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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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 2020

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17-09-2020

International research project focusing on COVID-19

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The book “Sensing In/Securities”, published by Nina Klimburg-Witjes, Nikolaus Poechhacker and Geoffrey C. Bowker, is available as pre-print since 17 August.

Sensing In/Security is a book project that investigates how sensors and sensing practices enact regimes of security and insecurity. It extends long standing concerns with infrastructuring and emergent modes of surveillance and securitization by investigating how digitally networked sensors shape practices of securitization.

Contributions in this volume engage with the ways in which sensing devices gain political and epistemic relevance in various forms of security, from border security and migration control to drone regulation, epidemiological tracking, aerial surveillance and hacking practices.

Nikolaus Poechhacker is part of the Department Eisenberger. In his work he is researching the relationship between democratic institutions, social order, and algorithmic systems in various domains, bringing together perspectives from Media Theory, STS, Computer Science, and Sociology. Most recently, he is exploring the impact of algorithmic procedures and digital legal technologies on the legal system.

Further information on the book can be found here: https://www.matteringpress.org/books/sensing-in-security

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We want to outline the constitutional framework for certain innovative projects. We do not attempt to give the one right answer how innovation ought to be regulated. Instead, we aim to find where the boundaries lie for a whole range of solutions that are consistent with the constitution.

To be consistent with the constitution, rules on innovation need to be adopted in the proper democratic procedure. They must be sufficiently clear, the courts must be able to check whether the rules comply with the constitution, and the rules must not breach any fundamental rights.

At the same time, certain innovative products and services have the potential to change how the political arena works and what is considered a timely and “innovative” constitution.

In the Innovative Constitutionalism working group, we work on both the framework that the constitution provides for innovations, and the effect of innovations on the constitution itself.

The group is led by Iris Eisenberger, Professor of Public Law and European Economic Law at the University of Graz.

Current projects involve the integration of embodied artificial intelligence into healthcare and society and the digitalization processes within asylum procedures.

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Professor Iris Eisenberger gave a talk concerning “Statistical Modelling & COVID 19: Problems, fundamental rights, and policy requests” on 7 July 2020.

The Brownbag-Event was organised by the Vienna Centre for Societal Security (VICESSE).

In her talk, Iris Eisenberger asked how the legislator could and should react to complex scientific challenges. To tackle the spread of COVID-19, the legislator and the federal government have set measures that were based on statistical models created by different (private) actors.

There are few legal requirements towards such models and the data going into them. Therefore, from a legal perspective, one has to ask if the models used are suited to justify measures that affect fundamental rights.

At the level of European Union law, there are already examples where the European legislator has standardized specific legal requirements for statistical models or simulations, for example in securities law, energy law, or animal health law.

Professor Eisenberger therefore formulated the following policy requests concerning statistical modelling for pandemic control:

• Minimum requirements for data sets (representativity, transparency etc.)
• Transparency of model assumptions
• Minimum requirements for practical execution
• Testing obligations
• Reporting obligations

Iris Eisenberger focuses on constitutional questions arising from the use of statistical modelling in political decision-making also within the field of excellence “Smart Regulation” at the University of Graz.

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Book presentation: „Silent Knowledge – The importance of implicit communication in the design process”

At the intersection of Law, Design and Technology

On 11 July 2020 Dr. Stefanie Egger (FH Joanneum) presented her upcoming book “Silent Knowledge – The importance of implicit communication in the design process”. The presentation was organised by the Innovation Law Team surrounding Professor Iris Eisenberger. It was held at the “esc medien kunst labor”, where you can currently visit the exhibition “CYBORG SUBJECTS” as part of the annual program “You are cyborg, aren’t you?”.

Dr. Egger’s book focuses on how opportunities of action, often only perceived unconsciously, are “inscribed” in everyday objects. Those unconscious opportunities of action are the reason why our implicit knowledge is being mobilised. We use an object in a certain way without knowing exactly why.

This unconscious, implicit use is the reason why design-decisions at the intersection of technology and law should be examined carefully. Which values and beliefs are underlying a specific design choice? And whose values and beliefs are they? Why do we, for example, equip nursing robots with a human face? And whose “ideals” of a face are at the base of the design process?

The following discussion showed once more that an interdisciplinary approach towards these questions is not only interesting but also fruitful. The design of objects, technologies, and regulations can be brought out into the light of the legal and social discourse.

Following the spirit of “bringing things out into the light”, Iris Eisenberger’s Innovation Law Team Graz plans to host a Design-Sprint together with the FH Joanneum in autumn 2020. As part of the Design-Sprint students from different fields – foremost legal studies and design studies – will develop innovative interdisciplinary solutions for legal problems.

Further information on the design sprint will be published shortly.

Details regarding the book of Dr. Stefanie Egger can be found here: https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/558090

Information about the esc medien kunst labor Graz can be found here: https://esc.mur.at/overview

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The goal of this group is to enable an interdisciplinary approach towards the regulation of innovative, digital technologies.

We are convinced, that all parts of society should have equal possibilities to participate in decisions regarding innovative technologies. Technology is not something that just “happens”. It is something that is being actively made and can and should therefore be actively modelled to serve societies’ needs.

To enable this, we foster a bottom-up approach towards innovative, collaborative legislation by making the legal process clearer, more understandable, and more approachable to the general public.

We focus on the communication of law, the participation in legal decision-making and how society experiences regulations regarding innovative technologies.

We are using interdisciplinary, non-traditional approaches within the traditional field of legal research to broaden not only the publics, but also the scholars understanding of the interplay between law, technology, and society.

Current projects involve a simulated Social-Scoring-App and research on the framing and communication of expertise in crisis legislation.

The Participative Legal Innovation Group is led by Annemarie Hofer, who has an interdisciplinary background including environmental studies, law, economics, citizen science and communication.

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The goal is to explore the effects of legal tech on the level of practices, discourses, and materialities.

We do not see technology as a neutral actor, but rather something that incorporates values and visions. We think that technology tends to change and stabilize certain visions of a social system and the way it operates.

We therefore critically investigate, how the legal system and its inner logic change based on the usage of technologies. We want to know, if the introduction of new technologies is changing the mechanisms of knowing, decoding and legitimizing within the legal domain.

To do so, the Critical Legal Tech group pairs legal expertise with insights and theories from social science and computer science.

Current projects involve digitalization processes within asylum procedures and the responsible adoption of disruptive technologies.

The Critical Legal Tech Group is led by Nikolaus Poechhacker, a Science and Technology scholar with a professional background in IT and computer science, who is currently focusing on the social dimensions of digital technologies and algorithms.

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