The Sustainable Computing Lab

Data Privacy Controls and Vocabularies A W3C Workshop on Privacy and Linked Data
2018-04-17 08:00 - 2018-04-18 17:00 UTC
The level of privacy and trust concerns has raised to a point where people start to refuse services. Services on the Web are often very complex orchestrations of cooperations between multiple actors. This will increase if the upcoming Internet of Things is taken into account. If the trust in such services is eroded, the growth of the Web and the growth of the digital economy is endangered. This workshop wants to address the privacy issue from the angle of data governance and transparency. And if transparency and data self determination are at stake, the challenge may also be how to convey the transparency to the user to allow for an informed self determination. This includes especially methods to generate and administer user consent, even in an IoT environment.
While the Workshop is open to a wide range of ideas, it is mainly inspired by the idea that today, we lack the tools for those wanting to be good citizens of the Web. It is related, but not limited to the work on Permissions and on Tracking protection. Because those permissions and tracking signals carry policy data, the systems have to react upon those signals. To react in a complex distributed system, the signals have to be understood by more than one implementer. The challenge is to identify the areas where such signals are needed for privacy or compliance and to make those signals interoperable. This can take the form taxonomies, vocabularies or ontologies. The most important challenge is to make policy and privacy signals interoperable and transportable within various systems, beyond the mere relation in a browsing context. In the era of upcoming privacy regulation with high fines, we need to make the data lake usable again while respecting the human user.
Because of the paradigm of data self determination, the challenge is bidirectional. Once the semantics of privacy or compliance are clear, this information also has to be presented to the user. On the Web, this is a challenge for the terminal equipment, including but not limited to browsers. E.g., the set of preferences offered to the user may vary with the capability of a service to accommodate those preferences. This needs signaling of the possible preferences (semantics) and a way to communicate the selection back. Such exchange can be protocol- or data driven. Where it is data driven, the policy semantics are transported over whatever channel is available, e.g. using linked data.

Javier D. Fernández: Green Big Data
2018-03-28 16:00 - 17:00
As more and more systems and personal devices become pervasive and interoperable, an increasing amount of sensitive and interconnected data is prone to vulnerability, which leads to the question how Big Data potential for business, science and society can be balanced with societal expectations in terms of data protection and privacy legislation. In this talk, we will introduce some of the open technical challenges around the implementation of the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how our project “SPECIAL”, a H2020 research and innovation action, provides tools for enterprises to run their Big Data-driven businesses in a privacy-aware manner.

Sabine Beck, Netpeace: Talking about peace in the internet and on social media, means talking about how to get rid of hate and harassment - especially concerning female victims
2018-03-21 16:00 - 17:00
Women make up half of the earth’s population. Women have been and still are a strong driving force and engine to bring about social change. The women’s movements of the past 150 years have been instrumental in transforming society, such as enforcing women’s suffrage.
Restrictive movements and right-wing populists are attacking women, not only because it is obvious that progressive ideas and demands are usually initiated by feminists. Women’s rights are human rights – therefore both are high on the agenda to fight against of the new right.
Online violence against women is not only easy to accomplish and relatively safe to perform, but also effective: someone who attacks women, intimidates not only the affected individual, but also the many who are online witnessing the attack.
The result is simple and easy to foresee: women fall silent and withdraw from public discussions. Aggressive men take over and determine the discourse, followed by a shift in public perception and political sentiment. A recent study by Amnesty International shows that women who experience online hate or abuse, also feel threatened physically, fear for their live and families and are less likely to speak out on other occasions.
So we must discuss actions and strategies how to defend women´s rights in online spaces to defend democracy.
Sabine Beck, speaker of the Netpeace initiative at Greenpeace will provide a brief overview followed by a discussion.

CANCELLED: Javier D. Fernández: Green Big Data
2018-01-31 14:00 - 16:00

Workshop on Regulating Artificial Intelligence
2018-01-19 10:00 - 12:30
‘I am pessimistic about AI but an optimist because of will’
Artificial intelligence and big data are taking an increasingly important place in our everyday life. What used to be once a niche research topic in computer science, has become now the main leverage of the digital revolution. From this perspective AI is becoming a major strategic tool in hand of states and large corporates to shape the future. In this talk, we will first attempt a taxonomy of different ways algorithms and AI are used as society changer tools. After a critical assessment of the different categories we will describe how various countries (USA, China, Europe, etc.…) are currently integrating AI into their national development strategies and evaluate the benefit and risks involved with these strategies.

