Feminism, Privacy, and Law in Cyberspace

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Estrin Gilman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Online Harassment ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Privacy Law ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Feminist Theories

Feminism has long centered on breaking down the public and private divide that traditionally organized social relations and subordinated women. Privacy is lauded for giving women space for self-determination, but it is also criticized for creating spaces where patriarchy and misogyny can flourish unchecked. Cyberspace heightens the stakes of this tension because it creates almost limitless access to people’s personal data. We live in a datafied society powered by digital profiling, automated decisionmaking, and surveillance systems in which we no longer control our personal data; rather, it is used to control us. Women face multiple, gendered harms in cyberspace, including online harassment, digital discrimination, and sexual surveillance by the “femtech” industry. Yet the United States lacks comprehensive privacy laws, and its analog-era antidiscrimination statutes are no match for the digital world. American privacy protections hinge upon a notice-and-consent regime that puts the onus on users to protect their privacy rather than the entities that benefit from gathering individual’s personal data. Women and other marginalized people have suffered through a loss of privacy in the digital age, but activists have made efforts to ameliorate the harms of cyberspace and to shape privacy norms in a feminist and inclusive manner. It is important to understand the meaning of privacy through four waves of feminist theorizing and activism, to analyze how American privacy law responds to major gender equity challenges in cyberspace, and to examine current feminist theories and models of resistance.

Predictive Policing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Yang
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Predictive Analytics ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unmanned Aircraft ◽  
License Plate ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Predictive Policing ◽  
Digital World

Predictive policing, also known as crime forecasting, is a set of high technologies aiding the police in solving past crimes and pre-emptively fighting and preventing future ones. With the right deployment of such technologies, law enforcement agencies can combat and control crime more efficiently with time and resources better employed and allocated. The current practices of predictive policing include the integration of various technologies, ranging from predictive crime maps and surveillance cameras to sophisticated computer software and artificial intelligence. Predictive analytics help the police make predictions about where and when future crime is most likely to happen and who will be the perpetrator and who the potential victim. The underpinning logic behind such predictions is the predictability of criminal behavior and crime patterns based on criminological research and theories such as rational choice and deterrence theories, routine activities theory, and broken windows theory. Currently many jurisdictions in the United States have deployed or have been experimenting with various predictive policing technologies. The most widely adopted applications include CompStat, PredPol, HunchLab, Strategic Subject List (SSL), Beware, Domain Awareness System (DAS), and Palantir. The realization of these predictive policing analytics systems relies heavily on the technological assistance provided by data collection and integration software, facial/vehicle identification and tracking tools, and surveillance technologies that keep tabs on individual activities both in the physical environment and in the digital world. Some examples of these assisting technologies include Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR), Next-Generation Identification (NGI) System, the Global Positioning System (GPS), Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), next-generation police body-worn cameras (BWC) with facial recognition and tracking functions, aerial cameras and unmanned aircraft systems, DeepFace, Persistent Surveillance Systems, Stingrays/D(i)RT-Box/International Mobile Subscriber Identity Catcher, SnapTrends that monitors and analyzes feeds on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Picasa, Flickr, and YouTube. This new fashion of using predictive analytics in policing has elicited extensive doubt and criticism since its invention. Whereas scholarly evaluation research shows mixed findings about how effectively predictive policing actually works to help reduce crime, other concerns center around legal and civil rights issues (including privacy protection and the legitimacy of mass surveillance), inequality (stratified surveillance), cost-effectiveness of the technologies, militarization of the police and its implications (such as worsened relationship and weakened trust between the police and the public), and epistemological challenges to understanding crime. To make the best use of the technologies and avoid their pitfalls at the same time, policymakers need to consider the hotly debated controversies raised in the evolution of predictive policing.

Schrems ruling spells tough trade-offs for digital EU

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Data Transfer ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Transfer Policy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Privacy Law ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Data Transfers

Significance While primarily focused on clarifying the limits and safeguards around US government access to personal data within the United States, the White Paper could be seen as hardening the White House’s position against the CJEU ruling. Impacts Lack of a US federal privacy law will make a new agreement on transatlantic data transfers difficult to achieve. UK-EU data transfer policy is hostage to overall trade negotiations, creating serious risks for most cross-border businesses. If UK privacy policy moves away from GDPR after Brexit, securing smooth data transfers will be difficult, harming digital economies.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

Civil sphere and democracy in Latin America

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-40
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Ch. Alexander ◽  
Carlo Tognato
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
Civil Sphere ◽  
The Everyday

