This chapter describes the introduction and diffusion of the Finnish Electronic Identity Card (FINEID card). FINEID establishes an electronic identity (eID), based on the civil registry and placed on an identity chip card issued by Finnish government to Finnish citizens and permanent residents from age 18 and older. It is a non-mandatory electronic identity card introduced in 1999 in order to replace the older citizen ID card. It serves as a travel document and is intended to facilitate (...) access to eGovernment services as well as offering a possibility to sign electronically. Therefore the chip contains two certificates: one for authentication purposes, and one for qualified signatures. The eID function had to compete with the already existing PIN/TAN based TUPAS standard for online authentication for eBanking, eCommerce and eGovernment applications, and has lost this battle by reaching less than one percent of all online authentications. The history, actor constellation, time line and barriers will be described and a few communalities and differences to other countries under study in this special issue will be highlighted. (shrink)

This paper presents a framework for the design of human-centric identity management systems. Whilst many identity systems over the past few years have been labelled as _human-centred,_ we argue that the term has been appropriated by technologists to claim moral superiority of their products, and by system owners who confuse administrative convenience with benefits for users. The framework for human-centred identity presented here identifies a set of design properties that can impact the lived experience of the individuals whose (...) identity is being managed. These properties were identified through an analysis of public response to 15 historic national identity systems. They capture the practical design aspects of an identity system, from structural aspects that affect the flow of information - _Control Points, Subject Engagement, Identity Exposure, Population Coverage_—to the metrical aspects that considers how information is used and perceived—_Expert Interpretation, Population Comprehension, Information Accuracy, Information Stability, Subject Coupling, Information Polymorphism_. Any identity system can be described in terms of these fundamental properties, which affect individuals’ lived experience, and therefore help to determine the acceptance or rejection of such systems. We first apply each individual property within the context of two national identity systems—the UK DNA Database and the Austrian Citizen Card, and then also demonstrate the applicability of the framework within the contexts of two non-government identity platforms—Facebook and Phorm. Practitioners and researchers would make use of this framework by analysing an identity system in terms of the various properties, and the interactions between these properties within the context of use, thus allowing for the development of the potential impacts that the system has on the lived experience. (shrink)

The present paper summarizes the development of the national electronic Identity Management System (eIDMS) in Estonia according to a conceptual framework developed in an European comparative research project outlined in the first chapter of this special issue. Its main function is to amend the picture of the European eIDMS landscape by presenting a case with high involvement of the private sector and thereby checking the generalizations from the comparisons of Austria, Belgium, Germany and Spain, presented by Kubicek and (...) Noack in the previous chapter of this special issue. Starting with a short introduction into the historical background of identity documents in Estonia the national population register, the passport as well as the bank ID are described as the main pillars of the Estonian eIDMS, on which the national ID card builds on, which has been introduced in 2002. The technical features of the eID and the ID card are described in Section two as well as the areas of application and the processes for production and distribution. Section three presents the actors constellation, Section four the time line of the development process, starting from 1997. Section five deals with the diffusion and promotion of the ID card and the eID authentication function. After a very low and slow take up during the first 5 years due to a cooperation agreement between major banks, telecom operators and the government usage has increased. But still the authentication by Internet banks, which provides authentication services to third parties, including government, is the biggest competitor for the eID function on the national eID card. Only recently the major banks have announced to slowly fade out the password cards and PIN calculators as alternative modes of bank authentication. (shrink)

The progress of electronic health technologies and biobanks holds enormous promise for efficient research. Evidence shows that studies based on sharing and secondary use of data/samples have the potential to significantly advance medical knowledge. However, sharing of such resources for international collaboration is hampered by the lack of clarity about ethical and legal requirements for transfer of data and samples across international borders. Here, the International Clinical Trial Center Network reports the legal and ethical requirements governing data (...) and sample exchange across four continents. The most recurring requirement is ethical approval, whereas only in specific conditions approval of national health authorities is required. Informed consent is not required in all sharing situations. However, waiver of informed consent is only allowed in certain countries/regions and under certain circumstances. The current legal and ethical landscape appears to be very complex and under constant evolution. Regulations differ between countries/regions and are often incomplete, leading to uncertainty. With this work, ICN illuminates the unmet need for a single international collaborative framework to facilitate DSE. Harmonising requirements for global DSE will reduce inefficiency and waste in research. There are many challenges to realising this ambitious vision, including inconsistent terminology and definitions, and heterogeneous and dynamic legal constraints. Here, we identify areas of agreement and significant difference as a necessary first step towards facilitating international collaboration. We propose the establishment of a working group to continue the comparison across jurisdictions, create a standardised glossary and define a set of basic principles and fundamental requirements for DSE. (shrink)