Event Program
10:00 – 10:05: Introduction and Overview: Dr. Ben Wagner, WU Vienna
10:05 – 11:00: Regulating Artificial Intelligence: Prof. Dr. Kave Salamatian, University of Savoie
11:00 – 11:15: Governance of Algorithms: Dr. Florian Saurwein, Austrian Academy of Sciences
11:15 – 12:25: Discussion
12:25 – 12:30: Concluding remarks: Dr. Ben Wagner, WU Vienna

About the Speakers:
Kave Salamatian, PhD, is a professor of computer science at University of Savoie and Fellow at the Centre for Internet & Human Rights (CIHR). His main areas of researches are Internet measurement, modelling and networking information theory. He was previously reader at Lancaster University, UK and associate professor at University Pierre et Marie Curie. Kavé has graduated with a Phd in Computer Science in 1998 from Paris SUD-Orsay university, where he worked on joint source channel coding applied to multimedia transmission over Internet
In a former life, he graduated with a MBA, and worked on market floor as a risk analyst and on enjoyed being an urban traffic modeler for some years. In particular, he is interested in cyber strategy and explaining that guaranteeing freedom of speech and equal access to network is not only a human right obligation by is also the wisest strategic decision that a government can take in Internet domain.
Florian Saurwein is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC), Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt. He is part of the ‘Media Accountability & Media Change’ Research Group, where he leads the Tripple A research project on Algorithms, Automation and Accountability. He previously worked at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research of the University of Zurich and completed his PhD at the University of Vienna.

Soheil Human: Towards a Cognitive Information Economy: Dealing with the Personalisation-Privacy Paradox by Computational Cognitive Modelling of Human Needs and Values
2018-01-10 14:00 - 16:00
Need satisfaction plays a fundamental role in human wellbeing. This notwithstanding, the concept of need has not yet found its place in information systems and online tools. Furthermore, assessing needs itself remains a labor-intensive, mostly offline activity, where only a limited support by computational tools is available. In this talk, first, I present OpeNeeD, a family of ontologies for representing human needs data. Then, I introduce Polyphony, an ontology for representing epistemic disagreements, and discuss how Polyphony can contribute in development of pluralist ontologies for representing human needs and values. Later, by proposing the concept of cognitive information economy, I discuss how the personalisation-privacy paradox can be dealt with computational cognitive models of human needs satisfaction.

Eliška Pírková: Human Rights Lost in Transition: Hate Speech 3.0
2017-12-13 14:00 - 15:00
Private entities, such as Social Network Sites (SNS) exercise a significant control over the flow of information online. They have a power to decide what kind of information can be accesses and what form of expression is or is not permissible. Hence, this ability makes them a powerful force in facilitating or hindering freedom of expression online. Consequently, it imposes a challenge to human rights law which has traditionally viewed human rights as the responsibility of state. The presentation aims to demonstrate how private companies operate as the gatekeepers of information society, especially at the intersection of regulation, law and human rights. After a brief introduction of the term ‘Hate Speech 3.0’, I critically assess the existing approach to the gatekeepers’ liability for potentially harmful content. The national legislative tools, the corporate governance model represented by soft law mechanisms as well as non-state based models of governance will be examined in detail. I argue that the current state of art suggests that we are facing a regulatory paradox of free expression online, which is not able to provide an adequate response to this phenomenon. A starting point of a future possible model that can potentially lead to more positive outcomes will be drawn in the final conclusion.

