Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre

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The Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre was a research and social justice centre at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law in Sydney, Australia. It provided a focus for research, public interest advocacy and education on issues of law and policy arising from digital transactions in cyberspace. It ceased to operate sometime after mid-2016.

Contents

Description

The founding sponsors were Baker & McKenzie, an international law firm, and its original name was the Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre. In 2005, with Australian Research Council research project funding, the name was shortened.

The centre's work dealt with subjects like privacy and freedom of information in digital records, cloud computing and Web 2.0 issues, content regulation and the interests of young people, e-commerce, provision of government services by Internet, online bankings, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and the use of encryption, Internet governance, intellectual property in digital artefacts, and decision-making technologies in public administration.

Much of the centre's work concerned Australian law and policy, but there was also a focus on the development of cyberspace regulation in Asia, the fastest growing part of cyberspace's "terrestrial footprint". There was at time also increasing interest in jurisdictional and other issues created by personal and other data stored outside a person's home country in "the cloud".

The Centre collaborated with lawyers and legal researchers in a range of other firms and organisations, including as Research Associates. [1] It also enabled experienced external researchers to visit, and students to do internships or volunteer.

Research projects

Some of the centre's research projects include the following:

Net Filtering & Young People

This research project looked at Internet filtering and censorship proposals developed by recent Australian governments. It generated materials from workshops in 2008 [2] and 2009, [3] and an extensive references list [4] covering those years. It involved collaboration with the UNSW Journalism and Media Research Centre.

Unlocking IP

Unlocking IP: New models for sharing and trading IP: [5] "Unlocking IP" is a research project supported by a 2005-2009 ARC Linkage grant to a consortium led by Graham Greenleaf, contributions from industry partners, and hosted by the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre. As well as hosting a library of publications, [6] and events [7] such as Unlocking IP conferences in 2004, [8] 2006, [9] and 2009, [10] the project and its participants also:

Interpreting Privacy Principles

"Interpreting Privacy Principles" [12] was a research project led by Greenleaf subtitled "Creating more consistent privacy principles through better interpretation and law reform: an Australasian initiative to resolve an international problem - comparative research into privacy principles." It was supported by an ARC Discovery grant 2006–2009 to a research team based at the centre.

As well as a number of events, such as the symposium International perspectives on privacy regulation: Privacy Principles in Asia Pacific economies compared [13] at UNSW on 3–4 March 2010, numerous publications and submissions [14] such as those to the 2008 ALRC review of privacy law in Australia, the project also supported the Asia Pacific Privacy Charter, [15] work on the APEC Privacy Framework, [16] and the proposed but abandoned national ID card system [17] known as the Access Card.

Regulating Online Investing

"One Day, We’ll All Invest This Way! Regulating Online Investing" [18] is an ARC Discovery research project led by Dimity Kingsford Smith from UNSW, with collaborators from Monash and ANU. The Centre developed and hosted the project's online and offline resources, including a "Selected References" [19] list. Despite the encouragement for individual investors to go online and trade securities, when the project started there had been limited research into the regulatory implications of the non-advisory context of their decision making. Further, outside the United States, there were no significant treatments of the regulation of electronic trading platforms. This Australian Research Council funded project addressed these deficiencies, particularly in relation to Australian online investing.

Disestablishment

There is no official announcement on the website, but the website shows no activity after July 2016, and key personnel have moved on; co-convenor Lyria Bennett Moses is as of July 2019 at the Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation, founded in 2018. [20]

Related Research Articles

Jonathan Zittrain American law professor

Jonathan L. Zittrain is an American professor of Internet law and the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and co-founder and director of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Previously, Zittrain was Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford and visiting professor at the New York University School of Law and Stanford Law School. He is the author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, as well as co-editor of the books, Access Denied, Access Controlled, and Access Contested.

This page provides an index of articles thought to be Internet or Web related topics.

Freedom of information Freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information

Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge; freedom of information, building of open knowledge resources, including open Internet and open standards, and open access and availability of data; preservation of digital heritage; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, such as fostering access to local content in accessible languages; quality education for all, including lifelong and e-learning; diffusion of new media and information literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility by those with disabilities; and the development of connectivity and affordable ICTs, including mobile, the Internet, and broadband infrastructures".

Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to strengthen individual rights and freedoms by defining, promoting, and influencing technology policy and the architecture of the Internet.

Internet privacy

Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, provision to third parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing.

