Insights

Every app collects data about its users. Privacy statements indicate whether personal data is passed on to third parties and how long and where it is stored. But does anyone really read that? DIZH Fellow Nico Ebert knows how to get people to read through the boring privacy statements after all.

“We don’t care about your privacy at all” could be written in a privacy statement online and many people would still click “Accept”. Terms and conditions, imprints and privacy statements are important legal components of websites and apps. They inform users about the terms of use, which company or person is responsible, and which of the user data is used for which purposes. You can read all of this – but does anyone ever do that?

“Privacy statements are probably the most boring research topic in the world,” says Dr. Nico Ebert of the ZHAW School of Management and Law. “But I want to show that it’s not as boring as it looks.”

The ZHAW School of Engineering has developed an intuitive search function as part of an EU project. This allows information, for example on cancer research or astrophysics, to be found and evaluated in huge databases. The INODE project is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research program.

Money without a bank? Notary services without a notary? Blockchain technology promises to eliminate the need for trust. Really?
In her DSI Insights guest post at Inside IT, DSI postdoc Liudmila Zavolokina addresses these questions around blockchain, trust and trust creation.

Participate to the Win.Lab Co-Creation Innovation Workshop and develop wanted Decarbonisation Ideas in a Design Thinking process in Public Private People Partnerships to be posted on the HYPE platform, which might be awarded with Seed Money to further develop the selected Ideas.

Two calls for proposals will be launched at the start of the Fall Semester 2021: Call for rapid action proposals and call for proposals for ecosystem creation.

Date: 28. & 29. October 2021

The Digital Democracy workshop is co-organized by the Democracy Community of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) and the Digital Democracy Lab (DigDemLab) at the University of Zurich. It aims to facilitate exchange among scholars from different substantive fields working on these topics. 

Transformation of the textile industry from push to pull production through digitalization Development of a platform on which clothing can be digitally tried on and purchased using a personal 3D avatar. The platform integrates all players in the supply chain and, by switching from push to pull production, has the… Read More »2021.1 Transformation textile industry

AlgorithmWatch Switzerland and AlgorithmWatch have published the new paper “Automated Decision-Making Systems in the Public Sector: An Impact Assessment Tool for Public Authorities”. The publication was written by DSI team member Michele Loi in collaboration with Anna Mätzener, Angela Müller, and Matthias Spielkamp.

With the tool, the authors aim to contribute to the discussion around impact assessment of ADM systems by providing a concrete proposal on how ethical principles can be operationalized in the context of such an assessment. The checklists they have developed for this purpose are directly applicable as a tool for public authorities.