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With the constant flow of data across jurisdictions, issues regarding conflicting laws and the protection of rights arise. This article considers the EU–US data transfer relationship in the aftermath of the decision in Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland and Maximillian Schrems where the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated an EU–US data transfer agreement for the second time in just five years. This judgment continues the line of cases emphasising the high value the Court places on securing EU personal data in accordance with EU data protection standards and fundamental rights. This article assesses the implications of the ruling for the vulnerable EU–US data transfer relationship.

In the summer of 2018, Sweden was taken by surprise and engulfed by forest fires on an unprecedented scale. Various forms of crisis volunteerism (CV) proved essential in the large scale response th ...

In spite of its recognition as a fundamental human right, privacy is sometimes criticised as an anachronistic value in modern life [James Rule, Privacy in Peril (OUP, 2007) xi]. While the prominence of this view has lessened in the wake of the Snowden revelations and increased public concern with online privacy [Maria Helen Murphy, ‘The Pendulum Effect: Comparisons Between the Snowden Revelations and the Church Committee. What are the Potential Implications for Europe?’ (2014) 23(2) Information and Communications Technology Law 192], the right continues to struggle for support when it is portrayed as being in competition with national security, personal safety, and economic prosperity [Daniel Solove, ‘“I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and other Misunderstandings of Privacy’ (2007) 44 San DLR 745]. As developments in technology continue to threaten the right to privacy, interest in technological solutions to privacy problems continues to grow. This article seeks to consider current privacy debates from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in order to assess whether technological and design approaches offer the best path forward, or whether an essential role remains to be played by law.

This chapter focuses on the potential impact of the agreed text of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A number of changes in the GDPR will impact the smart city and its component parts. The provision for enhanced data subject rights, for example, raises questions of feasibility in the smart city context. Among the additional rights are an express right to be forgotten and data portability. The decision to explicitly acknowledge within the text of the legislation a new category of pseudonymised data is representative of the search for compromise that is characteristic of this area of law. The construal of anonymisation and pseudonymisation has been a major area of divergence under the Data Protection Directive. The decision of the European Union to persist with the category of personal data and to endorse pseudonymisation as an important technological solution indicates an unwillingness to forgo the existing model.

In a time where algorithms are making decisions that affect every citizen, where ‘disruption’ is the strategy of many powerful companies, and where the internet of things is materialising into the ...

We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can we ensure that algorithmic governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider (a) barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and (b) the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence. The authors would like to acknowledge the funding of the Irish Research Council (New Horizons Grant) and the Whitaker Institute, NUI Galway, without whose support this paper would not have been possible. peer-reviewed

Supporters of increased surveillance see tremendous potential in the ever increasing creation, collection, and retention of personal data. Most acknowledge that the massive collection of information also creates challenges where the collection outpaces the ability to meaningfully process the data. Increased processing power and more finely tuned algorithms are often portrayed as the solution to this haystack conundrum. While a human may struggle to find the needle in an overflowing haystack of disordered information, powerful computers can take a logical and structured approach that will make the haystack eminently more searchable. This article evaluates this premise from a human rights perspective and considers whether algorithmic surveillance systems can be designed to be compatible with the right to privacy. In addition to assessing the incongruity between traditional safeguards (such as foreseeability and accountability) with algorithmic surveillance, this article also confronts the problem of initial collection and addresses the contention that well-defined algorithmic search can effectively limit the intrusiveness of surveillance. Evolution in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union will be factored into this analysis.

The articles in this special issue derive from papers presented within the Information Technology Law & Cyberspace stream at the Socio-Legal Studies Association annual conferences at York in 2013 a...

Privacy—the right most directly implicated in any discussion of surveillance—is often identified solely as a benefit to the individual, weighing against general social goods such as security. The imperceptibility of both the concept of privacy and the value of ‘national security’ favours the security side of the equation, as the threats of terrorism and organised crime loom large as omnipresent fears in a security conscious society. Recognising these challenges, recourse to an external—yet, legitimate—source of privacy protection is an attractive option. Accordingly, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a crucial instrument of human rights protection in the area of surveillance. While Ireland has avoided direct scrutiny of its surveillance regime from the ECtHR, the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court has played a clear role in the formulation of Irish surveillance legislation. In spite of this influence, there is cause to suspect that the legislative reforms may not add up to effective protection of the right to respect for private life as guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention. While Article 8 is the substantive article most relevant in the surveillance context, the right to an effective remedy, as provided for in Article 13, must also be considered. The specific function of Article 13 is to ensure the ‘availability at national level of a remedy to enforce the substance of the Convention rights and freedoms’. The inherently secretive nature of surveillance presents a considerable obstacle to the justiciability of Article 8 rights in the surveillance context. This chapter considers how the challenges to providing an effective remedy in the surveillance context can be resolved and uses the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009 (Surveillance Act) as a case study in order to evaluate how the Oireachtas has attempted to meet the standard for an effective remedy in this complex context.

With the recently elected Conservative Government holding a majority in Parliament, the Party has reiterated its manifesto pledge to ‘scrap the Human Rights Act and curtail the role of the European...

This article considers how the pendulum metaphor can be applied to shifts in popular opinion concerning the right to privacy. At times, the media portrays privacy as an individualistic right, serving at the behest of criminals and terrorists. Every so often, however, an event occurs that starkly reminds the public of the value of privacy. Public opinion drives debate and this debate often leads to legal reform. The Church Committee, formed in response to the Watergate scandal, is a classic example of the effect the exposure of abuse can have on the regulation of privacy. Over time, however, legislative gains in privacy protection have a tendency to erode. In addition, extreme events, such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11, can cause the pendulum to swing back to the opposite position. Following the exposure of mass surveillance practices by Edward Snowden, the world has, once again, been questioning government surveillance activities. This article seeks to consider the transatlantic impact of the National Security Agency revelations. Transparency is highlighted as a crucial regulating force on excessive government interference with privacy rights.