The purpose of the article is to demonstrate that the civil spheres of Latin America remain in force, even when under threat, and to expand the method of theorizing democracy, understanding it not only as a state form, but also as a way of life. Moreover, the task of the authors goes beyond the purely application of the theory of the civil sphere in order to emphasize the relevance not only in practice, but also in the theory of democratic culture and institutions of Latin America. This task requires decolonizing the arrogant attitude of North theorists towards democratic processes outside the United States and Europe. The peculiarities of civil spheres in Latin America are emphasized. It is argued that over the course of the nineteenth century the non-civil institutions and value spheres that surrounded civil spheres deeply compromised them. The problems of development that pockmarked Latin America — lagging economies, racial and ethnic and class stratification, religious strife — were invariably filtered through the cultural aspirations and institutional patterns of civil spheres. The appeal of the theory of the civil sphere to the experience of Latin America reveals the ambitious nature of civil society and democracy on new and stronger foundations. Civil spheres had extended significantly as citizens confronted uncomfortable facts, collectively searched for solutions, and envisioned new courses of collective action. However when populism and authoritarianism advance, civil understandings of legitimacy come under pressure from alternative, anti-democratic conceptions of motives, social relations, and political institutions. In these times, a fine-grained understanding of the competitive dynamics between civil, non-civil, and anti-civil becomes particularly critical. Such a vision is constructively applied not only to the realities of Latin America, but also in a wider global context. The authors argue that in order to understand the realities and the limits of populism and polarization, civil sphere scholars need to dive straight into the everyday life of civil communities, setting the civil sphere theory (CST) in a more ethnographic, “anthropological” mode.

Student Privacy and the Law in the Internet Age

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Plunkett ◽  
Urs Gasser ◽  
Sandra Cortesi
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Privacy Protection ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Privacy Law ◽  
Student Privacy ◽  
High Level

New types of digital technologies and new ways of using them are heavily impacting young people’s learning environments and creating intense pressure points on the “pre-digital” framework of student privacy. This chapter offers a high-level mapping of the federal legal landscape in the United States created by the “big three” federal privacy statutes—the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA)—in the context of student privacy and the ongoing digital transformation of formal learning environments (“schools”). Fissures are emerging around key student privacy issues such as: what are the key data privacy risk factors as digital technologies are adopted in learning environments; which decision makers are best positioned to determine whether, when, why, and with whom students’ data should be shared outside the school environment; what types of data may be unregulated by privacy law and what additional safeguards might be required; and what role privacy law and ethics serve as we seek to bolster related values, such as equity, agency, and autonomy, to support youth and their pathways. These and similar intersections at which the current federal legal framework is ambiguous or inadequate pose challenges for key stakeholders. This chapter proposes that a “blended” governance approach, which draws from technology-based, market-based, and human-centered privacy protection and empowerment mechanisms and seeks to bolster legal safeguards that need to be strengthen in parallel, offers an essential toolkit to find creative, nimble, and effective multistakeholder solutions.

scholarly journals Digitizing and Disclosing Personal Data: The Proliferation of State Criminal Records on the Internet

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Lageson ◽  
Elizabeth Webster ◽  
Juan R. Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Personal Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Public Records ◽  
Internet Privacy ◽  
Court Proceedings ◽  
Public Disclosures

Digitization and the release of public records on the Internet have expanded the reach and uses of criminal record data in the United States. This study analyzes the types and volume of personally identifiable data released on the Internet via two hundred public governmental websites for law enforcement, criminal courts, corrections, and criminal record repositories in each state. We find that public disclosures often include information valuable to the personal data economy, including the full name, birthdate, home address, and physical characteristics of arrestees, detainees, and defendants. Using administrative data, we also estimate the volume of data disclosed online. Our findings highlight the mass dissemination of pre-conviction data: every year, over ten million arrests, 4.5 million mug shots, and 14.7 million criminal court proceedings are digitally released at no cost. Post-conviction, approximately 6.5 million current and former prisoners and 12.5 million people with a felony conviction have a record on the Internet. While justified through public records laws, such broad disclosures reveal an imbalance between the “transparency” of data releases that facilitate monitoring of state action and those that facilitate monitoring individual people. The results show how the criminal legal system increasingly distributes Internet privacy violations and community surveillance as part of contemporary punishment.

scholarly journals Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 on College Campuses: Initial Efforts, Lessons Learned, and Research Needs

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4455
Author(s):  
Sasha Harris-Lovett ◽  
Kara L. Nelson ◽  
Paloma Beamer ◽  
Heather N. Bischel ◽  
Aaron Bivins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Community Dynamics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
College And University ◽  
University Systems

