Automating accountability? Privacy policies, data transparency, and the third party problem

Author(s):  
David Lie ◽  
Lisa M. Austin ◽  
Peter Yi Ping Sun ◽  
Wenjun Qiu

We have a data transparency problem. Currently, one of the main mechanisms we have to understand data flows is through the self-reporting that organizations provide through privacy policies. These suffer from many well-known problems, problems that are becoming more acute with the increasing complexity of the data ecosystem and the role of third parties – the affiliates, partners, processors, ad agencies, analytic services, and data brokers involved in the contemporary data practices of organizations. In this article, we argue that automating privacy policy analysis can improve the usability of privacy policies as a transparency mechanism. Our argument has five parts. First, we claim that we need to shift from thinking about privacy policies as a transparency mechanism that enhances consumer choice and see them as a transparency mechanism that enhances meaningful accountability. Second, we discuss a research tool that we prototyped, called AppTrans (for Application Transparency), which can detect inconsistencies between the declarations in a privacy policy and the actions the mobile application can potentially take if it is used. We used AppTrans to test seven hundred applications and found that 59.5 per cent were collecting data in ways that were not declared in their policies. The vast majority of the discrepancies were due to third party data collection such as adversiting and analytics. Third, we outline the follow-on research we did to extend AppTrans to analyse the information sharing of mobile applications with third parties, with mixed results. Fourth, we situate our findings in relation to the third party issues that came to light in the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and the calls from regulators for enhanced technical safeguards in managing these third party relationships. Fifth, we discuss some of the limitations of privacy policy automation as a strategy for enhanced data transparency and the policy implications of these limitations.

Author(s):  
Sheng-Lin JAN

This chapter discusses the position of third party beneficiaries in Taiwan law where the principle of privity of contract is well established. Article 269 of the Taiwan Civil Code confers a right on the third party to sue for performance as long as the parties have at least impliedly agreed. This should be distinguished from a ‘spurious contract’ for the benefit of third parties where there is no agreement to permit the third party to claim. Both the aggrieved party and the third party beneficiary can sue on the contract, but only for its own loss. The debtor can only set off on a counterclaim arising from its legal relationship with the third party. Where the third party coerces the debtor into the contract, the contract can be avoided, but where the third party induces the debtor to contract with the creditor by misrepresentation, the debtor can only avoid the contract if the creditor knows or ought to have known of the misrepresentation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elfrida R Gultom

The objective of Busway development is to provide transportation services faster, safer, comfortable, and affordable for people in Jakarta. Ticket prices are subsidized by the local government busway. Busway given special line, however could not be separated from the accident. In a carriage, in the event of an accident then apply provisions of Law No. 22 of 2009 on Traffic and Transportation. If there is a loss that hit the third party then setting responsibilities Public Service Agency TransJakarta Busway to third parties refer to the provisions of Article 194 paragraph (1) which determines that the public transport companies are not responsible for any losses suffered by third parties, unless the third party may prove that the loss is caused by the fault of public transport company. Under these provisions, if the third party wants to sue for damages, ketigalah party must prove the fault of the carrier, the claim is based on the basis of tort or on the basis of error set forth in Article 1365 of the Civil Code which stipulates that any action unlawfully harming others, require the person who carries the loss offset. Keywords: transport, the responsibility of the carrier, a third party, transport law


Author(s):  
Robert Pearce ◽  
Warren Barr

This chapter considers remedies involving a breach of trust which involves a third party who was not a trustee either as a participant in the breach or as the recipient of trust property transferred to them in breach of trust. In the event of such a breach, the beneficiaries of the trust may be entitled to pursue remedies against the stranger. The third party is termed a ‘stranger to the trust’ because he or she was not a trustee and, therefore, was not subject to any obligations prior to his or her involvement in the breach. Remedies against third parties may prove more attractive to the beneficiaries than their remedies against the trustee in breach. The availability of remedies against a stranger to the trust will be especially important if the trustee is insolvent, thus rendering direct remedies against the trustee ineffective.


1952 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-257
Author(s):  
T. C. Thomas

The purpose of this article is to consider the legal effects of a transfer of property by A to B subject to the performance by B of some obligation in favour of C, a third party to the transfer. The student of the law of contract is well familiar with the common law rule that no one who was not an original party to the contract is entitled to the benefit of that contract. But this rule creates hardship in particular cases and it has been shown that, in the main, three methods have been evolved to evade those unfortunate results. First, the legislature has intervened and provided C, the third party, with statutory rights. Secondly, the doctrine of agency has been invoked whereby C may claim that he is the principal of B. Thirdly, but with varying success, the trust concept has been pressed into service whereby C has sometimes been able to show that he is a beneficiary.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 67-90
Author(s):  
Witold Kurowski

