Data Science Regulation & Law
MSc Data Science & Society
Tilburg University
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,Cluster 1. Introduction to Law and Data Science
Introduction
1. Why Did I Sign Up for this Class? Understanding the concepts behind law and data
science.
2. What is Data Science? Transformation from data to information; coding.
3. What is Law? It helps lay out what is legal and what is not; the building block by which
we live amongst one another in a society that is functional. The law is a way to maintain
order and to establish standards, that led individuals to have freedom and to protect the
freedom of others.
o Moral relativism: what you believe to be morally and ethically just dogmatic and
irrefutable might be the complete opposite to the person sitting next to you.
4. What’s the connection? Ethics; privacy; misuse or abuse of data.
5. What are some themes we may cover? Privacy; intellectual property; copyright; ethics;
data collection. Operating ethically and operating legally within the concept of data
science are is not the same thing, because there are operations that are completely legal
reprehensible, but not morally acceptable, and vice versa.
COVID &Tracking apps
Concerns: The degree of protection which the Dutch government offered in their in-app data
collection. If it got leaked, what kind of information would be leaked, etc? Not only do they have
all types of data that are being harvested from your phone and apps like this, they also have
inferred data (such as the route to work, inferred from the timestamps of the GSP coordinates
being tracked at home and at work).
- Violation of privacy: how much data is being harvested from our smart devices in order
to contribute to the COVID tracking? Can we opt in or opt out of particular types of data
being collected? Do I have control over whether it is being collected or not?
- Data protection: GDPR (EU). Data protection might be a problem, depending on what
jurisdiction you are operating in.
- Administrative law, Private law, IP law
- Data ethics
Course Objectives
- Identify the basic functions of law
- List the various sources of law
- Describe the relation of law to different modalities of regulation
Law – Checklist
1. Purpose & function
2. Principles & rules
3. Sources of law & hierarchy
4. Argumentation & legal reasoning
5. EU and intl. law
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,Purposes & Functions
Rights
1. Absolute rights: Can be exercised against all others
o E.g.: the right to live, from torture; a property right
2. Relative rights: Can only be exercised against 1 or more specifically determined persons
o E.g.: a loan
Objective vs subjective law / rights
The law is objective, but my rights in regard to what the law allows for me are subjective.
What happens in case of lawlessness? Normatively speaking, in terms of what society allows us to
do, not through enforcement, but through conforming, you would not do anything to harm others.
There is a difference between what the law allows us to do and what society allows us to do.
Purposes & Functions
- Establishing standards (standards of conduct): how we allow ourselves legally to be
treated and how we allows ourselves legally to treat others, both natural persons and
legal persons.
- Maintaining order
- Resolving disputes: solving disagreements in front of a legal representative or legal body.
- Protecting liberties and rights: example of scenarios where the right to something or
someone was threatened, include: (1) going outside during covid lockdowns and (2)
dissolving the federal right to terminate pregnancies in the US.
Is web-scraping allowed? From a utilitarian perspective, web-scraping is justifiable because you
are not doing any harm to anybody, and the net good highly outweighs the net bad. From a
theological perspective, you are violating the right to not web-scrape which is what the person
in charge (e.g., the system administrator) is asking you to not to do. In terms of virtue ethics, if
you are web scraping and you are being asked not to, you are being at risk to being a dishonest
person. In this case, you are calling the introspection of your own character into question.
Norms
Moral norms vs. legal norms: it may be legal to smoke near small kids, but would you smoke near
small kids? Other examples involve playing music really loud in the train, cursing, or talking in
movie theater.
Rule of Law vs. Rule by Law
Rule of Law Rule by Law
- Abstract idea - Governing authority somehow exists
- All people are equal under the law above the law
- No one is above the law - Governing authority engages in forceful
- Punishment same regardless persuasion, control, compliance, coercion
Does Rule of Law truly exist? In Finland, everyone’s salary, home address, phone number is publicly
recorded. If you are caught speeding in a car in Finland, your number plate will be scanned, and
you will be fined in proportion to how much money you make every year.
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, Checks & Balances
1. Legislature – Parliament
Determine the rules that will govern the process of adjudication. Legislation tells the
judicial function HOW to adjudicate.
2. Executive – Government, Police
Ensure, first, that the disputing parties submit to adjudication in the first place, and
second, that they actually comply with the settlement eventually reached through the
judicial process. Making the structure that makes sure the law is being followed.
3. Judiciary – Courts
Adjudicates disputes, decides how a disagreement should be settled.
These are all powerful in their own right, but can only really work effectively if they work with
each other. What happens if we take out legislature (the parliament)? There would be no updates
on law and regulations. Sometimes new technologies come along and we need rules in order to
sufficiently regulate these new technologies. Judges would also have no frame of reference. What
happens if we take out judiciary? This sounds to start like a police state, where the legislature says,
and the executive does.
Principles & Rules
Principles & Rules – Definition
- Background of legal rules
- Can be used to interpret, complete, or correct legal rules
- Made by judge (verdict) or legislator (codes)
Are all rules legal rules? Examples of rules (codified in some way) that are not legal rules, but that
we also live by, include: (1) teaching regular courses in English (or Dutch) at Tilburg University,
(2) not cheating in exams (written in exam regulations), and (3) using performance enhancing
drugs in sports (written by governing bodies such as of the Tour the France).
Principles & Rules – Sources of Law
- Treaties bind states that have signed and ratified them.
- Legislation (including a constitution) imposes legal norms on those within a given
jurisdiction.
- Case law / judicial decisions
- Customary law (in absence of written law) – general practice accepted as law –
obligatory rules of conduct.
Principles & Rules – Legal Domains
- Public law – societal: e.g., human rights, national security, public functions, GDPR
- Private law – individual: e.g., contract law, commercial competition
- Criminal law – criminal
Principles & Rules – Legal Domains
Interpretability: you have to be able to apply it in a variety of scenarios. In the civil law system,
the judge must apply the law, but the law needs to be interpreted.
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