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Aligned with the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights? An AI Transparency Evaluation of Company Privacy Notices and Explanations
Get PDFIn its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, the White House lists “notice and explanation” as one of five principles fundamental to protecting the American public as artificial intelligence (AI) is deployed. The Blueprint states “[y]ou should know that an automated system is being used and understand how and why it contributes to outcomes that impact you.” In its description of the notice/explanation principle, The White House emphasizes the importance of plain language explanations about AI use. Furthermore, a company should describe how it plans to use AI systems, how the systems work, and explain any risks to consumers. While AI transparency is associated with the possibility of auditable and accountable algorithmic systems, more research is needed to develop best practices. This project assesses the extent to which notices from 40 companies align with The White House call for AI transparency.
This study adapts a data privacy transparency assessment model to assess the AI transparency of 40 companies. The sample: 10 social media, 10 eCommerce, and 10 brick-and-mortar companies, and 10 banks. AI transparency was assessed via qualitative content analysis of AI transparency materials (via privacy policies) from company websites. Building on previous studies addressing data privacy transparency, the assessment involved assigning full, half, or zero stars on ten AI transparency criteria, including: whether transparency materials are accessible via company websites, and presented in plain language - assessed by Flesch-Kincaid grade reading level analysis, whether references to applicable laws/regulations are provided, whether information about how AI systems work and connections between AI systems and company decision-making are explained, whether the risks of AI use are explained, whether companies disclose details about data retention policies, and data storage/processing, and whether company AI transparency materials are posted elsewhere online.
Findings suggest companies provide privacy-related components of AI transparency but have yet to start disclosing details about the use and implications of algorithmic, automated systems. The average score across the 40 companies is 2.95/10 stars, with the average across social media companies (3.35/10), which is higher than e-commerce (2.75/10) and brick-and-mortar companies (2.75/10), as well as the banks (2.95/10). YouTube/Google had the highest score across the sample with 4.5/10 stars, and Alibaba and Disney+ had the fewest stars with 1.5/10. Each company sampled provided access to privacy materials via its homepage. All companies also provided information about applicable laws/regulations. Most companies provided details about data storage/processing and about half describe data retention policy. Few provided details about how AI systems work, how AI systems link to company practices, or risks of AI use. Most companies provided some form of information about AI or machine learning on a site away from the privacy policy. To ensure the auditability and accountability of AI systems, companies are encouraged to improve upon these transparency efforts by better-aligning with the calls for AI transparency in The White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Accessible and plain language notices are recommended, as is the inclusion of information about how AI systems work at each company, and the associated implications and risks of automated decision-making that may result from digital service use
Canadians with Disabilities: Income Security and Tax Policy
Get PDFVarious barriers such as reduced work-related capabilities, scarce employment opportunities, and a resulting low level of motivation or incentives have historically led to a compounded level of financial insecurity among the disabled population. In response, the current symposium presents a scholarly examination of a significant federal legislative movement toward financial security and poverty reduction among the disabled population of working age—the enactment of the Canada Disability Benefit Act (CDBA). Here we contextualize the CDBA and briefly introduce the proceeding symposium contributions
Legislative Choices in Using Section 33 and Judicial Scrutiny
Get PDFThis paper highlights choices made by legislatures when they activate the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such choices relate to the extent of the rules or statutes protected from possible strike- down; to the Charter provisions from which protection is granted; and to timing, namely, whether the notwithstanding clause is used pre-emptively or after litigation. These choices may significantly affect voters’ knowledge of the effect on rights of a law shielded by the notwithstanding clause. Moreover, uses of the notwithstanding clause relate variably to theoretical justifications for this mechanism. For example, the view of the notwithstanding clause as a means by which a legislature disagrees with the judiciary on rights is inconsistent with recent practice. This paper’s attention to the modalities of uses of the notwithstanding clause advances debate on this distinctive feature of the Canadian constitution
Tax Treaties
Get PDFCanada has close to 100 bilateral tax treaties and an active body of case law on treaty interpretation, including the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Alta Energy S.A.R.L. v. Canada (2021 SCC 49) on treaty shopping. This chapter in a forthcoming book examines Canada\u27s treaty network, interpretation issues, the impact of the MLI and the relationship between the domestic GAAR and the principal purpose test in the MLI
