Jusletter IT

In June 2015, the EU commission published a trialogue version of the General Data Protection Regulation. As an essential innovation, the stabilisation of the digital single market by a harmonised level of data protection is paramount, alongside the information rights, the right «to be forgotten» and the right to data portability, new regulations regarding the preventive data protection and the transnational data transmission as well as the strengthened provisions regarding surveillance. For the introduced revision of the data protection law in Switzerland, it seems reasonable to learn from the EU data protection legislation. (ah)

The data protection commissioner of Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Caspar, has issued an administrative order concerning Facebook Ireland Ltd., in which he, inter alia, obligates the corporation to permit the pseudonymous use of its service. According to the data privacy specialist, the necessity of a clear name in the social network violates the German data protection legislation. The process raises several interesting questions regarding the European data protection legislation that shall be treated subsequently at a glance. (ah)

Within the last months, the «digital death», or the digital inheritance is getting the attention of a broader audience and also gained importance from a legal perspective. The article takes these developments as a reason to analyse the legal assignment regarding the digital assets of a person stored on physical terminals and the cloud, in the lifetime and after death. Taking into account the legal frameworks of property, inheritance and obligation law, the question is discussed to what extent the Swiss law is able to do justice to the phenomena of digital dying and inheriting and which adaption options are to be considered for the future. (ah)

This paper is an attempt to describe the transferability of digital assets in case of death from the contractual perspective. It presents the service providers’ approach to succession of digital assets based on examples of Facebook, Google and Yahoo!. It points out the relevant legislation gap in the European Union, presents some of non-legal solutions available in the Internet, and finally, it gives the reader a brief overview on the first legal act regulating succession of digital assets – U.S.’s Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act.

Technology increasingly takes over control of the administrative life. What challenges need to be faced from a legal point of view, especially considering data protection and information security? Can everything remain as it is? Are there required amendments in legal bases respectively in organisational structures? The author focuses on these questions and shows that solution approaches must not only be of legal nature: A rethinking regarding assuming responsibility within the administration must happen as well as a serious conception and realisation of a cantonal IT-Governance. (ah)

Government data is a valuable resource for analytic systems. The advent of big data enables new methodologies, processes and techniques to further improve predictive results towards evidence-based policy making for the benefit of the society at large. The legal framework on the one hand is an enabler for data analytics and on the other hand restricts potential use-cases. This article presents the principles of Big Data, discusses administrative registers in respect to Big Data, gives a succinct overview on the personal data protection act in Austria, analyses the methodology of the register-based census as a blueprint for Big Data analytics and concludes with a novel approach towards Big Data analytics using encrypted data on a peer-to-peer network in line with the current personal data protection act.

The National Council is the second of the two parliament chambers to deliberate upon the revision of the Federal Mail and Telecommunications Monitoring Act and agrees with the Council of States about permitting the use of GovWare («Staatstrojaner»). The author presents the specifications by the National Council and their practical impacts. (ah)

The dimension of government interferences in our private lives and informational self-determination can only be captured correctly when considering the total of all interventions. The paper is meant to give a first overview of the norms that must be evaluated based on the first work package of the project HEAT. In doing so, the neuralgic points in the legal system are scrutinized and the connection between private companies’ obligations to cooperate, e.g. based on the E-Commerce law and the Telecommunications law, and powers of authorities according to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Security Police Act is presented as well as the meshing of authorities within the individual steps of investigative work. Finally, the article provides an outlook towards future steps to the formation of a «catalogue of measures for the evaluation of anti-terror-laws». (ah)

In February 2015, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that data sharing systems between the US and UK intelligence services had been unlawful from their inception until December 2014, when key disclosures about them were made. The deceptively simple ruling revealed a great deal about the processes and systems that govern surveillance in the UK, about the strength of the oversight systems, and about the need for reform of both the law and the enforcement of that law. This piece analyses the case in the context of a new atmosphere and environment surrounding surveillance law in the UK: fitting it within a bigger pattern where more transparency is being demanded and more accountability is required.

The eighth Swiss conference regarding data protection of 28-29 May 2015 focused on «Big Data and Data Protection». In particular, numerous questions in this context were examined from interdisciplinary points of view and multiple perspectives. To reflect the current state of research in its main features and to roughly indicate the dealing with the problem in the legal praxis, the author summarises the particular presentations and ateliers and makes a note of the consequent possible actions. (ah)

Innovation represents the dominant tendency when it comes to solving modern needs; to this extent things have evolved at an outstanding pace and are yet to be settled. The new paradigm is also applying to the payment behavior where the old barter exchanges are nowadays replaced by transactions with digital-conventional sources of value named virtual currencies. Even though progress represents the desiderate for wealth, the process per se creates vulnerabilities due to its dynamics. Along with innovation, social elements such as criminality or economic realities like enhanced competition are in the loop for a coherent regulatory answer.

