Jacques Bus

Privacy Camp will take place just before the start of the CPDP conference. Privacy Camp brings together civil society, policy-makers and academia to discuss existing and looming problems for human rights in the digital environment.

Call for Proposals: Platforms, Politics, Participation

Privacy Camp 2019 will focus on digital platforms, their societal impact and political significance. Due to the rise of a few powerful companies such as Uber, Facebook, Amazon or Google, the term “platform” has moved beyond its initial computational meaning of technological architecture and has come to be understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Platforms are said to facilitate and shape human interactions, thus becoming important economic and political actors. While the companies offering platform services are increasingly the target of regulative action, they are also considered as allies of national and supranational institutions in enforcing policies voluntarily and gauging political interest and support. Digital platforms employ business models that rely on the collection of large amounts of data and the use of advanced algorithms, which raise concerns about their surveillance potential and their impact on political events. Increasingly rooted in the daily life of many individuals, platforms monetise social interactions and turn to questionable labor practices. Many sectors and social practices are being “platformised”, from public health to security, from news to entertainment services. Lately, some scholars have conceptualised this phenomenon as “platform capitalism” or “platform society”.

 Privacy Camp 2019 will unpack the implications of “platformisation” for the socio-political fabric, human rights and policy making. In particular, how does the platform logic shape our experiences and the world we live in? How do institutional actors attempt to regulate platforms? In what ways do the affordances and constraints of platforms shape how people share and make use of their data?

Participate!

We welcome panel proposals relating to the broad theme of platforms. Besides classic panel proposals we are also seeking short contributions for our workshop “Situating Platforms: User Narratives”.

1. Panel proposals

We are particularly interested in panel proposals on the following topics: platform economy and labour; algorithmic bias; democratic participation and social networks.

Submission guidelines:

• Indicate a clear objective for your session, i.e. what would be a good outcome for you?
• Indicate other speakers that could participate in your panel (...

At the EIC 2018, Kim Cameron, well-knnown from the 7 Laws of Identity, gives his vision on the potential of the GDPR in Europe and the development of a truly personal and multilateral Identity using Block Chain technology in a good way.

You can see this presentation HERE

I am curious to your reactions and comments, to bring this important ideas further.

See HERE

Workshop, Brussels, November 8, 2018 (Preliminary programme see below)                         

Multiple studies performed during 2017 and monitored by the Digital Enlightenment Forum show clearly that the rapid transformations taking place in the new digital ecosystem have a strong and measurable collateral effect on the job market demand and the difficulty of existing educational systems to keep up with this demand.

As Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel  pointed out at the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition conference last December digital skills creation constitutes, deservedly, a key pillar of the Digital Europe strategy:

“Europe is experiencing a shortage in ICT specialists with at least 350,000 vacancies today. Furthermore, 40% of enterprises trying to recruit ICT specialists report difficulties in getting qualified people. I believe that nowadays digital skills are as important as knowing how to read, write and do math. They are basic skills that everyone should have. This is part of a broader discussion on the "future of work", and how new technologies are changing the labor markets and lead to hard questions and uncertainties for all of us.”

In this same “future of work” context, the OECD Report “The Future of Work and Skills” recognizes three ongoing megatrends that will significantly alter the nature of work in the industrialised world: globalization, technological progress and demographic change. These three trends cannot be seen separate from each other and will together lead to significant societal and cultural changes. In particular, these trends will strongly affect the quantity and quality of available jobs and how and by whom they will carried out. We can observe in industry an already all-permeating use of Big Data and automation driven by Data Analytics resulting in an accelerating development of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. The enormous potential of this for the EC in a true digital single market is documented in COM(2016)180).

At the same time, in this so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital technologies are leading to the emergence of disruptive business models, challenging traditional hierarchies and creating new commercial value systems. An extensive...

In this one-day workshop we expect participants to be actively engaged in addressing the challenge of education and skills provision for the new employment ecosystem that emerges through the deployment of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and related digital technologies.

Participants will come from policy, educational institutions and industry and be ready and open for multi-disciplinary debate.

Speakers will present their views on the future of jobs and skills, they will give insights in the innovations happening in the field and existing and/or under development e-learning and “up-training” tools will be showcased.

We strive to enable participants to interact and take new ideas back with them to work out in their own environments or in future partnerships and collaborations.

Final results aim at recommendations for pertinent EU and Member State policy, including for the new 2021-2028 EU Framework Programme.