Infrastructural (Dis)Entitlement: Tactics of Dispossession on the Critical Minerals Frontier
Get PDFIn Ontario’s far north, settler state authorities and extractive firms are engaged in coordinated tactics to gain ground amid a polarization in the positions of Indigenous leadership. Alongside a surging resistance, we also witness a resigned acceptance of critical minerals mining by some First Nations. Drawing on years of community engaged research, I detail here the contemporary tactics of “infrastructural (dis)entitlement:” in this dynamic, infrastructural needs are both denied and fulfilled to differential effect. Infrastructural disentitlement is passive; it is not necessarily deliberate, nor is it politically or institutionally organized. But infrastructural entitlement is strategic and aggressive: Indigenous prosperity and inclusion are key elements of the contemporary liberal justification for critical minerals extraction. From this, a pattern emerges of places toward which resources are flowing and places out of which they are draining. The chronic lack of community-focused infrastructure in some remote First Nations—characterized as a form of “letting die”—creates an attritional force that undermines the communities’ capacity to defend their homelands, to the advantage of the settler state and extractive firms
International Taxation in Canada: Principles and Practices, 5th Edition
No full textThis book provides an understanding of the underlying policy governing international tax rules as well as how foreign tax laws interact with Canadian laws. In this edition, the authors are looking to make the book more accessible to students and young practitioners while aiming to make it valuable to judges and seasoned practitioners as well. This book is the starting point for students to enter the area of international taxation without being overwhelmed by its scope and complexity, and provides a useful summary for practitioners when navigating the complex rules of international taxation. What’s New: - Improves on earlier editions by shedding a brighter light on the “why” and “how” questions. - More context and explanation of historical evolution of key international tax rules and principles, as well as the major influences and constraints on Canadian International law - Most chapter significantly rewritten - New chapter dedicated exclusively to Tax Treaties - Taxation of Foreign Affiliates is now in 2 separate chapters (Chapter 15 focuses on passive income and Chapter 16 focuses on active business income and the foreign affiliate dividend regime) - Two NEW Chapters (Chapter 11 on the taxation of foreign-controlled Canadian corporations and Chapter 17 on recent international tax reforms through the BEPS projects and the future of Canadian income tax law). -- Provided by publisher.https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/faculty_books/1433/thumbnail.jp
Falling Through the Protection Gaps: Inappropriate Protection of Climate Displaced Persons in the International Refugee Legal Structure
Get PDFThe nexus between climate change and forced human mobility is recognised within the international climate legal framework through the vehicle of loss and damage; however, this nexus is absent in international refugee law. Cross-border climate displaced persons have not yet received official legal status nor protection as a consequence of this legal void in international refugee law. This is largely due to two interconnected and unresolved issues: first, definitional controversy in categorising climate-forced cross-border mobility; and second, the high threshold set by Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention inclusion requirements to receive international protection. Cross-border climate displaced person claims remain undermined by these “protection gaps” in international refugee law. This paper investigates whether the complex interrelationship between human vulnerability, displacement, and climate change is capable of establishing a “tenable pathway to Refugee Convention protection”. 1 The application of attribution science will be recommended in this paper as a novel approach to support the realisation of this nexus in international refugee law. Attribution science functions to establish the causal link between climate change impacts and the consequent loss and damage. It has the capacity to determine responsibility for harms and the potential to reinforce the validity of international protection claims submitted by cross-border climate displaced persons. This utilisation of attribution science aims to assist future cross-border climate displaced persons in attaining legal clarity and certainty on their status in international refugee law. In doing so, this paper argues the current structure of international refugee law offers inappropriate protection to cross-border climate displaced persons
From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect by Greta Olson
Get PDFIN A SPEECH ADDRESSING the Canadian Bar Association in 1970, leading literary critic of the twentieth century Northrop Frye said that “all respect for the law is a product of the social imagination, and the social imagination is what literature directly addresses.”3 In her book From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect, Greta Olson makes an important contribution in her reimagination of law and literature as a discipline. What is remarkable is the extent to which Olson’s thesis, arguing for broadening the scope and aims of the field, gives effect to Frye’s characterization of the field more than half a century before