Electronic commercial transactions have become a vital part of digital economies around the world. However, the countries need to upgrade their policy frameworks and related legal provisions amid a fragile cyber security environment. The authentication of electronic signatures is a complex phenomenon that needs attention for authentication and recognition. This research presents a comparative analysis of the two countries Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. This study analyzes the related legal statutes to figure out differences and (...) compatibility with reference to their recognition and ability to execute safe electronic transactions in the minimum time. Two legislative enactments have been analyzed in this study that is Jordanian electronic transactions law of 2015 and the United Arab Emirates Electronic transactions and trust services law of 2021. The study concludes that UAE laws are better recognized to verify and authenticate the electronic-signature-based commercial transaction in comparison with the enactments of Jordan in terms of categorizing different levels of security of the electronic signatures and legal preventive measures in case of falsification of data, content, and signatures and breach of the trust. (shrink)

This paper compares the four national electronic Identity Management Systems (eIDMS), which have been described in the previous chapters. The section Similarities and differences between four national eIDMS will highlight the differences between these systems conceived as socio-technical systems with regard to the eID itself, the eID cards as tokens, the authentication processes as well as the procedures for distribution and personalisation, the support provided for installing the technology and any provider-related regulation. The section A three-fold path dependency , (...) according to the conceptual framework presented in the introductory chapter to this special issue, compares the new electronic systems with the previous ones in each country, in order to assess the continuation or changes with regard to the organisational, technological and regulatory path of development. The following sections explain the differences between the paths chosen and the path-related changes by analysing the actor constellation of the institutional actors, in particular the policy field and the power structure, as well as the context in which the policy makers made their choices, looking at privacy and Staatsverständnis in particular. Finally the diffusion and usage of the eID function will be compared and analysed, discussing to what extent the new institution has made a contribution to solving the policy problem it was developed for, e.g. providing a stronger authentication in order to meet security concerns regarding e-government and e-commerce transactions and avoiding new privacy infringements. Using grounded theory, the explanations provided have the status of generalisations derived from the four cases. They have to be considered as hypotheses, which will be checked for other countries in the following papers of this special issue. The comparison of the four cases in this article shows a high degree of path dependency. Most of the differences between the new systems are just a continuation of differences between the previous systems although they are to solve the same problem and can draw on the same technologies. But most astonishing is the finding that these differences between the systems do not influence diffusion and use of the eID function in the respective countries. (shrink)

In der Öffentlichkeit häufig als Auswanderungsland wahrgenommen, unternahm China in den letzten Jahren verstärkt Bemühungen, qualifizierte Fachkräfte aus dem Ausland für den chinesischen Arbeitsmarkt zu gewinnen. Die Einführung eines Fachkräfteeinwanderungssystem mit abgestuften Rechten für Arbeitsmigrant:innen sollte diese Entwicklung fördern. Die vorliegende Analyse zeigt, dass diese Reform des Einwanderungssystems die Gerichtspraxis nicht verändert hat. Abseits der politischen Diskurse um die Anwerbung von internationalen Talenten und der Propagierung Chinas als Wissenssupermacht, bleibt China aufgrund der existierenden Probleme im bestehenden Rechtssystems für Arbeitsmigrant:innen unattraktiv.

Moving away from simple data sharing within the science community towards cross-organizational collaboration scenarios significantly increased challenges related to security and privacy. They need to be addressed in order to make cross-organizational applications such as collaborative working environments a business proposition within communities such as eHealth, construction or manufacturing. Increasingly distributed scenarios where many different types of services need to be combined in order to implement semantically enriched business processes demand new approaches to security within such dynamic Virtual Organizations. The (...) allocation of access rights need to be possible in an easy and controlled way in order to allow inexperienced users to maintain the information and ensure compliance e.g. with legal and privacy related regulations. In this paper the focus is how security concepts originating from the Grid domain have been applied for collaborative working environments. The chosen scenarios are a Virtual Laboratory for Infectious Diseases (ViroLab) and different collaborative environments from the engineering domain as defined within the CoSpaces project. The requirements from these scenarios are analyzed and a security model enabling such dynamic, secure and trustworthy collaborations is presented. (shrink)

