Subject: FW: Europe's gavel comes down hard on tech
From: Andrea Beccalli <[email-masked]>
To: IGF Italia - Gruppo multistakeholder programma edizione 2016 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2016 15:10:34 +0200

Salve a tutti, condivido in lista questo articolo secondo me molto
interessante sul trend (già individuato dal Prof Rodotà) del ruolo del
potere giudiziario, in questo caso della Corte di giustizia Europea,
nell’intervenire in temi di Internet Governance  (diritto all’oblio, safe
harbour..) la dove le istituzioni legislative nazionali e Europee non
riescono ad produrre ed adattare le politiche necessarie.
 
Credo sia un tema che richiama direttamente al modello di governance della
rete, i suoi limiti attuali e le potenzialità del modello multistakeholder
declinato in ambito nazionale (CGI.br in Brasile), che potrebbe essere
affrontato nel prossimo IGF Italia.

Saluti, 
Andrea 

From: POLITICO Pro Technology Article <[email-masked]>
Reply-To: POLITICO Pro Technology Article <[email-masked]>
Date: Friday 30 September 2016 14:19
To: Andrea Beccalli <[email-masked]>
Subject: Europe's gavel comes down hard on tech

Europe's gavel comes down hard on tech
Europe's gavel comes down hard on tech

-- By Laurens Cerulus and Nicholas Hirst
9/30/16, 2:01 PM CET

Read the desktop version[politico.us8.list-manage.com]
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BPsrc&s=09d43ewWninxcsVDNFIUKK_Bdjae0JjHvIIJc5oszm4&e=>  of this story to
see an interactive timeline on key ECJ tech verdicts.

Europe’s highest court is now also its main technology regulator, leading to
accusations that it’s overreaching its mandate and incapable of dealing with
complex tech issues.

The European Court of Justice will hand down a number of key verdicts in the
coming months which could send company stock prices crashing, spark violent
protests by taxi drivers and force legislators back to the drawing board.

A decision on whether Uber is a mobile app or a transportation company is
expected within weeks, while another ruling expected by the end of the year
could upend how Facebook and other websites target their online advertising.
The court also will hear from  privacy regulators seeking greater powers to
pursue tech giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Supporters of the court’s use of its powers — including former judges — say
it only acts when asked to do so by uncertain national or European courts,
wavering lawmakers and frustrated plaintiffs. The judges are often covering
up the indecision, or bad decisions,  by lawmakers, they say.

“In security and data protection there is a tendency for legislators to shy
away from decisions they don’t want to take or to take decisions they know
are not legally sound,” said Sophie in’t Veld, a Dutch liberal member of the
European Parliament. “They  leave it to the court to repair.”

The tech revolution has laid bare the EU’s divisions and shortcomings.
Commission officials have been criticized for shying away from core
questions such as how to regulate emerging business models like Uber or how
to guarantee online privacy on a fast-changing  internet.

Meanwhile, the Council and European Parliament took years to pass key
legislation, including the data protection bill and the cybersecurity
directive. As the speed of technological change eclipses bureaucratic
institutions, more courts and regulators across  Europe are turning to the
ECJ for guidance.

“The court is filling a gap where legislators haven’t acted,” said one
European Commission official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The
court is not driven by the short-term” like politicians and their staff.
Human rights court
The court’s impact on the tech sector spiked after the 2009 Charter  of
Fundamental Rights became legally binding[politico.us8.list-manage.com]
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BPsrc&s=Pa8BSmJV1sQGg6gmB68wS3QTPM6J6Gf3PNCl1RrlTmE&e=>  across the bloc,
with Europe’s top judges taking on the role of guardians of the right to
privacy and personal data.

In 2014, the court made its grand entrance into the online privacy debate
when it torpedoed a Commission directive on data retention that asked
telecoms to store vast amounts of communications data for surveillance
purposes. The same year, it said Europeans  had the right to force Google to
remove links to old information, prompting hundreds of thousands of requests
for the “right to be forgotten.”

Then last year, judges tore up an EU-U.S. deal on data transfers, stunning
more than 4,000 companies sending information across the Atlantic.

“The European Court of Justice is starting to consider itself as also a
human rights court,” said Gerrit Hornung, a professor of law at the
University of Kassel in Germany.

