DS regulation & law – Introduction
Introduction
Why bother law and ethics with data science?
Examples:
Facebook sits on a ton of data. Their business model is advertising; majority of the
revenues come from advertising. Facebook follows you around the internet, so they
have a pretty precise image of you.
Targeting program: the whole model is drawing the attention of policy and law
makers. ‘’People need prevention from being tracked.’’
Bonus cards: they only see what people buy, so they only have the data. They can
only detect someone is pregnant by the data; they can’t see the belly for instance. A
17/18 year old girl received a huggies coupon based on her purchasing behavior, but
her dad opened the mail. The father was very unpleased
Taxies: the NY taxi authorities have data. You can track individual taxi rides. For
instance: they figured out where Olivia Munn lives, because she goes to a specific
spot by taxi all the time.
All examples above are related to people. Most of data science is about social data
(humans). This brings particular issues:
80% of the data is about people. You have to be careful. “The right to be forgotten”:
if you search for somebody’s name, you have the right to get data removed
Copyright issues, e.g. on Youtube
Hacks: Sony got hacked 2 years ago. The hacks online can also relate to personal
data. A more profound hack was the Ashley Madison hack. Legal issues concerning
the Ashley Madison hack: privacy,
What is law?
In very broad terms, two principal answers have been given to this deceptively simple
question. On the one hand is the view that law consists of a set of universal moral principles
in accordance with nature. This view (adopted by so-called natural lawyers) has a long
history dating back to ancient Greece. For so-called legal positivists, on the other hand, law
is nothing more than a collection of valid rules, commands, or norms that may lack any
moral content.
The social, political, moral, and economic dimensions of the law are essential to a proper
understanding of its workaday operation. This is especially true in times of change.
Reflection upon the nature of law reveals important insights into who we are and what we
do.
Justice and law
Are law and justice related? Does law produce justice? Justice is about fairness. Sometimes
the law is about protecting fair outcomes; interests of parties involved. Yet, you can debate
whether law produced fair outcomes all the time.
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,Legal reasoning: how does argumentation work?
Grounds: for instance, ‘Sally has stolen a bike’
Warrant: an underlying rule that connects ground and conclusion
Backing: rules need to have an appropriate legal source
Rebuttal: a counter argument why the conclusion shouldn’t hold. ‘Sally stole the bike
because she had to drive an injured woman to the hospital’
Conclusion: for instance, ‘Sally has to go to jail’
The key is to always go back to legal sources.
Functions of law
Order or safety: an essential prerequisite of a society that aspires to safeguard the
well-being of its members. The law establishes a framework within which
unavoidable disputes may be resolved. Courts are the principal forum for the
resolution of conflict.
Justice: rules should be reasonable, general, equal, predictable and certain. None of
these objectives can be achieved in absolute terms; they are ideals. Justice requires
more than just laws; the process whereby justice is attained must be a fair one. This
entails, first, an impartial, independent judicial system. Second, there must be a
competent and independent legal profession. This necessitates, amongst other
things, access to legal advice, assistance, and representation, and the guarantee of a
fair trial.
Protection of individual rights: for example, the law of many countries includes a bill
of rights as a means of seeking to protect individuals against the violation of an
inventory of rights that are considered fundamental. In some cases, a bill of rights is
constitutionally entrenched. Entrenchment is a device which protects the bill of
rights, placing it beyond the reach of simple legislative amendment. In other
jurisdictions, rights are less secure when they are safeguarded by ordinary statutes
that may be repealed like any other law.
Protection of community: the law seeks also to protect the general well-being of the
community. Instead of individuals being compelled to fend for themselves, the law
oversees or coordinates public services that would be beyond the capacity of citizens
or the private sector to achieve, such as defense or national security.
Social life: law provides the rule rules to enable parties to enter into the contract of
marriage or employment or purchase and sale. Company law, inheritance law,
property law all furnish the means by which we are able to pursue the countless
activities that constitute social life.
Protection of property: rules identify who owns what, and this, in turn, determines
who has the strongest right or claim to things. Not only does the law thereby secure
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, the independence of individuals, it also encourages them to be more productive and
creative (generating new ideas that may be transformed into intellectual property,
protected by patents and copyright).
