Internet Law Commons^™

On The Genealogy Of Intimate Digital Harm, Aziz Z. Huq

Michigan Law Review

A review of The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age. By Danielle Keats Citron.

A Threshold Assessment: Is Technology Among The Competencies Tested By The Mpre?, Amy A. Emerson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ai, Algorithms, And Awful Humans, Daniel J. Solove, Hideyuki Matsumi

Fordham Law Review

A profound shift is occurring in the way many decisions are made, with machines taking greater roles in the decision-making process. Two arguments are often advanced to justify the increasing use of automation and algorithms in decisions. The “Awful Human Argument” asserts that human decision-making is often awful and that machines can decide better than humans. Another argument, the “Better Together Argument,” posits that machines can augment and improve human decision-making. These arguments exert a powerful influence on law and policy.

In this Essay, we contend that in the context of making decisions about humans, these arguments are far too …

Chatgpt, Large Language Models, And Law, Harry Surden

Fordham Law Review

This Essay explores Artificial Intelligence (AI) Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT/GPT-4, detailing the advances and challenges in applying AI to law. It first explains how these AI technologies work at an understandable level. It then examines the significant evolution of LLMs since 2022 and their improved capabilities in understanding and generating complex documents, such as legal texts. Finally, this Essay discusses the limitations of these technologies, offering a balanced view of their potential role in legal work.

The Lack Of Responsibility Of Higher Education Institutions In Addressing Phishing Emails And Data Breaches, Muxuan (Muriel) Wang

Duke Law & Technology Review

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are highly susceptible to cyberattacks, particularly those facilitated through phishing, due to the substantial volume of confidential student and staff data and valuable research information they hold. Despite federal legislations focusing on bolstering cybersecurity for critical institutions handling medical and financial data, HEIs have not received similar attention. This Note examines the minimal obligations imposed on HEIs by existing federal and state statutes concerning data breaches, the absence of requirements for HEIs to educate employees and students about phishing attacks, and potential strategies to improve student protection against data breaches.

Filtered Dragnets And The Anti-Authoritarian Fourth Amendment, Jane R. Bambauer

UF Law Faculty Publications

Filtered dragnets are digital searches that identify a suspect based on the details of a crime. They can be designed to withhold information from law enforcement unless and until there is a very high probability that the individual has committed the offense. Examples today include DNA matching, facial recognition from photographs or video of a crime, automated child sexual abuse material detection, and reverse geolocation (geofence) searches. More are sure to come, and their wide-scale use will be irresistible to improve the low rates of criminal detection that currently afflict many communities.

However, filtered dragnets imperil society precisely because they …

Trinity Western University Decisions And Engineers’ Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion Obligations Under The Statutory Public Interest Mandate, Michelle Liu, Vanessa Matta

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Engineers create technologies but do not sufficiently care for their biased and inequitable outcomes despite the engineering profession’s statutory mandate to protect the public interest. The engineering and legal professions’ similar admission processes and statutory provisions mandating the protection of public interest may justify applying the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation of the legal profession’s public interest mandate in the Trinity Western University decisions to the engineering profession. The Supreme Court’s interpretation centres on equal access to the profession, diversity within its membership, and protection of 2SLGBTQ+ persons. The work begins by setting out the definitions and challenges of equity, …

Legal Framework For The Use Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Technology In The Canadian Criminal Justice System, Gideon Christian

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article seeks to identify and examine critical issues arising from the deployment and use of AI recidivism risk assessment tools in the Canadian criminal justice system. It commences with the historical evolution of these tools in the criminal justice system, tracing their development from the first generation to the emergence of AI-driven risk assessments. By examining the progression of risk assessment tools from their origins to the current AI-powered systems this research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities that these tools present. The article then delves into crucial issues such as algorithmic bias, highlighting …

Legal And Ethical Challenges Raised By Advances In Brain-Computer Interface Technology, Colin Conrad, Carla Heggie

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) consist of hardware and software that allow humans to control computers with their brain signals alone. Though these technologies are not new, existing approaches to BCI are either very limited in their capabilities or require highly invasive surgery. However, BCI has recently received increased attention due to advances that enable enhanced usability with less invasive approaches. Such advances could radically change the acceptance of the technology and BCI might become commonplace in the coming decades. In this article, we provide a technology scholar’s perspective on how these recent advances in BCI present new legal and ethical considerations. …

More Than ‘‘Responsible Ai” Bridging Artificial Intelligence Systems (Ais) And Aisystems Ethics Into Practice, Ruth Bankey

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article reflects on the question ‘‘how should we approach the ethics of AI and technology?” through the example of how the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is working within this space to develop its Artificial Intelligence Systems (AIS) Ethics Lifelong Learning and Professional Development Strategy. This strategy is connected, but also acts as a critical counterpoint, to approaches to AI governance and accountability that are reliant on a notion of ‘‘Responsible AI”. In these contexts, responsible AI is understood as the regulatory adoption of ‘‘rules” diffused through a normative structure of hierarchical authority within the organization or business. Rather, this …

Killing Two Birds With One Stone: Remedying Malicious Social Bot Behavior Via Section 230 Reform, Jackson Smith

