[STS-Africa] FW: [HCC] Fully funded international PhD position in regulating computational platform infrastructures at UCL Laws

[Gianluca Miscione]

***Apologies for cross-posting***
Please distribute as you see fit
Thanks,
Gianluca 
 
Gianluca Miscione
University College Dublin
 <http://www.ucd.ie/cito/members/gianlucamiscione>
http://www.ucd.ie/cito/members/gianlucamiscione


 
 
UCL Faculty of Laws is offering a fully funded 3-year Home/Overseas PhD
studentship in technology policy and law, open to candidates from a wide
variety of disciplines, funded by the Fondation Botnar. 
*	Topic: Regulating platform computational and sensing
infrastructures, with an emphasis on the global dimension and regulating
from the perspective of poorer countries.
*	Supervised by Dr Michael Veale (Lecturer in Digital Rights and
Regulation at UCL)
*	Open to: Anyone with a background in law or technology policy,
understood broadly.
Details and how to apply:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucqnmve/files/UCLLawsPhD.pdf
 
More details:
UCL Faculty of Laws is offering a fully funded 3-year Home/Overseas PhD
studentship in Law, focussing on regulating platform infrastructures in the
Global South. This is part of the ‘Real Time Epidemiology’ project (UCL
investigator Dr Michael Veale, partners EPFL, ETH Zürich, TU Delft, 3db
Technologies) funded by the Fondation Botnar.
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred interest in using sensors, both on
existing devices like smartphones, as well as bespoke devices, to support
granular, rapid, public health interventions. The Real Time Epidemiology
Project has experience of this, having created two protocols (‘DP-3T’
Bluetooth tracing and ‘CrowdNotifier’ QR-code-based COVID exposure risk
alerts), versions of which have been widely deployed around the world during
the pandemic. Sensor networks are also changing, with new technologies
emerging that are more precise (such as Ultra Wide Band, used by Apple’s
‘AirTags’) or longer in range (such as LoRa/Amazon ‘Sidewalk’). At the same
time, some desire to make use of data, including from such sensors, for
various notions of public benefit, for example through ‘data trusts’, ‘data
foundations’ or ‘data altruism’.
 
The societal, technical and legal considerations concerning who gets to use,
alter, assemble and dismantle such platform sensing infrastructures are
complex. Private companies, such as Apple and Google, control hardware,
operating systems and software distribution networks (app stores), through a
range of technical and legal means. Their vertical integration can mean that
software struggles to make use of sensors in the vast majority of devices
they manage without their blessing. Private standard-setting bodies, such as
the IETF or the IEEE, have had important roles in shaping this area. Some
jurisdictions have tried, or are currently experimenting with, approaches to
governing infrastructures (e.g. the EU’s Digital Markets Act). Governments
also desire to use these networks in very different ways: some have strong
wariness about turning citizens into sensors, others see it as a way to
surveil or even optimise their populations. Some have seen private
governance of this area, particularly by US technology firms, as limiting
abuses of power by governments. Others have seen the practical inability of
states to control infrastructures built and maintained by these firms as
impinging on varying notions of ‘digital sovereignty’. Either way, all these
above activities of regulation and governance have potential
extraterritorial and transnational implications, creating a challenging
landscape for a coherent and balanced global regime.
 
Policy discussions however centre predominantly on a few countries in the
Global North. This is problematic, as attempts to rebalance legitimate
decision-making power around the use and management of such infrastructures
can hardly be said to do so if that rebalancing is solely within rich
countries.
 
If you have any queries regarding the vacancy, please contact Dr Michael
Veale: m.veale at ucl.ac.uk <mailto:m.veale at ucl.ac.uk> 
 
Full details in the PDF document linked to above. Deadline 18 June 2021.
Start in September 2021.
 
 
Dr Michael Veale
Lecturer in Digital Rights and Regulation
Faculty of Laws, University College London
 
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