Wastewater surveillance for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an emerging approach to help identify the risk of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. This tool can contribute to public health surveillance at both community (wastewater treatment system) and institutional (e.g., colleges, prisons, and nursing homes) scales. This paper explores the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from initial wastewater surveillance efforts at colleges and university systems to inform future research, development and implementation. We present the experiences of 25 college and university systems in the United States that monitored campus wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 during the fall 2020 academic period. We describe the broad range of approaches, findings, resources, and impacts from these initial efforts. These institutions range in size, social and political geographies, and include both public and private institutions. Our analysis suggests that wastewater monitoring at colleges requires consideration of local information needs, sewage infrastructure, resources for sampling and analysis, college and community dynamics, approaches to interpretation and communication of results, and follow-up actions. Most colleges reported that a learning process of experimentation, evaluation, and adaptation was key to progress. This process requires ongoing collaboration among diverse stakeholders including decision-makers, researchers, faculty, facilities staff, students, and community members.

The Industrial Safety Professionals: A Comparative Analysis from World War I until the 1980S

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-727 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Safety ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Industrial Medicine

The birth of industrial society produced demand for the services of professionals specialized in matters related to industrial safety. Three professions—safety engineering, industrial medicine, and ergonomics—are examined. These professions are observed to either submit to single sets of demands, to integrate contradictory demands, or to experience scission. Until the late 1960s their growth appears to have been relatively peaceful and uncontroversial. From this period onward, controversy breaks out over questions related to industrial safety, and professions and government administrations grow. Increasingly, the traditional approach of safety professionals is called into question, and they adopt new orientations. These changes are mapped through the examination of data drawn principally from the United States, France, Great Britain, and to a lesser extent Brazil. The traditional standards approach competes with cost-benefit analysis and with systemic safety for influence; in addition, an emergent approach that analyzes accident causes in terms of social relations of work is detected. From Bhopal to Chernobyl, new technologies subject civilian populations to risks of catastrophic accidents, and the action of safety professionals comes under the spotlight. The analysis constructed permits new understandings of the past and the future of these professions.

Manufacturing the Electric Vehicle: A Window of Technological Opportunity for Southern California

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 835-862 ◽  
Author(s):  
C O Quandt
Keyword(s):  
Electric Vehicle ◽  
Electric Vehicles ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vehicle Design ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
Technological Opportunity ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Vehicle Technology ◽  
Automobile Manufacturer ◽  
Vehicle Technologies

The California Air Resources Board has mandated that by 1998 2% of new vehicles sold in California must be zero emission, effectively, electric vehicles. This requirement is largely responsible for the electric vehicle development programs run by almost every global automobile manufacturer that does business in the United States. At present, no single electric vehicle technology, from battery type, to propulsion system, to vehicle design, represents a standard for a protoelectric vehicle industry. In this paper competing electric vehicle technologies are reviewed, leading public and private electric vehicle research programs worldwide are summarized, and the barriers faced by competing technological systems in terms of manufacturing and infrastructural requirements are examined.

scholarly journals Absolute Insurer Denial of Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy for Hepatitis C: A National Specialty Pharmacy Cohort Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charitha Gowda ◽  
Stephen Lott ◽  
Matthew Grigorian ◽  
Dena M Carbonari ◽  
M Elle Saine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cohort Study ◽  
Hepatitis C ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Commercial Insurance ◽  
Direct Acting Antiviral ◽  
Insurance Type ◽  
Specialty Pharmacy ◽  
Direct Acting ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Despite the availability of new direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimens, changes in DAA reimbursement criteria, and a public health focus on hepatitis C virus (HCV) elimination, it remains unclear if public and private insurers have increased access to these therapies over time. We evaluated changes in the incidence of absolute denial of DAA therapy over time and by insurance type. Methods We conducted a prospective cohort study among patients who had a DAA prescription submitted from January 2016 to April 2017 to Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc., which provides HCV pharmacy services across the United States. The main outcome was absolute denial of DAA prescription, defined as lack of fill approval by the insurer. We calculated the incidence of absolute denial, overall and by insurance type (Medicaid, Medicare, commercial), for the 16-month study period and each quarter. Results Among 9025 patients from 45 states prescribed a DAA regimen (4702 covered by Medicaid, 1821 Medicare, 2502 commercial insurance), 3200 (35.5%; 95% confidence interval, 34.5%–36.5%) were absolutely denied treatment. Absolute denial was more common among patients covered by commercial insurance (52.4%) than Medicaid (34.5%, P < .001) or Medicare (14.7%, P < .001). The incidence of absolute denial increased across each quarter of the study period, overall (27.7% in first quarter to 43.8% in last quarter; test for trend, P < .001) and for each insurance type (test for trend, P < .001 for each type). Conclusions Despite the availability of new DAA regimens and changes in restrictions of these therapies, absolute denials of DAA regimens by insurers have remained high and increased over time, regardless of insurance type.

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