The growth of data-collecting goods and services, such as ehealth and mhealth apps, smart watches, mobile fitness and dieting apps, electronic skin and ingestible tech, combined with recent technological developments such as increased capacity of data storage, artificial intelligence and smart algorithms, has spawned a big data revolution that has reshaped how we understand and approach health data. Recently the COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded a variety of data privacy issues. The collection, storage, sharing and analysis of health- related data raises major legal and ethical questions relating to privacy, data protection, profiling, discrimination, surveillance, personal autonomy and dignity. This book examines health privacy questions in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the general data privacy legal framework of the European Union (EU). The GDPR is a complex and evolving body of law that aims to deal with several technological and societal health data privacy problems, while safeguarding public health interests and addressing its internal gaps and uncertainties. The book answers a diverse range of questions including: What role can the GDPR play in regulating health surveillance and big (health) data analytics? Can it catch up with internet-age developments? Are the solutions to the challenges posed by big health data to be found in the law? Does the GDPR provide adequate tools and mechanisms to ensure public health objectives and the effective protection of privacy? How does the GDPR deal with data that concern children's health and academic research? By analysing a number of diverse questions concerning big health data under the GDPR from various perspectives, this book will appeal to those interested in privacy, data protection, big data, health sciences, information technology, the GDPR, EU and human rights law.

This book contends that modern concerns surrounding the UK State's investigation of communications (and, more recently, data), whether at rest or in transit, are in fact nothing new. It evidences how, whether using common law, the Royal Prerogative, or statutes to provide a lawful basis for a state practice traceable to at least 1324, the underlying policy rationale has always been that first publicly articulated in Cromwell's initial Postage Act 1657, namely the protection of British 'national security', broadly construed. It further illustrates how developments in communications technology led to Executive assumptions of relevant investigatory powers, administered in conditions of relative secrecy. In demonstrating the key role played throughout history by communications service providers, the book also charts how the evolution of the UK Intelligence Community, entry into the 'UKUSA' communications intelligence-sharing agreement 1946, and intelligence community advocacy all significantly influenced the era of arguably disingenuous statutory governance of communications investigation between 1984 and 2016. The book illustrates how the 2013 'Intelligence Shock' triggered by publication of Edward Snowden's unauthorized disclosures impelled a transition from Executive secrecy and statutory disingenuousness to a more consultative, candid Executive and a policy of 'transparent secrecy', now reflected in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. What the book ultimately demonstrates is that this latest comprehensive statute, whilst welcome for its candour, represents only the latest manifestation of the British state's policy of ensuring protection of national security by granting powers enabling investigative access to communications and data, in transit or at rest, irrespective of location.

This collection critically explores the use of financial technology (FinTech) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the financial sector and discusses effective regulation and the prevention of crime. Focusing on crypto-assets, InsureTech and the digitisation of financial dispute resolution, the book examines the strategic and ethical aspects of incorporating AI into the financial sector. The volume adopts a comparative legal approach to: critically evaluate the strategic and ethical benefits and challenges of AI in the financial sector; critically analyse the role, values and challenges of FinTech in society; make recommendations on protecting vulnerable customers without restricting financial innovation; and to make recommendations on effective regulation and prevention of crime in these areas. The book will be of interest to teachers and students of banking and financial regulation related modules, researchers in computer science, corporate governance, and business and economics. It will also be a valuable resource for policy makers including government departments, law enforcement agencies, financial regulatory agencies, people employed within the financial services sector, and professional services such as law, and technology.

Breaking Away sounds a warning call alerting readers that their privacy and autonomy concerns are indeed warranted, and the remedies deserve far greater attention than they have received from our leading policymakers and experts to date. Through the various prisms of economic theory, market data, policy, and law, the book offers a clear and accessible insight into how a few powerful firms - Google, Apple, Facebook (Meta), and Amazon - have used the same anticompetitive playbook and manipulated the current legal regime for their gain at our collective expense. While much has been written about these four companies' power, far less has been said about addressing their risks. In looking at the proposals to date, however, policymakers and scholars have not fully addressed three fundamental issues: First, will more competition necessarily promote our privacy and well-being? Second, who owns the personal data, and is that even the right question? Third, what are the policy implications if personal data is non-rivalrous? Breaking Away not only articulates the limitations of the current enforcement and regulatory approach but offers concrete proposals to promote competition, without having to sacrifice our privacy. This book explores how these platforms accumulated their power, why the risks they pose are far greater than previously believed, and why the tools need to be far more robust than what is being proposed. Policymakers, scholars, and business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs seeking to compete and innovate in the digital platform economy will find the book an invaluable source of information.

Our society has a technology problem. Many want to disconnect from screens but can't help themselves. These days we spend more time online than ever. Some turn to self-help-measures to limit their usage, yet repeatedly fail, while parents feel particularly powerless to help their children. Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies shows us a way out. Rather than blaming users, the book shatters the illusion that we autonomously choose how to spend our time online. It shifts the moral responsibility and accountability for solutions to corporations. Drawing lessons from the tobacco and food industries, the book demonstrates why government regulation is necessary to curb technology addiction. It describes a grassroots movement already in action across courts and legislative halls. Groundbreaking and urgent, Unwired provides a blueprint to develop this movement for change, to one that will allow us to finally gain control.