Electronic Frontiers Australia

Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) is a non-profit Australian national non-government organisation representing Internet users concerned with online liberties and rights. It has been vocal on the issue of Internet censorship in Australia.

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run internet filtering programs. Participating academic institutions included the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at University of Oxford; and, The SecDev Group, which took over from the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge.

The Faculty of Law of the University of New South Wales is a law school situated in Sydney, Australia. It is widely regarded as being one of Australia's top law schools. In 2020, QS World University Rankings ranked the UNSW Law Faculty 14th the best in the world, and 3rd in Australia. It is ranked second in Australia according to the ARWU 2017 subject rankings and the 2020 Times Higher Education subject rankings.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Internet.

Internet censorship Control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the internet

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet enacted by regulators, or on their own initiative. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences.

Internet censorship in the United States is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship.

Cyberethics Philosophic study of ethics pertaining to computers

Cyberethics is the philosophic study of ethics pertaining to computers, encompassing user behavior and what computers are programmed to do, and how this affects individuals and society. For years, various governments have enacted regulations while organizations have defined policies about cyberethics.

Information technology law concerns the law of information technology, including computing and the internet. It is related to legal informatics, and governs the digital dissemination of both (digitalized) information and software, information security and electronic commerce aspects and it has been described as "paper laws" for a "paperless environment". It raises specific issues of intellectual property in computing and online, contract law, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction.

Internet censorship circumvention is the use of various methods and tools to bypass internet censorship.

There were different but similar copyright bills in the 112th United States Congress: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate. A typical route for legislation like this is to pass some version in both houses, then refer the two bills to a conference committee, which would produce a single bill likely to pass both houses.

Information policy is the set of all public laws, regulations and policies that encourage, discourage, or regulate the creation, use, storage, access, and communication and dissemination of information. It thus encompasses any other decision-making practice with society-wide constitutive efforts that involve the flow of information and how it is processed.

Network sovereignty is the effort of a governing entity, such as a state, to create boundaries on a network and then exert a form of control, often in the form of law enforcement over such boundaries.

The child abuse image content URL list is a list of URLs and image hashes provided by the Internet Watch Foundation to its partners to enable the blocking of child pornography & criminally obscene adult content in the UK and by major international technology companies.

Human rights in cyberspace is a relatively new and uncharted area of law. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has stated that the freedoms of expression and information under Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) include the freedom to receive and communicate information, ideas and opinions through the Internet.

Internet universality is a concept and framework adopted by UNESCO in 2015 to summarize their positions on the Internet. The concept recognizes that "the Internet is much more than infrastructure and applications, it is a network of economic and social interactions and relationships, which has the potential to enable human rights, empower individuals and communities, and facilitate sustainable development. The concept is based on four principles stressing the Internet should be Human rights-based, Open, Accessible, and based on Multistakeholder participation. These have been abbreviated as the R-O-A-M principles. Understanding the Internet in this way helps to draw together different facets of Internet development, concerned with technology and public policy, rights and development."

References

  1. ↑ "Research Associates - Cyberspace Law and Policy Community". cyberlawcentre.org.
  2. ↑ "Internet filtering and censorship forum UNSW 27 November 2008 - Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre -". cyberlawcentre.org.
  3. ↑ "Internet filtering and censorship forum UNSW - Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre - Second UNSW Workshop 4 March 2009". cyberlawcentre.org.
  4. ↑ "Internet filtering and young people - Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre - UNSW research project on content regulation and censorship". cyberlawcentre.org.
  5. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property". cyberlawcentre.org.
  6. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property - Setting the Context". cyberlawcentre.org.
  7. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property - Setting the Context". cyberlawcentre.org.
  8. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  9. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property - Setting the Context". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  10. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property - 2009". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  11. ↑ "The House of Commons".
  12. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  13. ↑ "XXX". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  14. ↑ "Interpreting Privacy Principles - Publications". www.cyberlawcentre.org. 5 May 2008.
  15. ↑ "Asia Pacific Privacy Charter Council APPCC APEC". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  16. ↑ "Unlocking Intellectual Property". www.cyberlawcentre.org.
  17. ↑ "XXX". www.cyberlawcentre.org. 9 May 2008.
  18. ↑ "Online Investing". cyberlawcentre.org.
  19. ↑ "Regulating Online Investing - About us". cyberlawcentre.org.
  20. ↑ "About". University of New South Wales. Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation. Retrieved 15 July 2019.

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