LeADS Lunch Seminars

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The LeADS Consortium is organizing a series of informative lunch seminars. These seminars will feature a stellar line-up of speakers who are experts in their respective fields. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from and network with these renowned speakers, gaining valuable insights and expanding their knowledge base. The seminars promise to be engaging, thought-provoking, and informative, making them a must-attend event for anyone interested in leadership development. 

“Carbon footprint of digital lifestyles – consumer information, behavioural intentions and demand for regulation” 

Prof. Candida Leone (Associate Professor of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam)

12th of April 2024 – 15:00-17:00

Teams link: Join the meeting now

Invited speaker: Cristina NITA-ROTARU Professor, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University

Title: Network-level Attacks in Federated Learning

Date: 18th April 2024, 16.00 – 17.00

Register here

Invited speaker: Prof. Tao Qian (China University of Political Science and Law)

Title: “AI and Copyright–Comparison between China and the EU”

Date: 23rd  of April 2024 between 12:00-13.30 (Teams link: Join the meeting on Teams)

Invited speaker: Prof. Ricardo BAEZA-YATES Professor, Director of Research, Institute for Experiential AI, Northeastern University

Title: Responsible AI

Date: 25th of April, at 16:00 – 17:00 (hybrid)

Register here

ESR Barbara Lazarotto presents her research at Conference Legal Technologies and the Bodies

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On March 07-08, 2023, Barbara Lazarotto and her colleague Alessandra Calvi presented their research at the Conference Legal Technologies and the Bodies, a conference that explored the complex relationship between legal systems, technology, and human bodies in this era of rapid technological advancement at SciencesPo Paris. Considering how various modern digital environments, such as surveillance and recommendation algorithms, affect and govern human bodies and behaviors.

Alessandra, who presented the paper co-authored with Barbara named “Breaking Down SyRi: A Feminist Investigation of Automated Discrimination”, an analysis of how the process of datafication and automation of the public sector disproportionally affects women, using the case of SyRi in The Netherlands as a case study.

 

14th Workshop on Socio-Technical Aspects in Security

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LeADS beneficiary University of Luxembourg organizes the 14th Workshop on Socio-Technical Aspects in Security, which will be held as a hybrid event at the University of Vienna in Austria on 12th July 2024. The Workshop intends to stimulate an exchange of ideas on how to design systems that are secure in the world where they interact with users of varying lived experiences and diverse needs. STAST aims at bringing together experts working in various areas of computer security as well as in social and behavioral sciences. A call for papers for this workshop has been published and accepts full papers until 15th March 2024. Deadline for the CfP is 25 March 2024 (AoE)

More information and call for papers are available via this link.

ESR Barbara Lazarotto book review

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ESR Barbara Lazarotto wrote a book review on ‘Digital Oil – Machineries of Knowing’, by Eric Monteiro for the Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies Tecnoscienza.

In her review, Barbara explores Monteir’s delves into the metaphor of “data is the new oil” to analyze the Norwegian offshore oil industry’s digital transformations. He explores how societal and political decisions have shaped the industry’s evolution, emphasizing the interplay between technology, economics, ethics, and politics. Divided into three parts, the book covers the historical context of Norway’s oil industry, the technological developments driving digitalization, and the implications of datafication on society. Through empirical studies, Monteiro examines various phases of commercial oil activities, highlighting the role of multidisciplinary professionals like data managers in handling and interpreting complex datasets. He also addresses the uncertainties inherent in oil exploration and production as a background for stressing the importance of considering technical and ethical factors in data analysis.

Her review can be accessed via this link.

TILLs Workshop in Brussels

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2024, the final year of the LeADS project, kickstarted with an intensive three-day meeting packed with a wide variety of LeADS activities. Organized by the LeADS consortium, the activities took place in Brussels on the campus by LeADS beneficiary VUB.

During this packed three days, three distinct events took place, amongst them the Technology Innovation in Law Laboratories (TILLs) workshop. Partners of the LeADS project, Indra and the Italian Competition Authority AGCM, provided three cases for the ESRs.