William & Mary Business Law Review

As “interactive computer services” (social media sites) expanded over the past decade, so too did the prevalence of “social bots,” software programs that mimic human behavior online. The capacity social bots have to exponentially amplify often-harmful content has led to calls for greater accountability from social media companies in the way they manage bot presence on their sites. In response, many social media companies and private researchers have developed bot-detection methodologies to better govern social bot activities. At the same time, the prevalence of harmful content on social media sites has led to calls to reform Section 230 of the …

Online Disinhibited Contracts, Wayne R. Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

There have been at least two dominant forces at work in the realm of consumer contracting over the past several decades. One has been the rise and domination of the standard form contract (whereby merchants contract with consumers via the use of standardized, boilerplate terms and conditions that consumers do not read or understand). The second force has been the rise of e-commerce and the purchase of goods and services via websites and other online platforms, and the use of “wrap” formation methodology (whereby merchants obtain consumer assent to the online terms and conditions via the consumer’s informal click, scroll, …

Robots As Pirates, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

Catholic University Law Review

Generative AI has created much excitement over its potential to create new works of authorship in the literary and graphical realms. Its underling machine-learning technology works by analyzing the relations among elements of preexisting material in enormous databases assembled from publicly available and licensed sources. Its algorithms “learn” to predict “what comes next” in different types of expression. A complete system thus can become glib in creating new factual summaries, essays, fictional stories and images.

A number of authors of the raw material used by Generative AI engines claim that the machine learning process infringes their copyrights. Careful evaluation of …

Digital Terror Crimes, Cody Corliss

Law Faculty Scholarship

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians. These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population. The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article is the first to argue that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms. It situates digital …

Data Is What Data Does: Regulating Based On Harm And Risk Instead Of Sensitive Data, Daniel J. Solove

Northwestern University Law Review

Heightened protection for sensitive data is becoming quite trendy in privacy laws around the world. Originating in European Union (EU) data protection law and included in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, sensitive data singles out certain categories of personal data for extra protection. Commonly recognized special categories of sensitive data include racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, sexual orientation and sex life, and biometric and genetic data.

Although heightened protection for sensitive data appropriately recognizes that not all situations involving personal data should be protected uniformly, the sensitive data approach is …

Virtual Stardom: The Case For Protecting The Intellectual Property Rights Of Digital Celebrities As Software, Alexander Plansky

University of Miami Business Law Review

For the past several decades, technology has allowed us to create digital human beings that both resemble actual celebrities (living or deceased) or entirely virtual personalities from scratch. In the near future, this technology is expected to become even more advanced and widespread to the point where there may be entirely virtual celebrities who are just as popular as their flesh-and-blood counterparts—if not more so. This raises intellectual property questions of how these near-future digital actors and musicians should be classified, and who will receive the proceeds from their performances and appearances. Since, in the near-term, these entities will probably …

From Alpha To Omegle: A.M. V. Omegle And The Shift Towards Product Liability For Harm Incurred Online, Preston Buchanan

University of Miami Business Law Review

But for the Internet, many of our interactions with others would be impossible. From socializing to shopping, and, increasingly, working and attending class, the Internet greatly facilitates the ease of our daily lives. However, we frequently neglect to consider that our conduits to the Internet have the potential to lead to harm and injury. When the Internet was in its infancy, and primarily was a repository of information, Congress recognized the threat of continual lawsuits against online entities stemming from the content created by their users. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 arose to mitigate the seemingly Herculean task for …

Piercing The Shield Of U.C.C. Article 4a: Estate Of Levin V. Wells Fargo Bank’S, Implications For Terrorism Victims’ Attachment Of Blocked Electronic Wire Transfers Originating From State Sponsors Of Terrorism, Olivia Lu

University of Miami Business Law Review

This Piece examines how ambiguity in the property interests that would be subject to attachment under section 201 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (“TRIA”) and section 1610(g) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”) has affected efforts by victims of terrorism to fulfill their monetary judgments, especially in light of courts’ use of Article 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code to fill the definitional gap. This Piece focuses on a recent D.C. Circuit decision, Estate of Levin v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., analyzing its implications for terrorism victims holding monetary judgments to attach blocked electronic funds transfers (“EFTs”) originating …

Privacy’S Next Act, Erik Lampmann-Shaver

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

This Article identifies and describes three data privacy policy developments from recent legislative sessions that may seem unrelated, but which I contend together offer clues about privacy law’s future over the short-to-medium term.

The first is the proliferation, worldwide and in U.S. states, of legislative proposals and statutes referred to as “age-appropriate design codes.” Originating in the United Kingdom, age-appropriate design codes typically apply to online services “directed to children” and subject such services to transparency, default settings, and other requirements. Chief among them is an implied obligation to conduct ongoing assessments of whether a service could be deemed “directed …

Limits Of Algorithmic Fair Use, Jacob Alhadeff, Cooper Cuene, Max Del Real

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In this article, we apply historical copyright principles to the evolving state of text-to-image generation and explore the implications of emerging technological constructs for copyright’s fair use doctrine. Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is frequently trained on copyrighted works, which usually involves extensive copying without owners’ authorization. Such copying could constitute prima facie copyright infringement, but existing guidance suggests fair use should apply to most machine learning contexts. Mark Lemley and Bryan Casey argue that training machine learning (“ML”) models on copyrighted material should generally be permitted under fair use when the model’s outputs transcends the purpose of its inputs. Their arguments …