Critics say the focus on human rights has blinded the judges to the
complexities of technology and the internet.

“The biggest problem is the ECJ doesn’t seem to take into consideration
enough what the practical effects are,” said David Hoffman, global privacy
officer at tech giant Intel.

The court treats all data as if it were equal despite a great deal of data
being useless, warned Per Strömbäck, editor of Netopia, an online forum
dedicated to digital policy issues. It has been “dogmatic” when examining
legal issues thrown up by the internet  — such like hyperlinks or data — and
yet wields an “increasing and disproportionate influence on tech policy,” he
said.

The European Court of Justice declined POLITICO’s repeated requests for
comment. However, former judges were quick to defend it.

“The caseload has been largely driven by the speed and evolution of
technology, against a far greater understanding of the importance of data
and communications, and of privacy in the digital world,” said Nicholas
Forwood, a former judge at the General Court,  the EU’s lower court (the ECJ
is the higher court).

Aindrias Ó Caoimh sat on the ECJ until last year. During his tenure, the
court heard major tech cases like the challenge to the Data Retention
Directive and to Facebook’s data transfers to the United States.

“The more you read into a case, the more you realize you are not being asked
to deal with technical aspects but with broader principles,” he said.
Reverberations
On the horizon is a rematch over the “privacy shield” data transfer
agreement between the EU and the U.S. The pact, signed this summer, will
give companies legal cover to send banking and payroll data as well as
family photos and other personal information  from Europe to America.

The privacy shield is supposed to be stronger than its predecessor, which
the ECJ struck down last October, but privacy activists are expected to
challenge it, claiming Europeans’ data still don’t have equal protections in
the U.S.

In the meantime, Ireland’s data protection authority wants the ECJ to rule
on the alternative to privacy shield: so-called model contract clauses used
by multinationals to transfer data from Europe to the rest of the world.
Striking down the clauses would  take 1 percent out of Europe’s GDP, or €143
billion, Facebook claimed during a hearing in Ireland.

Then there is the dust-up over Facebook’s privacy settings. A German court
in April asked the ECJ to determine whether national data protection
regulators could investigate Facebook, which insisted it only had to answer
to authorities in Ireland, where the  company has its European headquarters.
The judgment could leave Facebook and other internet giants facing an
onslaught of probes across Europe.

“Clarity over who is competent [to regulate Facebook] needs to come as soon
as possible,” said Philippe De Backer, the Belgian minister in charge of
privacy, in June. He said Belgium would back the German court’s request to
the ECJ. “Belgium seriously questions  Facebook’s privacy policy.”

Facebook declined to comment.

The dispute over who big tech answers to is part of a wider tussle between
tech companies — which have sunk roots into low-tax regimes like Ireland,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands — and the taxmen in countries where they do
business.
The ABCs of the ECJ
It’s easy to see why the ECJ may appear ill-equipped to deal with
technology. Its 28 members are drawn from each member nation, following
distinguished careers as barristers, judges or professors. They serve for
terms of six years with no limit on renewals.

Judges can call expert witnesses, but in practice rarely if ever do. Rulings
are adopted by consensus and — in a hangover from the EU’s founding days —
exclusively discussed in French.

Although not all judges speak French on arrival, they must learn to say
“toile d’araignée mondiale” rather than “world wide web,” and “l’économie
collaborative” instead of “the sharing economy.”

That will be key next month when the ECJ is due to rule in the first of
several major cases dealing with the sharing economy. Brands like Uber,
Airbnb and BlaBlaCar have attracted the ire of taxi drivers and hoteliers.
Courts in Belgium, Spain and Germany  have asked the ECJ whether government
efforts to rein in Uber comply with EU law. The ECJ is expected to rule on
the Spanish case first.

Gareth Mead, a spokesperson for Uber, said it is difficult to predict where
the court will come down, but a favorable verdict would leave the approach
of skeptics like France or Hungary in tatters.

When the gavel comes down on the Uber case, it will either push some of the
world’s most successful startups to bend their models toward tradition, or
it could force radical changes upon traditional taxi businesses, hotels and
many others.

Related stories on these topics: Data Privacy[politico.us8.list-manage1.com]
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