David Wright, Serge Gutwirth and Michael Friedewald
To identify safeguards against threats and vulnerabilities posed by the emerging world of ambient intelligence.
Abstract
Purpose
To identify safeguards against threats and vulnerabilities posed by the emerging world of ambient intelligence.
Design/methodology/approach
Dark scenarios were constructed to highlight the threats and vulnerabilities; safeguards are identified to address those threats and vulnerabilities and recommendations for specific stakeholders are made for implementing those safeguards.
Findings
A multiplicity of threats and vulnerabilities can be expected in the emerging world of ambient intelligence, and a multiplicity of safeguards are similarly necessary to address those.
Research limitations/implications
Additional technological research is necessary in order to develop some of the safeguards envisaged as necessary.
Practical implications
The existing legal and regulatory regime suffers from various lacunae and must be amended to address AmI challenges. Many stakeholders have important roles to play.
Originality/value
The paper identifies necessary safeguards to protect privacy, identity, trust, security and e‐inclusion. It identifies specific recommendations for the European Commission, Member States, industry, civil society organizations, academia and individuals.
Details
Keywords
Antonio Davola and Gianclaudio Malgieri
The attempt to establish a common European framework for core platforms' duties and responsibilities toward other actors in the digital environment is at the core of the recent…
Abstract
The attempt to establish a common European framework for core platforms' duties and responsibilities toward other actors in the digital environment is at the core of the recent scholarly debate surrounding the Digital Markets Act (DMA) proposal. In particular, the everlasting juxtaposition between the “data power” – as emerging from recent cases (Section 2) – that dominant tech companies enjoy and the concept of consumer sovereignty (Section 3) lies at the core of the proposal's attempt to identify digital core platforms as market gatekeepers. Accordingly, this chapter critically investigates the divide between power imbalance and consumer sovereignty in light of the architecture designed by the DMA, with a specific focus on its effectiveness in identifying gatekeepers' power drivers (Section 4). After highlighting the main critical aspects of the pertinent rules, opportunities for fruitful developments are then identified through the reframing of some of the notions considered in the proposal, and namely the role of “lock-in” effects and “data accumulation” (Section 5). Lastly, this chapter suggests that the DMA advancements – while desirable – are bound to be fragmentary in the absence of a wider appraisal of the nature of data power imbalance dynamics in the modern digital markets (Section 6).