The article deals with the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down measures concerning open internet and amending Regulation on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union. The article examines the provisions of the proposal potentially relevant for end-user contracts, e.g. specialised services, obligatory new minimum content of contracts and warranty, but refrains from touching on issues, which might result from the proposal, related to the quality of net neutrality.

With the strategic initiative «Justiz 3.0», the completely digital file management will be realised until 2020, to be able to meet the requirements regarding a service oriented justice, both for the public and the staff. (ah)

This paper explores some foundational issues on the deployment of folksonomies in legal information management. It is analysed whether and how these information technologies could be suitable to represent the connection among the «Cur jus?» (the meaning of law for the individual), the «Quid jus?» (the concept of law considered as the structure of social ties), and the «Quid juris?» (the purpose of the law, namely to solve disputes among people) within a legal ontology under-pinned on a theoretical perspective which claims to be realistical, and that, for this reason, it is somewhat unusual in Legal Informatics.

The individual methods for analysing legal text corpora should be embedded within a theoretical modell of legal data science. The term «Legal Datalystic» is proposed for its designation. (ah)

Legal information retrieval – viewed as a scale – has an unbalanced focus on legal sources at the moment. Instead of focusing on the way users think, technology utilises the characteristics of legal information and provides the user with the best documents based on word counts, probability and statistics. In the presentation the speaker provides an alternative way for technology to present retrieved information that meets the way users think and work with legal sources better.

Collective agreements are an important public (legal) asset which should be widely accessible and free of charge. The ÖGB publishing house (ÖGB-Verlag) uses besides an information system concerning collective agreements diverse publication channels for which the processed data is reused adapted to the respective context. The multiple use focuses in particular on media neutral content which can be adapted for various publication applications. Additional sources of revenue can be generated by the multiple use of the data which has been processed labour-intensive and the information offerings can be considerably revalued with minimal effort.

«google-like» search in legal databases is transposed in different ways. Common denominator is often only the fact that those databases work with a single search field. The lecture deals with Verlag Österreich’s solution of «google-like» search, which they transposed in their research products. What are «google-like» searches able to provide and where are their limits? (ah)

Legislative databases must fulfill the expectations of a heterogeneous user group with different research approaches. Hereby they are increasingly compared with Google, which – despite not being tailored to legal content – solely on the base of its wealth of indexed content is rarely short of an answer. The users‘ movement within the legislative database (searching vs. browsing) and the offer as well as usage of special features (search suggestios, passive citation...) is described with the example of juris.de. (ah)

In March 2014, the Publications Office of the EU released a totally new version of EUR-Lex. The reception was not quite enthusiastic and the aim of the presentation is to comment on the background of the developments which partly explain shortcomings everyone in the user community could verify. The presentation also insists on the particular dynamic which arose from collaboration with Member States and EU institutions institutions. It finally focuses on elements which are expected from a new system and makes some proposals for further developments. Users should be aware that they can highly contribute to improvements and further evolution.

A well structured text and significant metadata are required to ensure an efficient and purposeful judicature documentation. At the Federal Finance Court judges are included in the process of documentation and co-operate with the registry office, which publishes the findings in the financial documentation (Findok). The newly introduced electronic appeal proceedings support the creation of decisions with text modules and forms, and hyperlinks help to fill in the metadata. Title, abstract and correct citing provide a good base for efficient research and presentation in a judicature database. Including judges in this process can be both, reciprocity and effort . Boundaries are flowing and the way from service to chore a balancing act. (ah)

Co-operation is still a popular subject, researched on an abstract level in the fields of system, game and evolutionary theory. Based on an overview of the history of co-operative research and the definition of «co-operation», the question of whether co-operation exists in the internet or not is discussed. The author notes that co-operation in the Internet cannot be ensured anymore. (ah)

Increasing legal and regulatory requirements and a dramatic growth in the amount of data present a major challenge to business information managers. To understand the legal basis, to assess the risks und implement effective measures with limited resources are no easy task. The «Leitfaden Information Governance» (guide to information governance) in its new edition is thus a welcome and comprehensive tool for practitioners. It shows tangible solutions for ensuring the correct and regular handling of business information resources.