Featured – CIH Graz

Guest Lecture: Lockdown By Press Conference?

wordpressadmin — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:49:29 +0000

09-11- 2020, 13:00-14:00, Online.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments imposed so-called “lockdowns”, requiring people to remain isolated in their homes. The Austrian and New Zealand governments both imposed lockdowns during March and April 2020.

On November 9 2020, Tess Upperton, research fellow at the Law Faculty of the University of Graz, will give a lecture entitled “Lockdown By Press Conference? Comparing the COVID-19 Lockdowns in Austria and New Zealand” on how these two governments implemented and communicated lockdown measures, and why both lockdowns were later challenged and declared (partially) unlawful in court.

Tess Upperton, LL.B.(Hons), B.A., is a research fellow at the Law Faculty of the University of Graz since October 2020. She studied Law (LL.B., First Class Hons) and Psychology (B.A.) at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Her work in the fellowship focuses on comparative law and legal issues related to artificial intelligence.

The lecture will be held online. Registration is open until November 9 2020, 10:00 via mail: innovationsrecht(at)uni-graz.at

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Project Meeting CompCoRe

wordpressadmin — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 17:25:39 +0000

29-10-2020

Within “CompCoRe” Professor Iris Eisenberger, Thomas Buocz and Nikolaus Poechhacker (University of Graz) participate in a comparative study of expertise for policy in the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 29 October 2020, the international consortium of the research project met for one of its regular online meetings to compare and discuss the measures taken so far against the spread of COVID-19 in different parts of the world.

The Austrian case study is carried out by Professor Iris Eisenberger, Thomas Buocz and Nikolaus Poechhacker (University of Graz), together with the team of Professor Ulrike Felt (University of Vienna).

Many case study presentations had to be updated and revised in the last minute, e.g. because some national governments imposed renewed lockdowns. This shows the high dynamic of the corona situation.

On behalf of the Austrian team, Ulrike Felt reported on the historical development of infection incidence, testing strategy in Austria the legal and political controversies analysed by the team.

From a legal point of view, it could be seen that restrictive measures, such as restrictions to public space or to enter stores, brought freedom rights into the center of attention. On the contrary, the loosening of measures brought issues of equal treatment into the spotlight.

With regard to the rule of law, it was mainly the insufficient record keeping of the competent Federal Minister that led to the Constitutional Court (VfGH) declaring that some measures against COVID-19 from spring 2020 had been unlawful.

The project CompCoRe comprises scientists from 10 countries and is led by Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University, and Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University. The study is funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Design Sprint

dev — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 16:28:27 +0000

10-10-2020

Design Sprint 2020

“Privacy by Design: Tackling the Wicked”

By definition, there is no simple solution for “wicked problems” – and certainly not within a single scientific discipline. Effective data protection often proves to be a “wicked problem” in everyday life. So, how could you tackle this problem?

Take law students, add a selection of designers and provide them with interdisciplinary input for a day. Then, unite the participants into outstandingly creative privacy-by-design teams and let them work under high pressure on creative solutions for just under two days.
This was our recipe for the ‘Design Sprint 2020’, which took place at the University of Graz from 8 to 10 October. It was organised by Professor Eisenberger’s department (Institute for Public Law and Political Science) in cooperation with Dr. Stefanie Egger (FH Joanneum) and DI (FH) Christian Lepenik.

Thursday – Input, Input, Input

After opening words by Professor Iris Eisenberger and organiser Annemarie Hofer (from Eisenberger’s department), the Design Sprint started with interdisciplinary presentations for the participants. Concepts and self-perceptions had to be reflected on and explained, since lawyers and designers very rarely speak the same language.

First, Professor Iris Eisenberger gave an overview of the system of fundamental rights in Austria. Magdalena Nemeth (from Eisenberger’s department) then confronted the design sprinters with a presentation on fundamental rights violations through so-called “nudging“. Stefanie Egger presented about the different effects that design can have on our behaviour, and Andreas Rohner (Knyrim.Trieb Rechtsanwälte) provided insights into the practice of data protection law.