Legal structures may form barriers to, or enablers of, adoption of precision agriculture management with small autonomous agricultural robots. This article develops a conceptual regulatory framework for small autonomous agricultural robots, from a practical, self-contained engineering guide perspective, sufficient to get working research and commercial agricultural roboticists quickly and easily up and running within the law. The article examines the liability framework, or rather lack of it, for agricultural robotics in EU, and their transpositions to UK law, (...) as a case study illustrating general international legal concepts and issues. It examines how the law may provide mitigating effects on the liability regime, and how contracts can be developed between agents within it to enable smooth operation. It covers other legal aspects of operation such as the use of shared communications resources and privacy in the reuse of robot-collected data. Where there are some grey areas in current law, it argues that new proposals could be developed to reform these to promote further innovation and investment in agricultural robots. (shrink)

Open discourses and the free formation of opinions through unfettered information flows and communicated diversity of opinion are unthinkable without independent media and essential prerequisites for a functioning democracy. Notwithstanding the importance of the linkage between media and democracy, there is no harmonized framework addressing this issue. By adopting a legal perspective, this study shall outline existing and emerging regulations, with a particular focus on broadcast, print, and online media Two regulatory tiers are distinguished: At the international level, (...) the establishment of aWorld Information Order as well as the human rights perspective intrinsic to the subject matter will be addressed. At the national level, legal approaches to particular tensions accompanying state regulation of the media will be examined. (shrink)

A variety of legal documents are increasingly being made available in electronic format. Automatic Information Search and Retrieval algorithms play a key role in enabling efficient access to such digitized documents. Although keyword-based search is the traditional method used for text retrieval, they perform poorly when literal term matching is done for query processing, due to synonymy and ambivalence of words. To overcome these drawbacks, an ontological framework to enhance the user’s query for retrieval of truly relevant (...) legal judgments has been proposed in this paper. Ontologies ensure efficient retrieval by enabling inferences based on domain knowledge, which is gathered during the construction of the knowledge base. Empirical results demonstrate that ontology-based searches generate significantly better results than traditional search methods. (shrink)

In our account of artistic identities among electronic music artists, we point to the notion of persona as a key element in a triadic framework for studying the dynamics of identity. Building on pragmatist theory, we further draw on Pizzorno’s concept of mask and Luhmann’s notion of second-order observation to highlight the dual properties of persona: whether like a mask that is put on or like a probe that is put out, persona is a part that stands (...) apart. Persona is an object that alter can recognize and by which ego can be recognized; but what is recognized defies the person’s complete control. We thus conceptualize identity as a multi-sided relationship that involves person, persona, and others. Building on our ethnographic research among electronic music artists in Berlin and New York, we characterize this relationship in terms of attachment between artist and persona, between artist and audience, and between persona and audience. These attachments are variable and independent from one another. The resulting model is an analytic tool to examine identity as the ongoing outcome of the three-way dynamics of such shifting attachments. We are attentive to persona because the creation and curation of online profiles have become a pervasive element in many people’s daily interactions in both social and work situations. (shrink)

The article analyses legal preconditions for personal identification in physical and electronic space (hereinafter – cyberspace). Analysis of legal governing of identification in physical space is followed by the analysis of the same in cyberspace. Compulsory elements of identification in physical space and compulsory and non-compulsory elements of identification in cyberspace are provided which leads to conclusions about problem aspects concerning personal identification in cyberspace and related legal governing. This scientific article consists of four main chapters. (...) The first chapter „Identity and Personal Identification“ looks into identity, its content and elements alongside with personal identification. The second chapter „Personal Identification in Physical Space“ scrutinizes legal preconditions of identification in physical space in Lithuania. The third chapter „Personal Identification in Cyberspace“ looks into elements of legally regulated and non-regulated personal identification in cyberspace and discusses identity of a person in cyberspace. The fourth chapter „Electronic Identity of a Person and Legal Regulation“ analyzes and systematizes elements of electronic identity of the person and presumes their reliability and mandatory legal governing. (shrink)

