direction of human rights. https://www.accessnow.org/eu-digital-services-act/ https://edri.org/our-work/digital-services-act-what-we-learned-about-tackling-the-power-of-digital-platforms/ COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Finds Wide Adoption ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this posting, SPARC discusses the free and open COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, which already holds 85,000 scholarly articles related to the virus and continues to grow. Hosted by the Allen Institute for AI and developed in partnership with the National Library of Medicine and others, the dataset enables researchers to use machine learning and AI to identify new approaches to help end the pandemic. The dataset began with 29,000 articles from 50 publishers; as of September, it has been accessed more than 60 million times. https://sparcopen.org/news/2020/strong-community-response-to-free-scholarly-article-access-to-fight-covid-19/ *** DIARY ============== *** In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please follow your organization's travel guidelines, and check links to events listed below regularly for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.*** If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ONLINE EVENTS Open Data Institute Summit ---------------------------------------- November 10, 2020 The annual ODI Summit invites people from across the world to discuss how humanity can harness the power of data in a changing world. https://theodi.org/event/odi-summit-2020/ TICTec Seminars ---------------------------------------- mySociety is running a series of events between September and November on open data (September 22), digitizing parliaments (October 20), and the climate crisis (November, day TBC). https://tictec.mysociety.org/seminars/2020 Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, 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? https://websummit.com/ Workshop on the Economics of Information Security ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ ONGOING Ada Lovelace Institute ---------------------------------------- London's Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. The October 29 event considers what forms of mandatory reporting can help achieve public sector accountability. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/events/ Bace Cybersecurity Institute ---------------------------------------- Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a "fireside" discussion of with prominent women in security, a discussion of the security problems in online voting, and methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing. https://www.bacesecurity.org/page/2686 Benchmark Initiative ---------------------------------------- The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude (https://vimeo.com/user40391998/videos). https://benchmarkinitiative.com/event Civic Hall ---------------------------------------- New York's Civic Hall has moved a number of events online. Recent events include political influence, a session on designing stories to expose racial inequities, and an interactive discussion of the new book by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. https://civichall.org/event-calendar/ Data & Society ---------------------------------------- Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats for the rest of 2020. Databites: https://datasociety.net/library/design-justice/ Network Power Hours: https://datasociety.net/library/community-and-accessibility-online/ EFF ---------------------------------------- EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation. https://www.eff.org/events/list?type=event Future in Review ---------------------------------------- Future in Review is running a series of online "FiReSide" events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle. https://www.futureinreview.com/fireside/ Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020 ---------------------------------------- The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/ London Futurists ---------------------------------------- The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter's new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude. https://londonfuturists.com/forthcoming-meetings/ https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/ Open Data Institute ---------------------------------------- The ODI's Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music. https://theodi.org/events/talks/ Open Rights Group ---------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG's data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact tracingcontact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/ Public Knowledge ---------------------------------------- Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic. https://www.publicknowledge.org/events/ RUSI ---------------------------------------- London's Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring. https://rusi.org/event/mapping-pandemic-policing-uk-during-covid-19 Singularity University ---------------------------------------- Singularity University's upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries. https://su.org/events/ PHYSICAL WORLD EVENTS POSTPONED International Open Data Conference ---------------------------------------- New date in 2021 TBC Nairobi, Kenya The sixth edition of IODC will be hosted by the government of Kenya with support from the OD4D Network, IDRC, and the World Bank. The conference program will be co-created with the community via an open call for proposals to ensure a diverse agenda of interactive sessions, workshops, and ancillary events. A special focus will be placed on building bridges with the broader data community, exploring how to bring the power of the newest technologies to some of the world's oldest problems, and creating new models for collaboration in order to drive social and economic value from open data in Africa and around the world. https://opendatacon.org/ MOVED ONLINE Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, 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? https://websummit.com/ MOVED ONLINE WEIS ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conferenceconference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ MozFest 2021 ---------------------------------------- March 2021 Amsterdam, The Netherlands MozFest programs and events are co-created by a group of dynamic, vibrant and varied community collaborators, all working towards one goal: the opportunity for everyone to live a healthy online life. https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Wikimania 2021 ---------------------------------------- TBD Bangkok, Thailand Wikimania 2020, now Wikimania 2021, will be the 16th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020 Thotcon ---------------------------------------- May 14-15, 2021 Chicago, Illinois, USA The 11th Chicago-based Thotcon hacking conference is a non-commercial event intended to combine a top-quality information security conference with a casual and social experience. https://thotcon.org/ TILTing Perspectives ---------------------------------------- May 19-21, 2021 Tilburg, the Netherlands TILTing perspectives 2021 brings together, for the seventh time, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society to share insights, exchange ideas, and formulate, discuss, and suggest answers to contemporary challenges related to technological innovation. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/events/tilting-perspectives Privacy Law Scholars 2021 ---------------------------------------- June 3-4, 2021 TBC Washington, DC, USA Privacy Law Scholars is a paper workshop intended to improve the quality of legal scholarship in the area of privacy. Participants submit works-in-progress for workshop discussions led by commenters on the papers. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/2020-privacy-law-scholars-conference/ Digitising Early Childhood ---------------------------------------- June 2021 Milan, Italy Contemporary children and their parents are inventing what it is to have a digital childhood, and in doing so are introducing families, schools and policy makers to new ways of thinking, doing and being. This conference discusses and expands research trajectories through these uncertainties and aims to build bridges across the different disciplines and strands of research in this area. It will forge a new way forward and consolidate the base of what we already know, revealing what we have yet to investigate and address, and what important insights are emerging that must be taken seriously. http://www.digitisingearlychildhood.com/2020-conference.html CPDP LatAm 2021 ---------------------------------------- Postponed from June 23-25, 2020 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The first Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection Latin America will be held in conjunction with the first Latin American Privacy Law Scholars conference and MyData's first Latin American meeting. The theme will be "Data Protection in Latin America: Democracy, Innovation, and Regulation". The organizers hope it will be a unique opportunity to bring together varied and complementary perspectives on data protection and its impact on democracy, innovation, and regulation in Latin America. https://cpdp.lat/en/ DEF CON 29 ---------------------------------------- August 5-8, 2021 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Def Con is one of the oldest and best-attended hacker conferences. Each year it attracts thousands of professional and amateur security researchers. https://www.defcon.org Singularity University Global Summit 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 23-25, 2021 Los Angeles, California, USA Global Summit 2021 Singularity University's premier annual gathering brings together 2,000 changemakers for talks on AI, augmented/virtual reality, blockchain, the future of work, impact, investing, robotics and more. https://su.org/summits/su-global-summit/ World Library and Information Congress 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 2021 Rotterdam, Netherlands WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). https://2020.ifla.org/ *** 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: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/who-we-are/programs/information-program Hear less from the Information Program! ================================ Our mailing address is: Open Society Foundations, 4th Floor Herbal House, 8 Back Hill, London EC1R 5EN, United Kingdom © 2020 Open Society Foundations. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/ Your privacy is important to us. View our Privacy Policy: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/policies/privacy