Ben Wagner: Governing Automation and Algorithms responsibly
2017-12-06 12:00 - 14:00 | SVasili

Sarah Spiekermann: P7000: IEEE’s first standard on Ethical Systems Engineering
2017-11-29 13:00 - 15:00

Markus Sabadello: "Internet Identity: Self-sovereign ID vs. (national) eIDs”
2017-11-27 12:00 - 14:00 | Hypeneko
Historically, nation states have always played a vital role in identifying their citizens. Today, this is also reflected in the digital world, where governments issue eID cards to their own citizens (and in some cases even to foreigners, such as in the case of the Estonian eResidency program). In Austria, a number of institutions and companies (Federal Chancellery, Ministry of the Interior, Austrian State Printing House, A-Trust, etc.) provide the infrastructure for the Austrian “Bürgerkarte”, a classic centralized digital identity system which is currently undergoing a major architectural revision. At the same time, during the last few years we have been witnessing fast growing interest in decentralized, privacy-enhancing, and so-called “self-sovereign” digital identity technologies, which put individuals in control of their own digital identity, without dependencies on any state or company. In many cases (especially blockchain), the proponents of such technologies are critical of traditional authorities.
In this talk, let us look at both the different political assumptions and the different technological approaches behind “self-sovereign” identity vs. national identity, and let us explore if they are really conflicting ends of a spectrum, or if they are perhaps rather compatible and complementary.

Sabrina Kirrane: Status Update on SPECIAL
2017-11-20 11:00 - 12:00

Bernadette Kamleitner: Data Ownership
2017-11-15 16:00 - 18:00 | Aaron Neo

Jeffrey Sachs: AI, Ubiquitous Computing and the Question of Ethics
2017-11-09 12:00 - 16:00

Christiane Wendehorst: The ALI-ELI Principles for a Data Economy: Investment protection, data protection, and other challenges
2017-10-16 12:00 - 14:00

Christian Göbel: Scraping & online complaints platforms in China
2017-10-05 12:00 - 13:00
We look forward to a small lunch meeting on Thursday 5.10.2017 we’re organising about scraping online complaints platforms in China with Christian Göbel from the University of Vienna (http://christiangoebel.net/).

Christian will be talking about web scraping in the context of a 5-year ERC project on complaint platforms in China and will be joined by Axel Polleres & Ben Wagner for lunch in the D2 lounge at 12:00 on Thursday 5.10.2017.

Anyone who is interested in web scraping methods or studying authoritarian regimes online is very welcome to join the lunch meeting.

PrivOn2016 @ ISWC2016 - 4th International Workshop on Society, Privacy and the Semantic Web - Policy and Technology
2016-10-17 09:00 - 2016-10-18 17:00

Lab Launch - Future Privacy & Data Protection in a Global Big Data World
2016-09-30 08:30 - 18:00

ITalks: Ethics & Value Based Design – Can we Create a Better Future?
2016-09-29 17:30 - 21:00

Prof. Charles Ess - "Are Good Lives Possible in a (post-) Digital Era?"
2016-05-11 12:00 - 13:30
Abstract
Are Good Lives Possible in a (post-) Digital Era?
I begin with an account of our human interests in a good life as circumscribed by shared interests in contentment, well-being, and (self-) fulfillment in relationship with others. I then ask how such good lives might be possible vis-à-vis two concrete examples of contemporary ICT instantiations: (1) “smart technologies,” including various forms of ambient intelligence and pre-emptive computing, and (2) social robots, specifically carebots and sexbots. My larger argument – drawing in part on recent approaches to ethical ICT design, including Spiekermann (2015) – is that lives of human flourishing and contentment remain possible in a post-digital era. To achieve these, however, requires that we as human beings pay greater attention to our embodied and relational lives, so as to cultivate the skills and abilities (virtues) needed to sustain human autonomy vis-à-vis increasingly sophisticated technological environments and infrastructures designed to offload our agency in the names of economic efficiency and convenience.
Bio
Charles Ess is Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, Norway. He works at the intersections of philosophy, computing, applied ethics, comparative philosophy, and media studies, with specific focus on research ethics, Digital Religion, and virtue ethics in media and communication, specifically social robots. Recent publications include Digital Media Ethics (Polity Press, 2009, 2nd ed. 2013), (co-editor) The Handbook of Internet Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), and ‘What’s love got to do with it? Robots, sexuality, and the arts of being human,’ in M. Nørskov (ed.), Social Robots: Boundaries, Potential, Challenges, 57–79 (Ashgate, 2015). In 2015–16, he was a fellow of the Research Group The Ethics of Copying at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) in Bielefeld, Germany.