This article advocates for a hermeneutic model for children-AI interactions in which the desirable purpose of children’s interaction with artificial intelligence systems is children's growth. The article perceives AI systems with machine-learning components as having a recursive element when interacting with children. They can learn from an encounter with children and incorporate data from interaction, not only from prior programming. Given the purpose of growth and this recursive element of AI, the article argues for distinguishing the interpretation of bias within (...) the artificial intelligence ethics and responsible AI discourse. Interpreting bias as a preference and distinguishing between positive and negative bias is needed as this would serve children's healthy psychological and moral development. The human-centric AI discourse advocates for an alignment of capacities of humans and capabilities of machines by a focus both on the purpose of humans and on the purpose of machines for humans. The emphasis on mitigating negative biases through data protection, AI law, and certain value-sensitive design frameworks demonstrates that the purpose of the machine for humans is prioritized over the purpose of humans. These top–down frameworks often narrow down the purpose of machines to do-no-harm and they miss accounting for the bottom-up views and developmental needs of children. Therefore, applying a growth model for children-AI interactions that incorporates learning from negative AI-mediated biases and amplifying positive ones would positively benefit children’s development and children-centric AI innovation. Consequently, the article explores: What challenges arise from mitigating negative biases and amplifying positive biases in children-AI interactions and how can a growth model address these? To answer this, the article recommends applying a growth model in open AI co-creational spaces with and for children. In such spaces human–machine and human–human value alignment methods can be collectively applied in such a manner that children can become sensitized toward the effects of AI-mediated negative biases on themselves and others; enable children to appropriate and imbue top-down values of diversity, and non-discrimination with their meanings; enforce children’s right to identity and non-discrimination; guide children in developing an inclusive mindset; inform top-down normative AI frameworks by children’s bottom-up views; contribute to design criteria for children-centric AI. Applying such methods under a growth model in AI co-creational spaces with children could yield an inclusive co-evolution between responsible young humans in the loop and children-centric AI systems. (shrink)

Over the last century, and especially since the publication of the Belmont Report in 1978, respect for persons, as exemplified by respect for autonomous decision-making, has become a central tenet in the practice of medicine. The authority of cognitively competent adults to make their own healthcare decisions is enshrined in both law and practice in most advanced industrialized nations. The right to consent to or to refuse medical interventions is virtually absolute, but is contingent on the provision of materially relevant (...) information about the benefits and burdens or risks of the proposed treatment as well as the freedom from coercion by others, especially healthcare personnel. This power also extends to the kinds, amounts and details of the proposed intervention, including the option to decline to hear anything, if one so chooses, assuming that this is a rational choice. This respect transfers to other competent individuals who are authorized as surrogates to decide for those who have temporarily or permanently lost the capacity to make their own healthcare decisions. (shrink)

Teacher identity has evolved from a core, inner, fixed, linear construct to a dynamic, multifaceted, context-dependent, dialogical, and intrinsically related phenomenon. Since little research has provided an inclusive framework to study teacher identity construction, this article proposes a novel conceptual framework that includes the following components: mirrors of power, discourse, the imagination of reality, investment, emotioncy, and capital. The above core constituents have been discussed thoroughly to trigger significant insights about teacher identity development.

For at least the past 15 years, food safety stakeholders across all levels of government have recognized the critical role that state and local agencies play in our nation's food safety system. State and local agencies are the first responders to foodborne outbreaks and have primary responsibility for keeping their residents safe from foodborne disease through effective surveillance and rapid response to outbreaks. They also conduct the vast majority of food safety inspections across the nation's restaurants, grocery stores, and other (...) food service and food retail establishments.Recent efforts among industry and government officials alike have focused on creating a more integrated, prevention-oriented food safety system. The Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major overhaul of the nation's food safety laws since the 1930s, now mandates that most sectors of the food industry put preventive controls in place, changing the emphasis of what the FDA does from response to prevention. (shrink)

The problem of harmful, unnecessary and neglected pain has been studied extensively in many health care settings over the past decade. Research has documented the incidence of untreated pain, and scholars and advocates have given the problem several names: “public health crisis,” “oligoanalgesia, and “moral failing,” among them. Articles have identified a litany of now familiar “obstacles” or “barriers” to effective pain relief. Each of these individual obstacles or barriers has been the subject of targeted remedial action in at least (...) some context.The checklist approach to improving care for patients in pain, however, is likely to have only limited effect. What really appears to be operating is a complex ecosystem that supports ambivalence, denial, and even suspicion of the circumstance of patients in pain and efforts to treat them. Pain relief in emergency medicine, a relatively new setting for the study of challenges to treating pain, provides a revealing context for viewing discrete obstacles to effective pain management in medicine as part of an integrated environment into which patients with pain enter for treatment. (shrink)

The problem of harmful, unnecessary and neglected pain has been studied extensively in many health care settings over the past decade. Research has documented the incidence of untreated pain, and scholars and advocates have given the problem several names: “public health crisis,” “oligoanalgesia, and “moral failing,” among them. Articles have identified a litany of now familiar “obstacles” or “barriers” to effective pain relief. Each of these individual obstacles or barriers has been the subject of targeted remedial action in at least (...) some context.The checklist approach to improving care for patients in pain, however, is likely to have only limited effect. What really appears to be operating is a complex ecosystem that supports ambivalence, denial, and even suspicion of the circumstance of patients in pain and efforts to treat them. Pain relief in emergency medicine, a relatively new setting for the study of challenges to treating pain, provides a revealing context for viewing discrete obstacles to effective pain management in medicine as part of an integrated environment into which patients with pain enter for treatment. (shrink)

