Jusletter IT

Dear readers

Today’s issue of Jusletter IT once again shows the diversity of the subjects of IT and Law: Data Protection, Artificial Intelligence, E-Government, E-Voting, E-Testament, Cybercrime as well as Copyright. 

Over the last years, privacy concerns have significantly increased, particularly since the recent adoption of the GDPR in May 2018. In his article, Philippe Gilliéron provides some basic information and a checklist to start building a privacy management program.

Machine Learning stands for the core technology of Artificial Intelligence that like no other topic will characterize the digital changes in the years to come. Alexander Duisberg discusses some of the essential needs of regulation and possibilities of configuration.

E-Government has a great potential due to its diverse areas of application (i.eg. E-Health; E-Voting; E-Tax-Declaration; E-Address-Change; Geoportal etc.). Salim Rizvi, Beat Lenel and Simona Risi deal with the content and the ways of application of E-Government in Switzerland and focus on the federal and – in part – the cantonal aspirations. 

Security is at the centre of discussions on E-Voting. Ardita Driza Maurer examines the publication of the source code of the software for the complete verifiability. The «security by transparency» in the federal legislation on E-voting sets a milestone in the legal design of E-voting.

Małgorzata Kiełtyka and Paweł Dyrduł deal with the issue of the use of new technologies in the inheritance law. Their focus is on inheritance under a will. The attention has been drawn to the existence of electronic wills in different legal systems and, especially for Polish law, they hypothetically consider the future form and use of E-Testaments.

According to a study, 33% of companies are willing to pay ransom money in the event of a ransomware attack. Sikander von Bhicknapahari addresses various questions in this regard: How should such a case be accounted for? Is it possible to deduct the ransom payment from taxes? Is there a criminal risk for the payer?

Knut Wimberger analyzes the effectiveness of the SME IP Helpdesks, a policy measure which tries to boost the EU knowledge economy. The author suggests a pre-emptive system transformation from competition and profit towards collaboration and purpose.

Kevin MacCabe looks at digital data and its legal qualification, which is not yet fully clarified. The suggestion that the owner of digital data is granted property rights in the sense of the Civil Code is discussed in this article and analysed from a property law point of view. 

Serdal Avsar examines if the social network Facebook respects the legal data protection principles under the applicable law, and the possibility of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner to investigate under art. 29 of the Federal Act on Data Protection. 

On 13 April 2018, the Japanese government issued a decision on domain name system (DNS) blocking in the case of infringement of copyright. Takashi Izumo introduces the current discussion in Japan about DNS blocking of pirated digital contents and so-called leech sites on the Internet.

We wish you a fascinating reading!

Erich Schweighofer and Franz Kummer

    Data Protection



  • Artificial Intelligence & Law

  • E-Government & E-Voting


  • Inheritance Law

  • Cybercrime

  • IP Law


  • Legal Information & Legal Theory