Sources of law
Legislation: written down in a statute that is enacted by a legislative body. In statutes
new rules are introduced or old ones are amended.
Common law with distinctive hierarchy of courts: previous decisions of courts are a
fundamental source of law, as their reasoning in earlier cases is normally binding on
courts who subsequently hear similar cases. It is designed to promote the stability
and predictability of the law.
Natural law: the ancient philosophy that continues to shape the teachings of the
Roman Catholic Church. It proceeds from the assumption that there are principles
that exist in the natural world that we, as rational beings, are capable of discovering
by the exercise of reason. For instance, abortion is regarded as immoral on the
ground that it offends natural law’s respect for life.
Academic law: courts increasingly cite their scholarly colleagues’ views as expressed
in textbooks and learned journals.
Common sense: this might include widely accepted notions of right and wrong,
generalizations about social practices, fairness, perceptions of the law, etc.
Interpretation
What are the three general problems with interpretation?
Things change overtime; we change our ideas of what things are in reality
It may be that the provision is unclear
There are gaps in the law; it is not covered by the provision
If these things happen, we go back the interpretation methods below.
Interpretation methods
Grammatical/linguistic interpretation: literal meaning
Historical interpretation: using the legislative history, to reveal the intent of the
legislator
Systematic interpretation: what does something mean in the broader context of a
particular domain. Consider the broader context of the legal framework in which a
provision is listed
Teleological interpretation: focus on the purpose of the law
Tangibles/Intangibles
Tangibles can be taken, then owner loses possession. Intangibles cannot be taken, so the
owner does not lose possession.
What about electricity?
So for electricity we can say: electricity can be transferred, is reproducible and has economic
value. These were the 3 arguments Dutch high court used in 1921. Hence it is worth
protecting.
But not only theft of electricity is more difficult to assess, but what about your thoughts?
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, What about data and a pin code?
For data there is a difference between data from a computer which is stolen in its entirety or
a pin code (original owner still has the pin code as well). The difference between intangibles
and tangibles is whether the owner loses possession.
After 1993 a new rule regarding this was set in art 3.10. The original rule about using
economic value to decide if an (in)tangible good is stolen was wrong. To decide if an act is
theft, one must look at appropriation (=”make one’s own”).
Conclusions and consequences
Electricity -> use once -> appropriation -> theft
Data -> copy -> no appropriation -> no theft
Pin code -> copy -> no appropriation -> no theft
Copying software is not theft.
Section 139c
Aims at getting hold of data in a modern IT context.
‘’Met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste een jaar of geldboete van de vierde categorie wordt
gestraft hij die opzettelijk en wederrechtelijk met een technisch hulpmiddel gegevens aftapt
of opneemt die niet voor hem bestemd zijn en die worden verwerkt of overgedragen door
middel van telecommunicatie of door middel van een geautomatiseerd werk.’’
Rules, norms and principles
Rules: any expression of regularity. Rules are conditions designed to preserve desirable
conditions such as social cooperation. Rules are absolute, so there’s no debate possible.
Primary and secondary rules:
Primary rules: rules of conduct
Secondary rules: about primary rules, “meta-rules”. These specify the way in which
primary rules may be introduced, eliminated and varied.
o Rules of recognition: to say that a given rule is valid is to recognize it as
passing all the tests provided by the rule of recognition and so as a rule of the
system.
o Rules of change: enables a society to add, remove, and modify valid rules
o Rules of adjudication: provides a mechanism for determining whether a valid
rule has been violated
Norm: norms are agreed frameworks for shaping behavior on a more general level. Not in
the law, but everybody agrees on this. Examples: ‘You shall not copy stuff’ or ‘you must pay
attention in class’. The contents of social norms are the same as laws, but there’s no
sanction.
Principle: represents values that orient and rule the conduct of persons in a particular
society. Example: honesty and don’t hit women.
One of the things with principles is that it’s not really black or white and not everybody
subscribes to the same set of principles.
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