This book is a collection of papers presented at an interdisciplinary workshop at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in May 1980. The three broad issues covered are: the physician-patient relationship, the allocation of responsibility among doctors and nurses, and the political and social framework of the health care system. The first set of essays is concerned with the moral and legal aspects of the physician-patient relationship. The link between knowledge and power is examined as well as the (...) moral dilemmas posed by medical technology. These initial essays would alone justify this publ. (shrink)

This paper introduces the objectives and basic approach of a collaborative comparative research project on the introduction of national electronic Identity Management Systems (eIDMS) in Member States of the European Union. Altogether eight country case studies have been produced in two waves by researchers in the respective countries, which will be presented in the following articles in this special issue. The studies adopt a common conceptual framework and use the same terminology, which will be presented in this introduction, (...) just as the reasoning for the selection of the particular countries under investigation. The conceptual framework combines elements of actor centred institutionalism with path analysis, looking for path continuation, change or creation in the transition from the previous IDMS to an electronic one and explaining this as choices of actors in certain contexts. Information on the reasons for these choices in the first four cases has been collected from in depth interviews with key actors and in the four other cases from official documents. As the subject of this research is the transition of national identity management systems only countries have been included in which a national ID and a civil registry already exist before the introduction of the electronic elements, thus excluding the UK. (shrink)

Using the Rule of Law as the theoretical framework in his paper, the author proceeds to discuss ASEAN integration. His ultimate objective is to examine the applicability of Brunnée and Toope’s Interactional International Law to ASEAN integration. To provide the background to the process of ASEAN integration, the author cites selected works of scholars and experts in the fields of international law and international relations. The most important factor to be considered is the ASEAN Charter’s inclusion of the principle (...) of the Rule of Law to guide its integration efforts. This is viewed by Western democracies as a commitment by the ASEAN Member States to the Rule of Law. Interestingly, Democracy and Human Rights stand side-by-side with the Rule of Law in the Charter. Quite expectedly, scholars and practitioners of International Law and International Relations see the inclusion of these principles as an indication of ASEAN embracing the rules, norms, and values that the West hold dearly. These are the same rules, norms and values that underpin the liberal democracies of North America and Europe, and which provide the European Union its theoretical foundation. In the EU, the Rule of Law is an important guiding principle. For the same reason, the emergence of supranational institutions became a matter of course in the process of their integration. In conclusion, the author suggests that IIL should provide the proper theoretical legal framework for ASEAN integration to move forward after taking into account the current heterogeneity in the political, economic, social and cultural profiles of the ASEAN Member States. Keywords- Legal Philosophy, international law, ASEAN regional integration, interactional international law, international relations, Philippines. (shrink)

The Proceedings of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control is based on a two-part conceptual framework composed of public health and legal perspectives. The public health perspective comprises the six target areas and intervention settings that are the focus of the obesity prevention and control efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.This paper presents the legal perspective. Legal preparedness in public health is the underpinning of the framework (...) for the four “assessment” papers and the four “action” papers that are integral to the application of public health law to any particular health issue. In addition, this paper gives real-world grounding to the legal framework through examples that illustrate the four core elements of legal preparedness in public health that are at work in obesity prevention and control. (shrink)

The Proceedings of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control is based on a two-part conceptual framework composed of public health and legal perspectives. The public health perspective comprises the six target areas and intervention settings that are the focus of the obesity prevention and control efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.This paper presents the legal perspective. Legal preparedness in public health is the underpinning of the framework (...) for the four “assessment” papers and the four “action” papers that are integral to the application of public health law to any particular health issue. In addition, this paper gives real-world grounding to the legal framework through examples that illustrate the four core elements of legal preparedness in public health that are at work in obesity prevention and control. (shrink)