Internet of Things and the Law: Legal Strategies for Consumer-Centric Smart Technologies is the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the legal issues in the Internet of Things (IoT). For decades, the decreasing importance of tangible wealth and power - and the increasing significance of their disembodied counterparts - has been the subject of much legal research. For some time now, legal scholars have grappled with how laws drafted for tangible property and predigital 'offline' technologies can cope with dematerialisation, digitalisation, and the internet. As dematerialisation continues, this book aims to illuminate the opposite movement: rematerialisation, namely, the return of data, knowledge, and power within a physical 'smart' world. This development frames the book's central question: can the law steer rematerialisation in a human-centric and socially just direction? To answer it, the book focuses on the IoT, the sociotechnological phenomenon that is primarily responsible for this shift. After a thorough analysis of how existing laws can be interpreted to empower IoT end users, Noto La Diega leaves us with the fundamental question of what happens when the law fails us and concludes with a call for collective resistance against 'smart' capitalism.

This timely Research Handbook contains an analysis by leading scholars and practitioners of various legal questions concerning cyberspace and cyber activities. Comprehensive and thorough, it succeeds in mapping out the range of international rules that apply to cyberspace and to specific cyber activities, assesses their regulatory efficacy and offers insightful suggestions, where necessary, for revised standards. Contributors examine the application of fundamental international law principles to cyberspace such as the principle of sovereignty, jurisdiction, state responsibility, individual criminal responsibility, human rights and intellectual property rights. They explore the application of international rules to cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, cyber crime, cyber attacks and to cyber war. They deal with the meaning of cyber operations, the ethics of cyber operations as well as with cyber deterrence. Finally, they comment on the cyber security policies of international and regional institutions such as those of the United Nations, the European Union, NATO and of Asian-Pacific institutions. This Research Handbook will benefit scholars in the fields of international law, international relations, public and private law. Researchers will find the suggested future research avenues in this field invaluable whilst policy-makers and practitioners will gain fresh insights into topical issues concerning the regulation of cyberspace and of cyber activities. Contributors: K. Ambos, C. Antonopoulos, L. Arimatsu, K. Bannelier-Christakis, R. Buchan, P. Ducheine, D.P. Fidler, C. Focarelli, T.D. Gill, K. Heath, C. Henderson, P. Kastner, U. Kohl, F. Megret, E. Myjer, H. Nasu, A. Rahmatian, M. Roscini, N.C. Rowe, B. Saul, M. Schmitt, H. Trezise, N. Tsagourias, D. Turns, R.A. Wessel, K. Ziolkowski

In the context of the technological disruption of law and, in particular, the prospect of governance by machines, this book reconsiders the demand that we should respect the law, simply because it is the law. What does 'the law' need to look like to justify our respect? Responding to this question, the book takes the form of a dialectic between, on the one side, the promise of the prospectus for law and, on the other, the discontent provoked by the performance of law in practice; this is followed by a synthesis. Four pictures of law are considered: two are traditional pictures - law as order and law as just order; and two are prompted by the technological disruption of law - law as governance by machines and law as self-governance by humans. These pictures are tested in five performance areas: contract law, criminal law, biolaw, information law, and constitutional law. The synthesis, revealing the complexity of the demand for respect, highlights three particular points. First, the only prospectus for law that clearly commands respect is one that is committed to protecting the global commons (the preconditions for humans to form their own communities with their own forms of governance); second, any form of governance by humans will invite reservations and push-back against the demand for respect; and, third, governance by machines is not so much a superior form of governance as a radically different form in which questions about respect are redundant. This book will appeal to scholars and students with interests in the broad and burgeoning field of law, regulation and technology, as well as to legal theorists, practitioners, and others interested in the impact of new technology on law.

Cybercrime continues to skyrocket but we are not combatting it effectively yet. We need more cybercrime investigators from all backgrounds and working in every sector to conduct effective investigations. This book is a comprehensive resource for everyone who encounters and investigates cybercrime, no matter their title, including those working on behalf of law enforcement, private organizations, regulatory agencies, or individual victims. It provides helpful background material about cybercrime's technological and legal underpinnings, plus in-depth detail about the legal and practical aspects of conducting cybercrime investigations. Key features of this book include: Understanding cybercrime, computers, forensics, and cybersecurity Law for the cybercrime investigator, including cybercrime offenses; cyber evidence-gathering; criminal, private and regulatory law, and nation-state implications Cybercrime investigation from three key perspectives: law enforcement, private sector, and regulatory Financial investigation Identification (attribution) of cyber-conduct Apprehension Litigation in the criminal and civil arenas. This far-reaching book is an essential reference for prosecutors and law enforcement officers, agents and analysts; as well as for private sector lawyers, consultants, information security professionals, digital forensic examiners, and more. It also functions as an excellent course book for educators and trainers. We need more investigators who know how to fight cybercrime, and this book was written to achieve that goal. Authored by two former cybercrime prosecutors with a diverse array of expertise in criminal justice and the private sector, this book is informative, practical, and readable, with innovative methods and fascinating anecdotes throughout.

