379 research outputs found
Justifying patents: a critique of the deontological approach
No full textThis thesis assesses philosophical arguments in favour of patent systems. These come in both consequentialist and deontological forms, the latter of which are the focus of this analysis. One kind of deontological argument is based on the concept of desert. I argue that on any plausible conception of desert, the patent system fails to distribute rewards as well as viable alternative systems could. The other kind of deontological argument claims that inventors are entitled to patent rights over their inventions as an extension of their natural rights, drawing on a Lockean account of the conditions of legitimate appropriation of unowned goods. After a discussion of the metaphysics of invention, and of the nature of the commons, I argue that Locke's conditions are not in fact always trivially satisfied in the case of patents. Furthermore, entitlement-based arguments conclude that because new inventions are unowned, claiming property rights in them involves only the same moral considerations that would apply in the state of nature. I argue that because we are not in the state of nature, pre-existing property rights also need to be taken into account, which conflict with patents. The broad conclusion of this thesis is that none of the plausible deontological arguments for patent systems are sound. The implication is that any justification of must therefore be made in consequentialist terms; this ultimately rests on strong empirical evidence rather than normative arguments alone
Social knowledge and the Web
No full textEpistemologists have traditionally been concerned with elucidating the conditions under which an agent knows some proposition, focusing on the state of a single individual, and her relation to the world. Whatever its merits, this approach to a theory of knowledge neglects the distinct phenomenon of social knowledge; knowledge that is held collectively by groups. However, we are fast approaching a world in which the sum of human knowledge is primarily stored on and accessed via the web, rather than existing in the minds of individuals. Our theory of knowledge must therefore be developed accordingly
Openness for privacy: applying open approaches to personal data challenges
No full textThis thesis comprises three papers undertaken as part of a PhD by publication or 'Three-Paper PhD', in addition to an introduction and conclusion. The introduction outlines the concept of Openness for Privacy, which describes a class of technological, social and policy approaches for addressing the challenges of personal data. Various manifestations of this concept are investigated in the three papers. The first paper explores the idea of 'open data for privacy', in particular the potential of machine-readable privacy notices to provide transparency and insight into organisations' uses of personal data. It provides an empirical overview of UK organisations' personal data practices. The second paper examines services which give individuals transparency and control over their digital profiles, assessing the potential benefits to industry, and the empowering potential for individuals. The first part is a user study, which tests how consumer responses to personalised targeting are affected by the degree of transparency and control they have over their profiles, with implications for digital marketing and advertising. The second part draws from qualitative data, and theoretical perspectives, to develop an account of the empowering potential of these services. The third paper concerns Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs), a regulatory tool included in the European Union's proposed general data protection regulation reform. It assesses the potential of PIAs through concepts from regulatory theory, namely, meta-regulation and the open corporation, and outlines implications for regulators, civil society and industry.<br/
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How to be open about being closed
No full textHow does the Internet forget what it should not remember? Reuben Binns dives inside the rules for Biographies of Living Persons at Wikipedia and the right to be forgotten
Community structure for efficient information flow in ‘ToS;DR’, a social machine for parsing legalese
No full textThis paper presents a case study of ‘Terms-of-Service; Didn’t Read’, a social machine to curate, parse, and rate website terms and privacy policies. We examine the relationships between its human contributors and machine counterparts to determine community structure and information flow
Opening up the online notice infrastructure
No full textMany people who use the web express concern about both the increasing amounts of their personal data being collected online and the terms to which they agree. The existing global infrastructure for managing data and terms relies heavily on the use of ‘notices’, and these come from the data collector, rather than from the individual. Notices are the legal regulatory mechanisms that refer to privacy policies and terms of service. This system of notices is unfit for use in the contemporary digital context. The notices are often unreadable, unclear, and not useful in practice. They provide limited guidance for people and few benefits to the companies and organisations who issue them. Open Notice is an effort that calls for an open, global, and public infrastructure for legally required, digitally necessary consent-based notices. The Open Notice effort seeks to foster collaboration among the various projects working on these problems around the world. This paper outlines a framework for greater multi-stakeholder collaboration between these projects, regulators, and governments, with the aim of creating an open and global notice infrastructure
Philip Strong letter to Reuben Wood, January 27, 1852
No full textLegal correspondence written by Philip Strong to Governor Reuben Wood regarding a warrant to arrest Peyton Polly, dated January 27, 1852.
Reuben Wood was governor of Ohio from 1850 through 1853, and was closely involved with the Peyton Polly case and attempts to secure the Polly family's release. Peyton Polly and his family were freedmen living in Lawrence County, Ohio, when they were kidnapped on June 6, 1850, and sold back into slavery in Kentucky and Virginia
Stanley Matthews letter to Reuben Wood, March 23, 1852
No full textLetter written to Governor Reuben Wood by Stanley Matthews in support of the appointment of Donn Piatt to a position in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, March 23, 1852. Stanley Matthews (1824-1889) was at the time a judge in the court. He secured a seat in the Ohio Senate in 1856 before being appointed U.S. District Attorney for Southern Ohio in 1858, and later served as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1881 to 1889.
Reuben Wood was governor of Ohio from 1850 through 1853, and was closely involved with the Peyton Polly case and attempts to secure the Polly family's release. Peyton Polly and his family were freedmen living in Lawrence County, Ohio, when they were kidnapped on June 6, 1850, and sold back into slavery in Kentucky and Virginia
Some HCI Priorities for GDPR-Compliant Machine Learning
No full textCite as Michael Veale, Reuben Binns and Max Van Kleek (2018) Some HCI Priorities for GDPR-Compliant Machine Learning. The General Data Protection Regulation: An Opportunity for the CHI Community? (CHI-GDPR 2018), Workshop at ACM CHI'18, 22 April 2018, Montreal, Canada.
In this short paper, we consider the roles of HCI in enabling the better governance of consequential machine learning systems using the rights and obligations laid out in the recent 2016 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)---a law which involves heavy interaction with people and systems. Focussing on those areas that relate to algorithmic systems in society, we propose roles for HCI in legal contexts in relation to fairness, bias and discrimination; data protection by design; data protection impact assessments; transparency and explanations; the mitigation and understanding of automation bias; and the communication of envisaged consequences of processing
The racial romance of Amy Levy's "Reuben Sachs"
No full textOn its publication in 1888, Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy (1861-1889) was initially received as being anti-Semitic in both the Jewish and the mainstream presses. Many reviews were scathingly critical, and some singled out the author for special abuse ...Peer reviewedFinal article published
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