This paper describes the introduction of a new electronic identity card including an electronic identity (EID) for local physical and online authentication in 2006. The most significant difference to any European country is the decentralized issuing at 256 police stations employing an automatic printing machine. This is the most visible element in a high degree continuation, as the previous paper based ID cards were also personalized and issued at the police stations. Similarly the attributes defining the identity and (...) the legal framework were not changed either. While there was some delay in the planning phase, the role-out of the new eID cards was rather smooth. At the end of 2009, approx. 13 Mio Spanish citizens out of more than 46.5 Mio inhabitants (www.ine.es) were in possession of an eID card. But this does not necessarily mean that they are using the eID function for online authentication. The reasons for this application gap will be discussed with reference to online tax declaration, where the eID so far covers less than one percent of all online declarations while authentication by software certificates still make up for 98 percent. (shrink)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has focused its obesity prevention and control efforts on improving population-level health. A recent Institute of Medicine report identified systems that affect population health, to include health care delivery systems, schools, businesses and employers, communities, and governmental public health infrastructure. CDC uses the public health model to engage these systems, and this process coordinates multiple settings, sectors, and jurisdictions to develop an integrated approach to identify, prevent, and control obesity. The public health approach (...) goes beyond medical care to prioritize policy and environmental strategies that can be implemented across jurisdictional levels, in collaboration with traditional and nontraditional partners. The process ultimately produces tools, guidelines, and interventions that can be used to prevent and control obesity. In this manuscript, we provide an overview of the public health perspective on obesity, outline the public health framework for addressing obesity, and discuss the rationale for leveraging law-based efforts as a tool to accomplish the public health mission. (shrink)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has focused its obesity prevention and control efforts on improving population-level health. A recent Institute of Medicine report identified systems that affect population health, to include health care delivery systems, schools, businesses and employers, communities, and governmental public health infrastructure. CDC uses the public health model to engage these systems, and this process coordinates multiple settings, sectors, and jurisdictions to develop an integrated approach to identify, prevent, and control obesity. The public health approach (...) goes beyond medical care to prioritize policy and environmental strategies that can be implemented across jurisdictional levels, in collaboration with traditional and nontraditional partners. The process ultimately produces tools, guidelines, and interventions that can be used to prevent and control obesity. In this manuscript, we provide an overview of the public health perspective on obesity, outline the public health framework for addressing obesity, and discuss the rationale for leveraging law-based efforts as a tool to accomplish the public health mission. (shrink)

With the proliferation of networked electronic communication came daunting capabilities to collect, process, combine and store data, resulting in hitherto unseen transformational pressure on the concepts of trust, security and privacy as we know them. The Future Internet will bring about a world where real life will integrate physical and digital life. Technology development for data linking and mining, together with unseen data collection, will lead to unwarranted access to personal data, and hence, privacy intrusion. Trust and identity lie (...) at the basis of many human interactions and transactions, and societies have developed legitimate concern for privacy being essential for freedom and creativity. The burgeoning development of the Information Society, particularly during the past fifteen years, transcended the societal readiness to respond to the transformational change evoked by ICT. We have reached the eleventh hour for the preservation of trust and privacy as elements that can be transposed into our digital future. Europe has been at the forefront in recognizing the importance of privacy protection in relation to digital data, witness the advanced European legislation in this domain. The European Commission recognizes that appropriate measures need to combine technology development with legal means, user awareness and tools supporting data controllers to comply with law in an accountable and transparent way, and that empower users with a controlling stake in managing their personal data. Activities are underway at many levels. European RTD programmes play their role in supporting research in trustworthy ICT, privacy enhancing technologies, privacy-by-design in service layers as well as in networks, enabling technologies such as cryptography, and in generalized frameworks for trust and privacy-protective identity management. (shrink)

PurposeWithin a larger mandate of reviewing the key global trends concerning consumer protection in the electronic commerce (e-commerce) literature, this study aims to study the legal framework concerning e-commerce and consumer protection in the Sultanate of Oman and to analyse the current regulations concerning e-commerce and consumer protection.Design/methodology/approachThis study followed the normative legal research approach and resorted to the desk research process to facilitate content analysis of literature containing consumer protection legislation and regulatory provisions in Oman (...) in particular and the rest of the world in general.FindingsThe study reveals that consumer protection initiatives in Oman are well entrenched for offline transactions, but are relatively new and limited for e-commerce. In spite of the promulgation of consumer protection laws, electronic transaction law and cybercrime law, consumer protection measures for e-commerce in Oman do not address a large number of the global concerns necessary to build consumer confidence and trust in the online environment.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a dearth of information concerning Oman on this topic in the extant literature. The research also witnessed the lack of empirical data on the issue of consumer protection and e-commerce in Oman that offer a detailed database of consumer complaints and associated outcomes.Practical implicationsThe mechanism of consumer protection in electronic transactions is not robust in many countries. Because of the lack of comprehensive and robust legislation, consumers remain vulnerable in the online contractual purchase process. Moving beyond the fragmented legislation, many countries are currently mulling an all-comprehensive e-commerce law, implications of this paper will help the policymakers in identifying the focus areas.Social implicationsConsumer protection is a burning global issue in this era of consumerism. It is important to build consumer trust, transparency and integrity of transactions to reduce the risk and uncertainties of purchase.Originality/valueConsumer protection studies conducted in the context of Oman, hitherto, deal more with data protection and dispute resolution mechanisms, and less with legal provisions, regulations and consumer confidence. The study shares newer insights based on a systematic review of legal and business databases. It is the first study of its kind in the context of Oman and the Middle East in general. (shrink)

(2013). Legal idioms: a framework for evidential reasoning. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 46-63. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.682656.

