Regulating New Technologies In Uncertain Times

This book deals with questions of democracy and governance relating to new technologies. The deployment and application of new technologies is often accompanied with uncertainty as to their long-term (un)intended impacts. New technologies also raise questions about the limits of the law as the line between harmful and beneficial effects is often difficult to draw. The volume explores overarching concepts on how to regulate new technologies and their implications in a diverse and constantly changing society, as well as the way in which regulation can address differing, and sometimes conflicting, societal objectives, such as public health and the protection of privacy. Contributions focus on a broad range of issues such as Citizen Science, Smart Cities, big data, and health care, but also on the role of market regulation for new technologies.The book will serve as a useful research tool for scholars and practitioners interested in the latest developments in the field of technology regulation. Leonie Reins is Assistant Professor at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) in The Netherlands.

This book deals with questions of democracy and governance relating to new technologies. The deployment and application of new technologies is often accompanied with uncertainty as to their long-term (un)intended impacts. New technologies also raise questions about the limits of the law as the line between harmful and beneficial effects is often difficult to draw.0The volume explores overarching concepts on how to regulate new technologies and their implications in a diverse and constantly changing society, as well as the way in which regulation can address differing, and sometimes conflicting, societal objectives, such as public health and the protection of privacy.0Contributions focus on a broad range of issues such as Citizen Science, Smart Cities, big data, and health care, but also on the role of market regulation for new technologies.

This book argues that law has a vital role in shaping the electricity system to enable a more active role for consumers in liberalizsed electricity industries. To do that, this book offers a unique legal perspective of the Netherlands, New Zealand and Colombia to help understand some of the current legal approaches to prosumers and therefore the legal challenges and opportunities facing. Law and regulation have the role of creating a level playing field for emerging participants, such as prosumers, to participate and compete in the market together with traditional actors, bringing not only more competition but also representing a more sustainable, environmental and democratic way to supply energy. Furthermore, law and regulation have the role of responding to innovation and creating space for technological advances to procure the changes in the industry without delay. This book examines some of the legal barriers for the raise of energy prosumers. The traditional role of the distributor when responding to increasing distributed generation in the network; prosumers unable to decide to whom they can sell their electricity to; the price of the energy or even whether to participate more actively in demand response programs. A further issue is the lack of clarity about whether small prosumers are entitled to consumer protection rights and legal challenges regarding configuration, access to the network, access to markets and strict unbundling rules for community energy projects. This book provides a clear, analytical, and informed approach to understanding the regulatory framework around energy prosumers. It will appeal to policy makers, lawyers, individuals, business entrepreneurs or communities wanting to engage in energy projects, as well as academics, researchers and students

This edited collection seeks to map the landscape of contemporary informational interests, to evaluate a range of recognised and putative rights and wrongs associated with modern information societies, and to consider how law, regulation, and governance should be deployed in response. New technologies and new applications constantly disrupt our values, our framing of our world, and our sense of where we are and who we are. In our ‘information societies’, we entertain mixed hopes and expectations, as well as significant fears and concerns. At the root of these, there are a number of informational interests, on the basis of which certain rights are claimed and particular wrongs denounced. This book addresses these interests, considering them as relating primarily to the integrity of the informational ecosystem, to the accessibility, accuracy, and authenticity of public information, and to our individual ability to control the outward and inward flows of information that relates directly to ourselves. Covering a wide range of subjects, the book’s interrogation of our contemporary information society is oriented around two questions: first, whether the information society in which we live is the kind of society that we think it should be and, second, if not, what we can reasonably expect law, regulation, and governance to do in providing the basis for improving it. This book will be of considerable interest to those working at the intersection of law and technology, as well as others concerned with the legal, political, and social aspects of our information society.

At the same time that the pace of science and technology has greatly accelerated in recent decades, our legal and ethical oversight mechanisms have become bogged down and slower. This book addresses the growing gap between the pace of science and technology and the lagging responsiveness of legal and ethical oversight society relies on to govern emerging technologies. Whether it be biotechnology, genetic testing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, computer privacy, autonomous robotics, or any of the other many emerging technologies, new approaches are needed to ensure appropriate and timely regulatory responses. This book documents the problem and offers a toolbox of potential regulatory and governance approaches that might be used to ensure more responsive oversight.

While it is a truism that emerging technologies present both opportunities for and challenges to their host communities, the legal community has only recently begun to consider their significance. On the one hand, emerging information, bio, nano, and neurotechnologies challenge policy-makers who aspire to put in place a regulatory environment that is legitimate, effective, and sustainable; on the other hand, these same technologies offer new opportunities as potentially powerful regulatory instruments. In this unique volume, a team of leading international scholars address many of the key difficulties surrounding the regulation of emerging technological targets as well as the implications of adopting technology as a regulatory tool. How should we rise to the challenge of regulating technologies? How are the regulatory lines to be drawn in the right places and how is the public to be properly engaged? How is precaution to be accommodated, and how can the law keep pace with technologies that develop ahead of the regulatory environment? How readily should we avail ourselves of the opportunity to use technology as a regulative strategy? How are we to understand these strategies and the challenges which they raise? To what extent do they give rise to similar policy problems accompanying more 'traditional' regulatory instruments or generate distinctive challenges? While the criminal justice system increasingly relies on technological assistance and the development of a 'surveillance society', is a regulatory regime that rules by technology compatible with rule of law values?

Energy Services Fundamentals and Financing, first volume of the Energy Services and Management series, provides a global view of energy services schemes and practices. The book discusses the role of energy services within the larger energy landscape and explores key technical aspects of energy systems for power, heating and cooling, including renewable energy systems and combined heat and power. The book analyzes energy efficiency in several electrical devices, such as motors, lighting and vehicles. It then examines actual energy services business models and policy, before presenting a quick reference section that includes key models and calculations. Provides an innovative approach to the fundamental aspects related with energy services, including technology implementation and financial schemes Discusses tools to measure process efficiency and sustainability in power and heating applications Includes case studies, models and calculations, both technical and financial, as well as downloadable data for simulation and modeling

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 15th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2023, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2023, in conjunction with the IFIP WG 8.5 Conference on Electronic Government (EGOV 2023) and the Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government Conference (CeDEM 2023). A total of 38 full papers has been carefully reviewed and selected from 106 submissions. Eight of the accepted papers are included in this book. They were organized in topical sections as follows: E-participation; digital transformation; digital technology; and digital sovereignty.