Each case involved real-life cases the company and competition authority were confronted with during their work.

The first case concerned an investigation by the Italian competition authority against Apple for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the App Market. ESRs had to identify counterarguments that Apple could provide in response to the investigation and how the AGCM could further solidify their case.

The second case concerned an investigation by the AGCM against Google for an abuse of its dominant position regarding its implementation of the right to data portability. ESRs had to investigate how commitments by Google had to be updated in order to be compliant with the recently published Digital Markets Act (DMA).

In the third case provided by Indra, ESRs were confronted with the challenge of a cyber security company, that was confronted with a cyberattack against voting machines which had been used during elections. ESRs had to analyze which legal obligations the company had to comply with and which technical vulnerabilities had been exploited during this security breach.

During the first day, the ESRs had to analyze and develop their solutions to the given problem. Reflecting the spirit of the LeADS project, each team involved experts in law and technology in order to develop truly interdisciplinary solutions for each case.

During the second day, ESRs presented their solutions to the partners of the LeADS project and discussed to what extent their solution matched the approach by Indra and the AGCM.

The TILLS gave our ESRs the possibility to not only test their knowledge on real-life cases but also to further develop and test their problem-solving, collaboration, time-management and presentation skills.

Conference on Data Ethics and Governance: Unravelling the Complexities of Privacy, Fairness, and Access in the Digital Age

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2024, the final year of the LeADS project, kickstarted with an intensive three-day meeting packed with a wide variety of LeADS activities. Organized by the LeADS consortium, the activities took place in Brussels on the campus by LeADS beneficiary VUB.

During this packed three days, three distinct events took place, amongst them the Conference on Data Ethics and Governance: Unravelling the Complexities of Privacy, Fairness, and Access in the Digital Age.

During two separate sessions, ESRs presented their Working Papers which they have been writing in 2023. Each presentation was followed by a discussion with distinguished academics.

The first panel on ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Fair Machine Learning, Data Access, and Governance was initiated with opening remarks by Prof. Giovanni Comande’. The following three working papers were presented (i) The Flawed Foundations of Fair Machine Learning (ii) Measuring Data Access and Re-Use in the European Legal Framework (iii) Data Collaboratives with the Use of Decentralised Learning. The working papers were subsequently discussed by Dr Laura Drechsler (KU Leuven), Dr. Katarzyna Poludniak, Jagiellonian University, and Prof. Gabriele Lenzini, University of Luxemburg.

The second panel on ‘Data Privacy, Minimization, and Governance in Personal (and Sensitive) Data’ was chaired by Prof. Gianclaudio Malgieri (Leiden University) and consisted of the presentation of the following Working Papers: (i) Contribution to data minimisation for personal data and trade secrets (ii) Transparency and relevancy of direct-to-consumer genetic testing privacy & consent policies in EU (iii) From Data Governance by Design to Data Governance as a Service.

In a following Q&A session, Prof. Elwira Macierzyńska-Franaszczyk (Jagiellonian University), Dr Arianna (Rossi, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna), and Dr Afonso Ferreira (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) further discussed, challenged, and contextualized the work by our ESRs.

Learning Through Playing: LeADS Discussion Games

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2024, the final year of the LeADS project, kickstarted with an intensive three-day meeting packed with a wide variety of LeADS activities. Organized by the LeADS consortium, the activities took place in Brussels on the campus by LeADS beneficiary VUB.  The first day of the LeADS meeting kicked off with a playtesting session on discussion games which the ESRs have been developing during the last quarter of 2023.

The ambition of the LeADS project has always been that the dissemination and communication of its results are not only a concern for a highly specialized audience, such as academics and practitioners. Instead, we think that our results are highly relevant and should also be communicated to the general public.

The discussion games thus constitute one of many means of the LeADS project to achieve a wider dissemination of the research of our ESRs to a wider public. Four discussion games, one per crossroad, have been developed and were play-tested for the first time with external participants (students and other researchers from VUB). All game materials for each boardgame are publicly available on Zenodo (see below)

In Crossroad 1’s boardgame ‘Know-IT-All’, players have to answer questions in six categories (Data as a Commodity, Privacy, Curiosity, Intellectual Property, AI, Big Tech) in order to progress through the game board and collect points.