With the proliferation of networked electronic communication came daunting capabilities to collect, process, combine and store data, resulting in hitherto unseen transformational pressure on the concepts of trust, security and privacy as we know them. The Future Internet will bring about a world where real life will integrate physical and digital life. Technology development for data linking and mining, together with unseen data collection, will lead to unwarranted access to personal data, and hence, privacy intrusion. Trust and identity lie (...) at the basis of many human interactions and transactions, and societies have developed legitimate concern for privacy being essential for freedom and creativity. The burgeoning development of the Information Society, particularly during the past fifteen years, transcended the societal readiness to respond to the transformational change evoked by ICT. We have reached the eleventh hour for the preservation of trust and privacy as elements that can be transposed into our digital future. Europe has been at the forefront in recognizing the importance of privacy protection in relation to digital data, witness the advanced European legislation in this domain. The European Commission recognizes that appropriate measures need to combine technology development with legal means, user awareness and tools supporting data controllers to comply with law in an accountable and transparent way, and that empower users with a controlling stake in managing their personal data. Activities are underway at many levels. European RTD programmes play their role in supporting research in trustworthy ICT, privacy enhancing technologies, privacy-by-design in service layers as well as in networks, enabling technologies such as cryptography, and in generalized frameworks for trust and privacy-protective identity management. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relationship between obesity, law, and public health preparedness as well as the relevant roles of public health practitioners, policymakers, and lawyers. Each group believes they have a unique role in this relationship although there can be overlap and/or lack of clarity as to what that role may be.The role of the lawyer in the public policy process is to identify relevant legal issues, to analyze them and give advice on the risks of taking a given (...) action, and to communicate legal advice in a clear manner. Simply put, the lawyer’s role is to dive deep into the law surrounding the topic at hand and to offer advice regarding the permissible limits of policymakers’ options and the associated risks. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relationship between obesity, law, and public health preparedness as well as the relevant roles of public health practitioners, policymakers, and lawyers. Each group believes they have a unique role in this relationship although there can be overlap and/or lack of clarity as to what that role may be.The role of the lawyer in the public policy process is to identify relevant legal issues, to analyze them and give advice on the risks of taking a given (...) action, and to communicate legal advice in a clear manner. Simply put, the lawyer’s role is to dive deep into the law surrounding the topic at hand and to offer advice regarding the permissible limits of policymakers’ options and the associated risks. (shrink)

Players of electronic games, particularly on-line role-playing games, may invest a substantial degree of time, effort, and personal identity into the game scenarios they generate. Yet, where the wishes of players diverge from those of game publishers, the legal and ethical interests of players remain unclear. The most applicable set of legal principles are those of copyright law, which is often grounded in utilitarian justifications, but which may also be justified on deontological grounds. Past copyright cases involving (...) video arcade and per-sonal computer gaming suggest that the gaming scenaria generated by players may constitute original selec-tion and arrangement of the game elements, thus qualifying such gaming sequences for copyright protection as either derivative works or works of joint authorship. But this result may be difficult to justify on utilitarian theories. Rather, the personal investment of game players suggests a deontological basis for claims of game sequence ownership. (shrink)

Juris-Data is one of the largest case-study base in France. The case studies are indexed by legal classification elaborated by the Juris-Data Group. Knowledge engineering was used to design an intelligent interface for information retrieval based on this classification. The aim of the system is to help users find the case-study which is the most relevant to their own.The approach is potentially very useful, but for standardising it for other legal document bases it is necessary to extract a (...) legal classification of the primary documents. Thus, a methodology for the construction of these classifications was designed together with a framework for index construction. The project led to the implementation of a Legal Case Studies Engineering Framework based on the accumulated experimentation and the methodologies designed. It consists of a set of computerised tools which support the life-cycle of the legal document from their processing by legal experts to their consultation by clients. (shrink)

