Data protection

TILT seminar: Prof. Nadya Purtova (Utrecht University) & Bryce Newell (University of Oregon/Utrecht University)

Date: Time: 13:00 Location: Hybrid: Room M1003 and MS Teams

Of Semantic Information and Syntactic Harms: Why “Data” Fails as a Regulatory Target for Data Protection Law

Abstract

In this paper, we challenge the presumption that data are an appropriate target of regulation when the aim is to address and remedy digital harms. In addition to more conventional privacy concerns related to surveillance and intrusions into private sphere, data protection law has also been invoked in response to a broad range of other problems, from automated termination of platform workers to accountability and transparency of decision-making by public authorities to discrimination. On the one hand, the scope of the GDPR has grown too broad, raising the problem of overinclusiveness. On the other hand, many data practices fall through the cracks in practice, raising the problem of underinclusiveness. We argue that data, whether generally or when more narrowly construed as something like “personal data,” are not the most appropriate regulatory target when the digital, or data-driven, harms to be averted are not dependent on the semantic meaning of the information the data represent. To make this case, we unpack and explore the differences between semantic information and syntactic information and link these theoretical constructs to the range of digital harms identified in data protection and privacy literature. We argue that only when the harms are dependent on semantic meaning – that is, when data is about a person in a fairly narrow sense – that personal data are the appropriate regulatory target. 

Speaker: Dr. N.N. Nadya Purtova MSc LLM

Nadya Purtova is a Full Professor and Chair of Law, Innovation and Technology at Utrecht University School of Law. This research is a product of her ERC Starting Grant, “Understanding information for legal protection of people against information-induced harms” (ERC-2016-StG-716971 INFO-LEG), which aims to re-examine conceptual foundations of data protection law. 

Speaker: Bryce Clayton Newell 

Bryce Clayton Newell is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon (USA) and a Researcher with Utrecht University School of Law. He also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at TILT from 2015 to 2017 (as well as during the summers of 2018 and 2019), as part of Prof. Bert-Jaap Koops’ VICI project team. 

Moderator: Prof. dr. Eleni Kosta

Attendance is free.

To register for this event please contact: tilt-events@tilburguniversity.edu