On 22 and 23 May 2017, an international conference titled “Big Data: New Challenges for Law and Ethics” took place at the Faculty of Law, co-organized by the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana and the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. Webpage of the conference: https://big-data-ljubljana-2017.weebly.com. At the two-day international scientific conference, contributions were presented by 38 speakers from Slovenia and from around the world and attended by 120 participants. The full programme available at: https://big-data-ljubljana-2017.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/9/1/1191873/big-data-2017-print.pdf. The contributions presented at the conference are published at the open-access Videolectures video repository: http://videolectures.net/lawandethics2017_ljubljana/?q=big%20data%20law%20and%20ethics%20conference. During the conference, the participants sought answers to questions such as: how the operations of society, political systems, and, in particular, social control and crime control, is changing due to large data bases and algorithmic data mining and predicting powers; will computers decide who to prosecute and who should be sent to jail; which programmes and systems of algorithmic predictions are already in place in the criminal justice systems around the globe; why this can be dangerous in terms of fundamental human rights and fundamental principles of democratic societies; how can we propose solutions that may not hinder the development of the technology, but enable more nuanced, ethically and legally sound solutions to be developed in the future.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
Aleš Završnik was granted EURIAS academic guest position in 2017 in the field of automated criminal justice (Big data and crime control: perils of »algorithmic justice«), which is a direct output of the research within this research project. Završnik was a visiting researcher at Collegium Helveticum (joint initiative of ETH Zürich, University of Zürich and Züricher Hochschule der Künste), one of the European institutes, which are part of Marie S. Curie Institutes of Advanced Studies. In 2017 success rate of submitted candidates was 5 per-cent (1020 submitted, 50 laureates, success rate: 5 per-cent).
B.05 Guest lecturer at an institute/university
Zoran Kanduč coordinated national criminological conference »Human, machine and surveillance«, which was dedicated to technology, in particular big data, and social control. The following members of the project presented papers related to the topic of the project: Z. Kanduč presented a paper “Machines, add-ons and controllers”, A. Završnik presented a paper: “Data tsunami and the change of knowledge in criminal justice”, M. Kovačič: “The use of data analysis to increase transparency of functioning of the state and limit corruption”, M. Veber: International law perspectives on economic cyber espionage between states in time of peace”, S. Zgaga: “Interference with privacy: perspective of the European Court of Human Rights”, M. Plesničar: “Prisons and internet” and S. Dolenc: Free will in the Big Data Era”. Conference dara is available at: http://inst-krim.si/2015/10/nacionalna-kriminoloa-ka-konferenca-16-10-2015/ and http://www.pf.uni-lj.si/aktualno/nacionalna-kriminoloska-konferenca-clovek-stroji-in-nadzor/
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
Aleš Završnik coordinated a colloquium “Law in the age of big data: can a computer decide better than a judge?”, in which Jure Leskovec, Ph.D. from Stanford University (USA) delivered a plenary lecture entitled “Why judges make mistakes? The use of biga data approach in criminal justice system”. A. Završnik and M. Kovačič, both members of the research team, also gave plenary lectures: A. Završnik presented the research project Law in the age of big data and M. Kovačič presented a paper entitled “Legislative monitor”. The plenary part of the colloquium was followed by a round table, moderated by Aleš Završnik, which was attended by representatives of the criminal justice system and researchers: Jure Leskovec, Stanford University; Goran Klemenčič, Minister of Justice of Republic of Slovenia; Martin Jančar, judge at the district court in Ljubljana; Drago Šketa, public prosecutor and head of the district state prosecutor's office in Maribor; Matija Jamnik, attorney at law, Law firm Jamnik LLC; Matej Kovačič, Jožef Stefan Institute and Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law and Mojca Mihelj Plesničar, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
Members of the research team P. Gorkič and K. Šugman Stubbs organized a section of the 8th criminal law and criminology conference entitled »Erosion of privacy: technology, surveillance, procedural guarantees« and each of them also presented their contribution. In his presentation »Interference with privacy due to the privilege against self-incrimination« Primož Gorkič argued, that traditional limitation of the alleged perpetrator's duty to hand over evidence is based on the premise that evidence may be collected without the involvement of suspected person with investigation and seizure. The use of encryption methods complicates its use: while seizure may provide physical possession of data carrier, it cannot provide access to the digital data without the cooperation of the suspected person. Katja Šugman Stubbs in her presentation “New technologies and issues of criminal law” addressed the effects of some modern technologies on investigation of criminal offences and also analyzed the use of the same technologies for preventive surveillance purposes, which can have evidentiary consequences in criminal proceedings. She also focused on techniques of prosecution of cybercrimes, preventive measures, which were introduced due to the “special needs”, data mining and use of protective technologies, which all deeply interfere with the right to privacy.
B.02 Presiding over the programming board of a conference