From the viewpoint of the constitutional crisis in Europe, slow UN reforms, difficulties implementing the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court, and tensions between human rights and trade, Mireille Delmas-Marty's 'journey through the legal landscape' of the early years of the 21st century shows it to be dominated by imprecision, uncertainty and instability. The early 21st century appears to be the era of great disorder: in the silence of the market and the fracas of arms, a world overly (...) fragmented by anarchical globalisation is being unified too quickly through hegemonic integration. How, she asks, can we move beyond the relative and the universal to build order without imposing it, to accept pluralism without giving up on a common law? Neither utopian fusion nor illusory autonomy, Ordering Pluralism is her answer: both an epistemological revolution and an art, it means creating a common legal area by progressive adjustments that preserve diversity. Since an immutable world order is impossible, the imaginative forces of law must be called upon to invent a flexible process of harmonisation that leaves room for believing we can agree on - and protect - common values. 'The book is timely and relevant to the practical concerns of those who work with, and within, the legal system. We must thank Professor Delmas-Marty for her fine work.' From the foreword, Stephen Breyer, Washington, DC. (shrink)

This article describes the Vaccine/Injury Project Corpus, a collection of legal decisions awarding or denying compensation for health injuries allegedly due to vaccinations, together with models of the logical structure of the reasoning of the factfinders in those cases. This unique corpus provides useful data for formal and informal logic theory, for natural-language research in linguistics, and for artificial intelligence research. More importantly, the article discusses lessons learned from developing protocols for manually extracting the logical structure and generating the (...) logic models. It identifies sub-tasks in the extraction process, discusses challenges to automation, and provides insights into possible solutions for automation. In particular, the framework and strategies developed here, together with the corpus data, should allow “top–down” and contextual approaches to automation, which can supplement “bottom-up” linguistic approaches. Illustrations throughout the article use examples drawn from the Corpus. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to present a translation and interpreting teacher role identity framework for investigating how T&I teachers in China develop their role identities. There is a vast literature on language teacher identity in higher education compared to a paucity of literature on the development of T&I teacher identity. Developing a strong T&I teacher identity in the context of Chinese universities is challenging as teachers combine sub-roles of trainers/educators, researchers, and practitioners, and the context is (...) more supportive of constructing a researcher role than trainer/educator and practitioner roles. A strong teacher identity, on the other hand, is vital since it enhances teachers’ willingness to engage in professional development. This study proposes a framework based on the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity that describes how three sub-roles interact and contribute to overall T&I teacher identity. This work contributes to the scant literature on T&I teacher identity research, shedding light on how different role identities may interact throughout the professional careers of a teacher. Additionally, the framework may also foster an awareness of the impact of higher education on a teacher and, as a result, offer implications for universities in China to encourage the development of teacher identity. (shrink)

Stasis is a process of classical rhetoric that identifies the core issue in a trial or a similar debate. Hermagoras of Temnos included the first comprehensive analysis of stasis in his second-century BCE treatise on rhetoric, now lost. Modern scholars tend to echo George Kennedy, who maintains that Hermagoras’ inspiration for the hierarchical structure of stasis is indeterminate. This article, however, employs scholarship in legal semiotics, including the work of Miklós Könczöl and Bernard S. Jackson, to argue that Hermagoras (...) based stasiastic structure on Aristotle’s first-figure syllogism. Ideally, knowledge of that structure can enhance modern applications of stasis. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide an analysis of the concept of legal personality and discuss whether personality may be conferred on artificial intelligence systems (AIs). Legal personality will be presented as a doctrinal category that holds together bundles of rights and obligations; as a result, we first frame it as a node of inferential links between factual preconditions and legal effects. However, this inferentialist reading does not account for the ‘background reasons’ of legal personality, i.e., it (...) does not explain why we cluster different situations under this doctrinal category and how extra-legal information is integrated into it. We argue that one way to account for this background is to adopt a neoinstitutional perspective and to update the ontology of legal concepts with a further layer, the meta-institutional one. We finally argue that meta-institutional concepts can also support us in finding an equilibrium around the legal-policy choices that are involved in including (or not including) AIs among legal persons. (shrink)

This paper reviews the history and current status of electronic identities (eID) and eID management in Sweden, including an outlook for the future. The paper is based on official policy documents, technical documentation, presentations by key experts, and comments from government agencies and independent experts. The future perspective is based on the October 2009 public investigation (SOU 2009:86) by the E-delegation. It is concluded that the E-delegation proposal, while still pending political decision, is a major step forward in (...) terms of making eID more established as an infrastructural element in the government electronic service program. (shrink)

The article examines the ethics and politics of international gestational surrogacy contracts through a three-dimensional framework that combines political accounts of framework precariousness, accounts of norm incompatibility in contracting scenarios, and feminist accounts of domination. This framework, which can be applied to a host of contemporary bioethical controversies, articulates the ways in which individuals' medical experiences are shaped and determined by social structures that lie beyond their field of control, thus pushing feminist bioethics toward closer collaboration with (...) legal and political theory. (shrink)