Jusletter IT

This paper presents preliminary results in extracting semantic information from US state public health legislative provisions using natural language processing techniques and machine learning classifiers. Challenges in the density and distribution of the data as well as the structure of the prediction task are described. Decision tree models trained on a unigram representation with TFIDF measures in most cases outperform the baselines by varying margins, leaving room for further improvement.

When reasoning about the facts of a case, we typically use stories to link the known events into coherent wholes. One way to establish coherence is to appeal to past examples, real or fictitious. These examples can be chosen and critiqued using the case-based reasoning (CBR) techniques from the AI and Law literature. In this paper, we apply these techniques to factual stories, assessing a story about the facts using precedents. We thus show how factual and legal reasoning can be combined in a CBR model.

Applying Bayesian data analysis to model a computer-supported peerreview process in a legal class writing exercise yielded pedagogically useful information about student-understanding of problem-specific legal concepts and of more general domain-related legal writing criteria and about the criteria’s effectiveness. The approach suggests how AI and Law can impact legal education.

A formal model is proposed of argumentation with burdens and standards of proof, overcoming shortcomings of earlier work. The model is based on a distinction between default and inverted burdens of proof. This distinction is formalised by adapting the definition of defeat of the ASPIC+ framework for structured argumentation. Since ASPIC+ generates abstract argumentation frameworks, the model is thus given a Dungean semantics. It is shown to adequately capture shifting proof burdens as well as Carneades’ definitions of proof standards.

This paper presents a monitoring and diagnosis component of a knowledge acquisition, design, and simulation framework for implementation of compliance in public administration. A major purpose of the framework is to give a methodological justification for the exploration of compliance control policies. The knowledge acquisition approach depends on the storylike character of relevant case law and expert knowledge, and the compliance controls design space is derived from these stories.

Die digitale Bürgerbeteiligung an der Diskussion komplexer sozialer, wirtschaftlicher und politischer Projekte im Internet kann sich nicht damit begnügen, Ja-Nein-Entscheidungen abzufragen. Vielmehr bedarf sie neuer Techniken, um strukturierte Stellungnahmen abgeben zu können und ein differenziertes Meinungsbild zu ermöglichen. Der Beitrag untersucht die hier gegebenen Möglichkeiten.

With public pressure mounting, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in July 2012 to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, striking a major blow to the hopes of supporters who envisioned a landmark agreement that would set a new standard for intellectual property rights enforcement. While the defeat of ACTA was celebrated by digital rights activists worldwide, according to recently leaked documents, the EU plans to use the Canada – EU Trade Agreement (CETA), which is nearing its final stages of negotiation, as a backdoor mechanism to implement the ACTA provisions.

Das neue Urteil des EuGH wird als Revolution angesehen. War lange Zeit streitig, ob online-erworbene Software frei weiterveräußert werden kann, ist diese Frage jetzt zugunsten der Warenverkehrsfreiheit geklärt. Doch Fragen bleiben, gerade auch wegen einiger obiter dicts des EuGH, wie im Weiteren erläutert wird.

Wenn private Geräte geschäftlich genutzt werden, stellen sich einige Rechtsfragen, die in einem Arbeitsvertragszusatz geregelt werden sollten. Der Beitrag erörtert die relevanten Fragen und gibt Antworten für das Schweizer Recht.

Due to the increasing sensitivity of civil society about privacy on the one hand and the lack of globally harmonized data protection principles on the other hand self-regulatory measures gain importance in privacy compliance. The most relevant «mechanism» is the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) as developed by the EU and other institutions. The contribution discusses the elements of PIA processes in view of their risk assessment functions and pleads for a more comprehensive application in data protection frameworks.

Nach beinahe zwei Jahrzehnten im sich selbst überholenden Informationszeitalter soll das europäische Datenschutzrecht auf neue Beine gestellt werden. Phänomene der letzten Jahre wie soziale Netzwerke und Cloud Computing stellen den rechtlichen Rahmen im Bereich des Datenschutzes nach und nach vor unlösbare Probleme. Um zu verhindern, dass der Datenschutz im Zuge des rasanten technologischen Fortschritts nicht früher oder später auf der Strecke bleibt, sind gewisse – teilweise tiefgreifende – Anpassungen des Datenschutzrechts unumgänglich. Die Europäische Kommission hat Anfang des Jahres 2012 einen Vorschlag zu einer umfassenden Reform des europäischen Datenschutzrechts veröffentlicht, der im Rahmen dieses Beitrags hinsichtlich der Auswirkungen insbesondere auf den Bereich des Cloud Computing untersucht werden soll.

Since the judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court from 2009, the German eVoting community focuses on the public nature of elections. While looking for a transparent electronic voting system, the principle of the secret suffrage may not only take a back seat. Many eVoting systems enable voters to check the essential steps in the election. Nevertheless it needs to be discussed how transparent a voting system can be without violating the principle of the secret suffrage. The purpose of this article is to provide a survey of privacy weaknesses of eVoting systems proposed for poll-site voting and to evaluate them from a legal point of view.

A review of Orlan Lee’s book «Waiving our rights – the personal data collection complex and its threat to privacy and civil liberties», Lexington Books, Lanham et al. 2012.