These talks were based on the introductory lecture on the fundamentals of data protection by Assoz.-Prof. Christian Bergauer, provided online prior to the Design Sprint.

Friday – Breaks are for the weak!

After the three teams of law students and designers had formed on Thursday afternoon, they set out on Friday to find solutions for problems related to data protection. As usual with sprint formats, a lot of tinkering went on and many ideas were tried out, discarded, taken up again, reformulated and finally brought into the form of a mock-up or demo version. It was with reluctance that the hardworking teams finally left the seminar room in the evening.

Saturday – We proudly present!

On Saturday morning the participants were already waiting eagerly to be admitted into the lecture hall. First, they had the opportunity to make some final changes to their presentations. The first presentation began at 12 noon sharp.

Group 1 (Corinna Kacirek, Marla Meilinger and Andre Rohrleitner) developed the so-called ‘nö-card’. The ‘nö-card’ concept seeks to show which data is collected when conventional customer loyalty cards are used. To do so, the ‘nö-card’ records which data is not collected at a transaction when a customer card is not used. This concept represents so-called ‘non-data’. With this creative intervention, the project aims to raise awareness of data protection among consumers and simultaneously criticise the excessive and disproportionate collection of personal data.

Group 2 (Manuela Strametz, Anna-Theresa Wagner, Lukas Pirker and Gvantsa Kapanadze) designed ‘Safe.Citizen’, a digital portal that bundles digital administrative procedures together and provides a user-friendly interface. The group particularly emphasised the impact of a modular e-government portal on the visibility of different data collections: the shift in focus from the transparent data subject ‘citizen’ to the transparent processor ‘state’ intends to give citizens more power over their own data and at the same time facilitate administrative procedures.

Group 3 (Sonja Zechner, Caroline Müller, Emil Nigmatullin and Michaela Franjo) considered the draft of the Health Telematics Act (Gesundheitstelematikgesetz), focusing on the issue of a digital vaccination card.

The question was whether and how a digital vaccination card could be implemented as an app in conformity with data protection requirements. The group proposed an app that not only manages vaccination data, but also gives citizens control over what data is shared with whom. To enable those functions, the group designed access control mechanisms in which certain interest groups, such as family doctors or pharmacists, could be given restricted access.

Conclusions

The jury was highly impressed by all three projects. The interdisciplinary teams approached data protection from different viewpoints and showed the potential of working together across disciplinary boundaries. During the design sprint, the participants used the opportunity to question and sharpen their own approach towards problems and get a new view on their own discipline.

We want to thank all those who contributed to the Design Sprint 2020 for the great success of the event, especially the presenters Professor Christian Bergauer, Stefanie Egger, Magdalena Nemeth and Andreas Rohner, for the exciting insights they shared with us. The core of the event, however, was the wonderful, motivated and inspired participants and their curiosity, sophistication and creativity.

To be continued!

Thomas Buocz, Annemarie Hofer, Nikolaus Poechhacker, Tess Upperton

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Responsible Robotics (RR-AI)

dev — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:56:25 +0000

The project **„Responsible Robotics (RR-AI). Tracing Ethical and Social Aspects of AI-Based Transformations in Healthcare Work and Knowledge Environments. (bidt)**“

focuses on the ethical, social, political and legal challenges that arise through the integration of Embodied Artificial Intelligence into healthcare and society. As concrete use-cases, the project looks at a service robot named GARMI and a “smart” arm exoprosthesis .

The project is part of the transdisciplinary consortium “Digitalization”, which explores questions of the digital transition in economy and work, politics and society, as well as media and public communication. The consortium is funded by the Bavarian Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The project is jointly led by Prof. Dr. Alena Buyx, Prof. Dr. Sami Haddadin and Prof. Dr. Ruth Müller (all TU Munich). Prof. Dr. Iris Eisenberger is involved as an international expert on a consulting base due to her expertise on legal issues related to artificial intelligence.

You can find further information on the project here: https://www.mcts.tum.de/research/rrai/

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