The question of which law should govern the third-party effects of assignments of claims was considered during the preparation of the Rome I Regulation. The European Commission’s proposal for the Rome I Regulation admitted the law of the assignor’s habitual residence as the law that should apply to the proprietary effects of assignments of claims. Finally, EU Regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations did not include the issue of the third-party effects of the assignment. However, Article 27(2) of the Rome I Regulation required the European Commission to present a report on the question of the effectiveness of assignments of claims against third parties accompanied, if appropriate, by a proposal to amend the Rome I Regulation. Proposal for a Regulation on the law applicable to the third-party effects of assignments of claims (COM(2018) 96 final) is a response to this request. This paper analyses current draft of the new EU Regulation, the rules on determination of the third-party effects of assignments of claims (law of the assignor’s habitual residence and law of the assigned claim) and "super conflict rules" in specific cases. The author argues that the law of the assignor’s habitual residence remains the appropriate conflict rule for proprietary effects of assignments of claims.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Zuzanna Służewska

Si tamen plures per se navem exerceant. Several Remarks on the Liability of ShipownersSummaryThe problem discussed in this paper regards the liability of several shipowners (exercitores) managing the same ship. In the title de exercitoria actione o f the Digest there are three texts that refer to this matter: D. 14,1,1,25; D. 14,1,4 pr. and D. 14,1,4,1. The first and the last one refer to a situation in which the shipowners appointed a captain (magister navis) as their agent and thus were held liable in solidum for contracts made by him with third parties. In these cases their joint and several liability had ground in the joint appointm ent of an agent (praepositio). The second text D. 14,1,4 pr. is not very clear and refers to shipowners that were managing the same ship per se, and in this case they could be sued pro portionibus exercitionis. Such a model of liability was justified by the reservation that they cannot be deemed as being each other’s captain (neque enim invicem sui magistri videbuntur). This text was widely discussed among romanists and gave ground to various interpretations. The main questions concerned were the following: whether shipowners dealt with the third parties personally or appointed an agent (magister navis), whether a contract was stipulated by all shipowners jointly or only one o f them, whether they were partners in a partnership or conducted their business independently. According to the most common interpretation the text refers to a situation in which the shipowners conducted their activity personally in the partnership. Having accepted the above view, to justify their liability pro portionibus exercitionis one must admit that they all acted as a party in a contract or, supposing a contract was stipulated by one of them, a partnership between shipowners was a particular kind of partnership in which a contract concluded by only one of the partners resulted in the liability of the others. N one of these interpretations seems to be convincing.First of all, one must take into consideration that the word exercitor was a technical term used to define someone conducting an economic activity through his agent (magister navis) so it was normally used in the context of the whole structure of exercitio navis that was based on the scheme exercitor — magister navis. Thus it seems more likely that exercere per se means not conducting an activity personally but rather „on one’s own account”, „independently”. Besides, the reservation neque enim invicem sui magistri videbuntur suggesting that plures exercitores conducted their activity personally is dubious since it refers to a concept of mutual praepositio, which was used by glossators and commentators to justify joint and several liability of partners and it may be possible that this reservation constituted a part of the gloss or was added to the original context later by some interpreter that did not understand Ulpian’s intention.A similar conclusion arises from the comparison of the text of D. 14,1,4 pr. with texts concerning the liability of several persons on the basis of actio institoria. From the text of D. 14,3,14 it appears that if no legal relationship that guaranteed the possibility of a recourse existed among several persons liable for the act of the agent, none o f them could be sued for the full am ount (in solidum) but they were held liable pro parte. In the case of actio institoria the fact of a joint appointm ent was probably treated as a manifestation of animus societatis that made it possible to treat the persons that had nom inated jointly the institor as partners and thus held them liable in solidum for contracts made by this agent. Hence the fact that in the text o f D. 14,1,4 pr. the shipowners did not appoint jointly their agent and were held liable pro portionibus exercitionis suggests that they were not partners but each of them managed a ship on his own account.If we adm it that plures exercitores that per se navem exerceant were the shipowners that did not conduct their business together we could indicate two situations in which they could be sued pro portionibus exercitionis. The first would be the case in which each o f the shipowners appointed his own agent on the ship and the contract with the third party was stipulated by all agents acting together. The second would be the case in which the shipowners appointed the same person as their agent but the praepositio was given by each o f them separately. in both cases each o f the shipowners could be sued with actio exercitoria only for his proper part since they could not be deemed to be partners and they could not sue each other with any action for a recourse.


Author(s):  
Lee Mason

This chapter analyses the law on third party beneficiaries in Hong Kong long characterized by strict adherence to the traditional common law doctrine of privity. The law relating to third party rights was only reformed by way of Ordinance in 2016, along the lines of the statutory reform of English law in 1999. A small number of specifically enumerated types of contract are excluded from the scope of the Ordinance; other contracts may be concluded to confer enforceable contractual rights on third parties. Whether a third party may enforce a term of a contract depends on the interpretation of the contract: if the third party right was not expressly conferred there is a presumption that the conferral was intended; but this can be rebutted if the parties made it clear that they did not intend it to be enforceable. The third party must be identified by name, as a member of a class, or answering a particular description and may claim the same remedies for breach as a party to the contract.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Алексей Чурилов ◽  
Aleksei Churilov

This article covers basics of the legal status of third parties in English common law, in particular, from the established in 1861 socalled privity rule viewpoint. The author explains some of developed by court exceptions, which established a possibility to enforce contract by a third party, and a possibility to recover damages by the third party. Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 is of special interest.


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