In Crossroad 2’s boardgame ‘Jury Trials’, a role-playing game designed for people with a background in law and data privacy. The context of the game is around defending a company’s public image against attackers who try to destroy its reputation in a specific scenario case.

In Crossroad 3’s boardgame, ‘SynergyLegal: Legal and Technical Challenges around Data Rights’, players have to solve challenges that are connected to the broad topic of data ownership.

In Crossroad 4’s boardgame, ‘Privacylandia’, players take the role of inhabitants of a fictional town. Each player needs to collaborate with at least another player and use his/her knowledge in legal and technological domains to solve challenges that data subjects may face in real life.

European Researchers’ Night in Athens

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ESRs Fatma S. Doğan, Armend Duzha and Christos Magkos along with Manolis Alexakis attended the event organized within European Researchers’ Night on 29 September 2023 in Athens. The team welcomed visitors of all ages into their booth and presented details about the LeADS project. Given the project’s focus on the intersection of law and technology, explanatory sheets facilitated the conceptualization of these concepts. The majority of visitors expressed interest in AI developments, making the AI Act the central topic of most conversations. High school students were also intrigued by the backgrounds of the ESRs; the diversity of disciplines represented by the three ESRs captured their attention about potential future careers.

ESRs also had the opportunity to observe the scientific fair, where researchers from various fields presented their projects, proving to be inspiring. The connection with CERN labs stood out as a prominent example. The program provided a valuable chance for ESRs to engage with other researchers.

ESRs Soumia Zohra El Mestari & Fatma Sümeyra Doğan new publication

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ESRs Soumia Zohra El Mestari and Fatma Sümeyra Doğan, along with Dr Marietjie Botes, have recently published a paper at the Privacy Symposium: Data Protection Law International Convergence and Compliance with Innovative Technologies proceedings that delve into the technical and legal aspects related to the reuse of health data when repurposing machine learning models in the EU. The paper titled “Technical and Legal Aspects Relating to the (Re)Use of Health Data When Repurposing Machine Learning Models in the EU” not only examines the impact of machine learning technologies but also focuses on specific concepts, such as “knowledge transfer,” and assesses their potential implications within the context of emerging EU legislation, including the Data Governance Act and EHDS proposal.

The objective of the research is to provide insights into the use of machine learning models in the healthcare sector, particularly in light of the increasing volume of healthcare data being generated. The paper highlights the challenges and opportunities related to the (re)use of health data, the ethical and legal implications associated with the use of such data and the potential benefits that can be achieved by using machine learning models to analyze healthcare data.

Overall, the paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the technical and legal aspects associated with the (re)use of health data and machine learning models within the EU. The research findings are relevant for policymakers, healthcare providers, and researchers who are interested in the latest developments in the field of machine learning and healthcare data analysis.

The paper can be read here

ESR Barbara Lazarotto at Conference “Public Governance and Emerging Technologies”

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On January 11-12 2024, ESR Barbara Lazarotto presented her research at the interdisciplinary international conference on ‘Public Governance and Emerging Technologies: Values, Trust, and Compliance by Design’ in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The Conference explored the use of emerging technologies in public governance and how this deployment can be done in a legally, ethically, and socially acceptable way.

Prof. Barbara Prainsack gave a keynote at the Conference

 

Barbara presented her research on the topic of “The Role of Technology in Citizens’ Right to Good Administration: Examining the Impact of Smart Governments”. She explored the growing trend of “smart government,” where technology, including information and communication technologies (ICT) and artificial intelligence (AI), is extensively used to enhance public administration, collecting and processing large-scale data with the main objective of improving efficiency and reducing costs. Despite justifications based on the right to good administration, concerns arise regarding the impact on citizen autonomy and privacy. Her paper explores the concept of “smart governments,” analyzing common technological practices, such as nudging and sensorization of public environments.

Barbara’s work will be featured as a chapter in a book exploring the topic of technology and public governance to be published late in 2024.