Dear Readers,
Privacy and data security are becoming increasingly important in the age of ubiquitous computing and cloud computing. Unfortunately, a very serious side effect is the obvious energy in collecting data by the respective public and private IT applications. Facebook is just one example that is currently strongly debated.
In January 2012 the European Commission has presented the data protection package: a communication on the policy objectives of the Commission, (Safeguarding Privacy in a Connected World A European Data Protection Framework for the 21st Century, COM (2012) 9), a regulation establishing a general data protection framework in the EU (Proposal for a Regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation), COM (2012) 11) and a directive on the protection of personal data by competent authorities (Proposal for a Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and the free movement of such data, COM (2012) 10).
This data protection package highlights the regulatory issues but they are far from being fully resolved. It still requires in-depth discussions in order to make the data protection package – and especially its outstanding detailed rules – the envisaged great success.
It is therefore not surprising that in this June issue of Jusletter IT privacy constitutes the main focus with five contributions.
Philipp Fischer – Datenschutzrechtliche Bewertung von Social Plugins (Privacy Assessment of Social Plugins) – deals with the problem of «tracking tools», especially on the example of the «like»-button of Facebook. Data protection authorities of the German federal states are fighting against this instrument of data collection. Taking into account European law rules regarding the use of cookies, at least comprehensive information of the respective service provider on its website is required.
Jonathan Bisset and Katharina Maimer – Data Analysis vs. Data protection – suggest as a solution to the problem of data analysis / data protection the use of anonymous customer profiles.
Privacy is one of dissent topics in cyberspace. U.S. procedural law requires excessive of related delivery of business records, also in electronic form, which are then subject to the so-called e-discovery. This means many data protection issues that are the topic of the contribution by Christian Zeunert und David Rosenthal – E-discovery and data protection: Challenges and solutions for multinational companies. Zeunert and Rosenthal are also presenting viable solutions.
Elisabeth Hödl – Privacy by Design, Überlegungen zum Design des Rechts (Privacy by Design Considerations on the Design of Law) – brings first thoughts on data protection through appropriate design of IT systems.
Cloud computing meets the current trend of global access to its data from everywhere. The associated risks must be thoroughly analysed from the point of data protection law, otherwise nasty surprises with liability consequences may result. Philippe Fuchs – Cloud Computing –analyses these issues from the perspective of Swiss law.
Urs Egli – Outsourcing und IT Governance (Outsourcing and IT-Governance) – adds to this analysis by assessing which systems are actually suitable for outsourcing. He concludes that only mature IT environments are eligible.
Arthur Winter and Silke Weiß – E-Government 2.0 – describe the current change in the e-government. The citizen should no longer be passive but take a more active role. Measures are increased participation, public governance and the use of social networks.
The specific problems of IT procurements are analysed by Claudia Schneider Heusi – IT und Vergaberecht: die Beschaffungen der öffentlichen Hand (IT and Procurement: the Procurements of the Public Sector). Allocation decisions must be correctly handled for not risking an appeal. Scope of works is often difficult to define and depends on existing systems. Practical solutions are presented in this paper.
In addition, Armin Horn presents a review of the commentary juris Praxiskommentar zum Internetrecht (juris Commentary on the Internet Law) – under the direction of Dirk Heckmann, now released already in the third edition. Co-authors are now also Frank Brown and Jan Dirk Roggenkamp.
Two papers deal with the issue of law and language. Michael Wetzel – LISE Web Service: An Online Collaboration Portal to Facilitate Legal Language Harmonisation – describes the online collaboration platform for the project LISE Legal Language Interoperability Services, which allows efficient debugging of terminologies. Filip Krepelka – Verbesserung der vielsprachigen Rechtstexte in der Europäischen Union im Verlauf der Rechtsetzung (zwischen Recht, Linguistik und Informatik) (Improving Multilingual Texts in the European Union during Legislation ([between Law, Linguistics and Informatics]) – describes the problem of multilingualism from the perspective of a new Member State - the Czech Republic.
Finally Friedrich Lachmayer, Harald Hoffmann und Vytautas Cyras – Multisensorische Modelle des Rechts, Zur syntaktischen Entfaltung von Rechtstheorie und Rechtsinformatik (Multisensory Models of Law, on the Syntactic Development of Legal Theory and Legal Informatics) – endorse the increased use of visualization and multisensory law, considering it as a paradigm shift in the law.
Having said this, we hope you enjoy reading this issue!
