Zoran Kanduč was the leader of the program committee and chief organizer of the national criminological conference titled "Man, machines and control" that was thematically focused on technology, especially big data, and social control. Several members presented their papers related to the project: Z. Kanduč hold a lecture dealing with the relationships between men and machines in the sphere of work and leisure; A. Završnik presented a paper "The data deluge and the change of knowledge in the criminal justice system"; M. Kovačič: "The use of data analysis for increasing transparency of the state's functioning and for the prevention of corruption"; M. Veber: "International aspects of economic cyber espionage among states in the time of peace"; S. Zgaga: "Interventions into the privacy: the perspective of European court for human rights"; M.M. Plesničar: "Prisons and the internet"; and S. Dolenc: "Free will in the age of big data".
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
Members of the research project team P. Gorkič and K. Šugman Stubbs organized a special section "Erosion of Privacy: Technology, Surveillance and Procedural Safeguards" at the 8th Annual Conference of Criminal Law and Criminology and held two presentations. They invited speaker from Information Commissioner office, which is an important stakeholder at the field of personal data protection. In a presentation "Protecting privilege against self-incrimination by privacy encroachment?" (COBISS ID: 1859406), P. Gorkič claimed that, traditionally, exemption from duty to produce evidence rests on the assumption that evidence may be collected without the cooperation of suspects, by search and seizure. Use of encryption methods, however, limits applicability of the assumption: while seizure may provide physically secure digital evidence, it cannot provide access to digital data; cooperation of suspects is required. The changing context of the privilege against self-incrimination demands that we consider two possibilities. The first is to require the suspects to cooperate in accessing encrypted digital evidence, thus limiting the scope of privilege against self-incrimination. The second possibility is to apply more intrusive instruments of searching digital evidence, enabling the law-enforcement to encroach upon privacy rights in a more intrusive manner. K. Šugman Stubbs analysed the effects of selected new contemporary technologies on crime and criminal investigation in presentation titled "New Technologies and Problems of Criminal Law". She was analyzing a question of how data gathered by these technologies being deployed for preventative purposes often becomes evidence for criminal procedure. Special attention was given to measures which all potentially breach the right to privacy: measures to investigate cybercrime, measures introduced on the basis of the doctrine of 'special needs', roving wiretaps, data-mining and the use of so-called protective technologies. Given the greater scope such technologies provide for avoiding certain classical criminal procedure safeguards, the state must take special care to guarantee a balance of conflicting rights by providing strict judicial control of such overextended, general and preventive measures and strict exclusion of the evidence thus gathered.
B.02 Presiding over the programming board of a conference
Aleš Završnik organized a colloquium "Law in the Age of Big Data: Can a Computer Adjudicate Better than a Judge?", with plenary speakers: dr. Jure Leskovec from Stanford University, Matej Kovačič from the Institute “Jožef Stefan” (IJS) and the Institute of Criminology, and the project leader himself. Jure Leskovec presented a Stanford research project in his presentation titled "Why judges make mistakes? The use of big data approaches in criminal justice system”. The project leader presented the research project and its findings (COBISS ID: 1830734), while Matej Kovačič presented a paper about IJS's big data project "Legislative monitor" ("Zakonodajni monitor"). Plenary section was followed by a round-table moderated by A. Završnik and with interlocutors from all segments of the criminal justice system and researchers, i.e. Jure Leskovec, Stanford University; Goran Klemenčič, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia; Martin Jančar, criminal judge at the District Court of Ljubljana; Drago Šketa, higher state prosecutor and head of the District State Prosecutor's Office Maribor; Matija Jamnik, Attorney at Law, and M. Kovačič, A. Završnik and M. M. Plesničar as members of the research project.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting