Beyond Data

Why laws focused on data cannot effectively protect people—and how an approach centered on human rights offers the best hope for preserving human dignity and autonomy in a cyberphysical world. Ever-pervasive technology poses a clear and present danger to human dignity and autonomy, as many have pointed out. And yet, for the past fifty years, we have been so busy protecting data that we have failed to protect people. In Beyond Data, Elizabeth Renieris argues that laws focused on data protection, data privacy, data security and data ownership have unintentionally failed to protect core human values, including privacy. And, as our collective obsession with data has grown, we have, to our peril, lost sight of what’s truly at stake in relation to technological development—our dignity and autonomy as people. Far from being inevitable, our fixation on data has been codified through decades of flawed policy. Renieris provides a comprehensive history of how both laws and corporate policies enacted in the name of data privacy have been fundamentally incapable of protecting humans. Her research identifies the inherent deficiency of making data a rallying point in itself—data is not an objective truth, and what’s more, its “entirely contextual and dynamic” status makes it an unstable foundation for organizing. In proposing a human rights–based framework that would center human dignity and autonomy rather than technological abstractions, Renieris delivers a clear-eyed and radically imaginative vision of the future. At once a thorough application of legal theory to technology and a rousing call to action, Beyond Data boldly reaffirms the value of human dignity and autonomy amid widespread disregard by private enterprise at the dawn of the metaverse.

This open access book focuses on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on individuals and society from a legal perspective, providing a comprehensive risk-based methodological framework to address it. Building on the limitations of data protection in dealing with the challenges of AI, the author proposes an integrated approach to risk assessment that focuses on human rights and encompasses contextual social and ethical values. The core of the analysis concerns the assessment methodology and the role of experts in steering the design of AI products and services by business and public bodies in the direction of human rights and societal values. Taking into account the ongoing debate on AI regulation, the proposed assessment model also bridges the gap between risk-based provisions and their real-world implementation. The central focus of the book on human rights and societal values in AI and the proposed solutions will make it of interest to legal scholars, AI developers and providers, policy makers and regulators. Alessandro Mantelero is Associate Professor of Private Law and Law & Technology in the Department of Management and Production Engineering at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin, Italy.

This book states that data users often suffer from the difficulty of acquiring knowledge for decision-making, and others are unsure how existing data are useful. The reader will be released from these dilemmas and enabled to act beyond patterns in past events by creating a process to interact with the data market and the dynamic real-world rich in new events. We present new approaches from the aspects of computation, communication, and their integration, to readers including analysts in sciences and businesses, systems managers, and learners desiring to design knowledge to learn. We show clues to explaining causalities in the target world of a black-box AI of which users may seek a predictive performance. For obtaining interpretable knowledge, we show the integration of model- and data-driven approaches, the analysis and perception of signals from data acquired in the cyber or the real word, and creative communication which connects demands to data by visualizing the data market as a place for innovations

The book deals with data protection issues from practical viewpoints. 40% of the content focus on the Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2010 progress, whilst 60% of the content focus on leading comparative practical guidance from Europe. Part of the PDPA provisions is mirrored from European approaches and practices. The approach of this book is straightforward, handy and readable and is supplemented by practical applications, illustrations, tables and diagrams. Practical examples highlighted in this book range from cloud computing, radio frequency identification technology, social media networks and information security to basic related aspects of data protection issues covering strategic leadership, management, governance and audit in businesses, organisations and local authorities. Recommended best practices have been outlined for practical guidance accompanied with future challenges and opportunities for Malaysia and ASEAN. The book is equally suitable for academics, practitioners, governmental officials and regulators dealing with data protection within their sector-specific legislation.

A practical introduction to terms, concepts, and processes of data analysis, introducing operations common to all statistical software. This book goes beyond basic research methods and statistics, and discusses actually working with data, including data entry, data cleaning, finding errors, organizing data, transforming variables, and combining and aggregating data sets. It provides a useful vocabulary for thinking and talking about data and demystifies statistical software by showing readers how to think about data from the computer's perspective. People with an interest in research methods, experimental methodology, and statistics in the fields of psychology, sociology, and social work.

We are familiar with the idea that technology is neutral, and that its impact depends only on how it is used. This traditional view has, however, become untenable. Because of its nature and its complex interplay with industry, the economy, and society, technology is no longer neutral. This change is being driven by the pervasiveness of data, which today are generated everywhere at an unpreceded pace because several technologies are currently reaching maturity. Data shape the world around us, in a trend that is commonly referred to as “digitalization”. This trend is apparent in every aspect of our lives, ranging from our personal environment and health to transportation, energy generation and management, and industry. Digitalization itself generates value, enabling the creation of new products and services. It also fosters technological and business innovation in other fields, including the manufacturing industry, and acts as a lever with which to promote growth. Digitalization, however, also creates imbalances, and this happens due to its very nature. Such imbalances appear between different parts of the globe and within individual geographical spaces. This book explores the multiplicity of mechanisms associated with the growing role that technology and data are playing in the creation of imbalances, and goes on to identify certain paths that lead toward mitigation. Should we make data publicly accessible, and in a transparent way? How can policymakers empower governments to address global and local imbalances, particularly those generated by technology and data? Do we need a global data-governance structure that—like the World Trade Organization for commerce—regulates data use and access?

After broadband access, what next? What role do metrics play in understanding “information societies”? And, more important, in shaping their policies? Beyond counting people with broadband access, how can economic and social metrics inform broadband policies, help evaluate their outcomes, and create useful models for achieving national goals? This timely volume not only examines the traditional questions about broadband, like availability and access, but also explores and evaluates new metrics more applicable to the evolving technologies of information access. Beyond Broadband Access brings together a stellar array of media policy scholars from a wide range of disciplines—economics, law, policy studies, computer science, information science, and communications studies. Importantly, it provides a well-rounded, international perspective on theoretical approaches to databased communications policymaking in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Showcasing a diversity of approaches, this invaluable collection helps to meet myriad challenges to improving the foundations for communications policy development.

In qualitative research, one can often hear the statement that research results are just (social) constructions. In criminal cases and in court hearings, we tend to expect that the true sequence of events has to be found rather than just any story. Here the author shows that qualitative social research can be conducted in the manner of police work or court proceedings. He does so by exhibiting how short pieces of transcriptions can be approached to uncover who, when, where, and how participated, what kind of social situation produced the transcription, and so on without any background knowledge other than that talk itself. Commenting on transcriptions of a researcher in the course of doing rigorous data analysis, readers learn doing ethnographically adequate accounts and critical institutional ethnography “at the elbow” of an experienced practitioners. Further topics include the role of turn sequences, the ethnomethods of knowledge-power and institutional relations, the documentary method of interpretation, and time-sensitive social analysis.