Global Technology Law and Policy: Spring 2021
Global Technology Law and Policy is an intensive seminar that is a collective initiative of the University of Ottawa, the University of Haifa, and Bocconi University with students from each university participating. This year’s course will take place online with all classes held on Zoom. The course focus for the year will be a comparative examination of intersection between COVID-19 and law, policy and technology. Key topics will include:
- Misinformation, COVID-19 and Internet Platforms
- Data Privacy and Security under Pressure in the COVID Age
- COVID and the Classroom: IP, academic freedom and privacy
- Legal issues – The Race to the Vaccine: from Invention to Distribution
As noted below, classes will feature lectures, group work, and guest lecturers. Students are asked to prepare for classes with brief readings, video lectures, and podcasts.
The final two days of the course will feature group presentations. Students should have received emails indicating to which group they have been assigned.
Course Schedule (Draft Subject to Change – as of April 19, 2021):
April 28, 2021 – Introduction, Misinformation and Platform Liability
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
Group exercise – please review in advance
Israel starts Covid vaccine drive as Facebook groups taken down, The Guardian (Dec. 20, 2020).
Facebook removes Israeli anti-vaccine ‘fake news’ groups, posts, JPost (Dec. 20th, 2020).
Mike Isaac, Facebook says it plans to remove posts with false vaccine claims.The New York Times (Feb. 8, 2021)
Audio/Video:
Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
Guests:
April 29, 2021 – Misinformation and Platform Liability
9:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 15:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 16:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
Limor Shmerling Magazanik, “Five Thoughts about “Immunity Passports”, Linkdin, Jul 12th, 2020.
Kate Klonick, Feature: The Facebook Oversight Board: Creating an Independent Institution to Adjudicate Online Free Expression, 129(8) Yale L. J 2418 (2020), Readings: 2422-2427, 2429, 2435-2438, 2442-3, 2456, 2475-2480, 2492-95.
Audio/Video:
How Should the Law Approach Social Media Abuses?
Guests:
10:00 am: Limor Shmerling Magazanik, Managing Director, Israel Tech Policy Institute
11:00 am: Jason Kee, Google
May 2, 2021 – COVID, Data privacy and security
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
ACRI Website, Success! ACRI Severely Limits Shin Bet Tracking (March 1st)
Jane Bambauer and Brian Ray, COVID-19 Apps Are Terrible—They Didn’t Have to Be, Lawfare, 1-7, 11-19, 24-28.
Audio/Video:
Technion Panel: Contact Tracing
Guests:
10:00 am: Former Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Asher Grunis
11:00 am: Gil Gan-Mor (Director of the Social and Economic Rights Unit and of the Right to Housing Program)
May 3, 2021 – COVID, Data privacy and security
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
OECD, Dealing with digital security risk during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, 3 April, 2020
Scassa, COVID-19 Contact Tracing: From Local to Global and Back Again
CIFAR, Society, Technology and Ethics in a Pandemic
Audio/Video:
Guests:
10:00 am: Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor of Canada
11:00 am: Supreme Court of Canada Justice Russell Brown
12:00 pm: Amit Ashkenazi, Legal Counsel, Israeli Cyber Bureau
May 4, 2021 – Legal issues – the race to the vaccine
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
Case Study, DNA Hepatitis B Vaccine: International Vaccine Institute, Korea
Audio/Video:
GDE, Encounter 3 International IP and Access to Pandemic Treatments
May 5, 2021 – Legal issues – the race to the vaccine
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
CIGI, The Antidote to Vaccine Nationalism
Assaf Harel, Big data and the pursuit of herd immunity: Israel’s COVID-19 data-sharing agreement,IAPP
Audio/Video:
Guests:
11:00 am: Roberto Caso, University of Trento and President of the Italian Association for Open Science (AISA)
May 6, 2021 – COVID and the classroom
9:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 15:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 16:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Readings:
Eugene Volokh, Censorship by Zoom and Other Private Platforms”: The UC Academic Freedom Committee’s Concerns, The Volokh Conspiracy (Feb 4th, 2021)
Chiara and Ducato, Rossana and Giannopoulou, Alexandra and Schneider, Giulia, Remote Teaching During the Emergency and Beyond: Four Open Privacy and Data Protection Issues of ‘Platformised’ Education (November 13, 2020). OpinioJuris in Comparatione, vol. 1 (2020)
Audio/Video:
Guests:
9:00 am: David Mirchin, Partner, Meitar
10:00 am: Rossana Ducato, University of Aberdeen, School of Law
11:00 am: Brewster Kahle and Chris Freeland, Internet Archive
12:00 pm: Patricia Kosseim, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
May 9, 2021 – Student Presentations
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Group 1: Misinformation and Platform Liability
Group 2: COVID, Data Privacy and Security
May 10, 2021 – Student Presentations
10:00 – 13:00 (Ottawa), 16:00 – 19:00 (Milan), 17:00 – 20:00 (Haifa)
Group 3: Legal Issues – The Race to a Vaccine
Group 4: COVID and the Classroom