This book examines the challenges posed to Australian copyright law by streaming, from the end-user perspective. It compares the Australian position with the European Union and United States to draw lessons from them, regarding how they have dealt with streaming and copyright. By critically examining the technological functionality of streaming and the failure of copyright enforcement against the masses, it argues for strengthening end-user rights. The rising popularity of streaming has resulted in a revolutionary change to how digital content, such as sound recordings, cinematographic films, and radio and television broadcasts, is used on the internet. Superseding the conventional method of downloading, using streaming to access digital content has challenged copyright law, because it is not clear whether end-user acts of streaming constitute copyright infringement. These prevailing grey areas between copyright and streaming often make end-users feel doubtful about accessing digital content through streaming. It is uncertain whether exercising the right of reproduction is appropriately suited for streaming, given the ambiguities of "embodiment" and scope of "substantial part". Conversely, the fair dealing defence in Australia cannot be used aptly to defend end-users' acts of streaming digital content, because end-users who use streaming to access digital content can rarely rely on the defence of fair dealing for the purposes of criticism or review, news reporting, parody or satire, or research or study. When considering a temporary copy exception, end-users are at risk of being held liable for infringement when using streaming to access a website that contains infringing digital content, even if they lack any knowledge about the content's infringing nature. Moreover, the grey areas in circumventing geo-blocking have made end-users hesitant to access websites through streaming because it is not clear whether technological protection measures apply to geo-blocking. End-users have a severe lack of knowledge about whether they can use circumvention methods, such as virtual private networks, to access streaming websites without being held liable for copyright infringement. Despite the intricacies between copyright and access to digital content, the recently implemented website-blocking laws have emboldened copyright owners while suppressing end-users' access to digital content. This is because the principles of proportionality and public interest have been given less attention when determining website-blocking injunctions.

Virtual currencies, particularly crypt-currencies, have been identified as potential money laundering and terrorism financing instruments due to their ability to transfer money anonymously and instantaneously over the globe. Governments and regulators have also recognized the need to more closely monitor and track virtual currency purchases and accounts to avoid the industry being exploited for money laundering or terrorism financing purposes, as explained in this book. The broad overview of various international legal approaches attempting to address this issue would be a great resource for legal and anti-money laundering or counter terrorism financing graduate students, scholars and practitioners interested in virtual currencies research.' - Raymond Choo, University of South Australia'This book is a comprehensive, highly detailed review of cybercrime and the issues raised by gambling in virtual environments. It makes an excellent contribution to the evolving discussion about the risks and controls relating to these activities. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in financial crime and virtual environments from an international perspective.' - Liz Falconer, University of the West of England, UK In this unique book, the authors examine the relationship between real world legislation and new advancements in technology, showing how this can lead to loopholes in legislative protection. They draw on empirical research to highlight the jurisprudential issues relating to economic internet crime and digital currencies. Advancements in technology have seen gambling behavior transverse a new path. The law has not kept pace with such advances, leaving grey areas of concern undiscussed and unregulated.The authors provide a critical discussion on laws relating to gambling in virtual worlds, commenting that terms such as 'virtual' or fantasy are unhelpful in promoting effective legislation. The discussion reveals how virtual world gambling can lead on to other criminal acts within virtual worlds, and specifically examines the notion of cybercrime, economic internet crime and the problems associated with digital currencies. The book concludes by presenting the case for joined up national and international legislation to tackle virtual world crimes effectively. This distinctive study will appeal to researchers and advanced students with an interest in cybercrime, economic internet crime and virtual economies. Practitioners, policy-makers and law enforcement officers will find this book informative in promoting suitable legislation to encompass new technologies in economic crime. Contents: 1. Introduction to Virtual Worlds and Gambling 2. Cybercrime Critical Literature Review 3. Global and Virtual Gambling Legislation 4. International Measures Regulating Online Gambling 5. Global Regulation on Financial Crime 6. Digital Currencies and Financial Crime Conclusion and Recommendations Index

This book examines the risks to freedom of expression, particularly in relation to the internet, as a result of regulation introduced in response to terrorist threats. The work explores the challenges of maintaining security in the fight against traditional terrorism while protecting fundamental freedoms, particularly online freedom of expression. The topics discussed include the clash between freedom of speech and national security; the multijurisdictional nature of the internet and the implications for national sovereignty and transnational legal structures; how to determine legitimate and illegitimate association online; and the implications for privacy and data protection. The book presents a theoretical analysis combined with empirical research to demonstrate the difficulty of combatting internet use by terror organizations or individuals and the range of remedies that might be drawn from national and international law. The work will be essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers in the areas of Constitutional law; Criminal Law, European and International law, Information and Technology law and Security Studies.

Scientific research is fundamental to addressing issues of great importance to the development of human knowledge. Scientific research fuels advances in medicine, technology and other areas important to society and has to be credible, trustworthy and able to command confidence in the face of inevitable uncertainties. Scientific researchers must be trusted and respected when they engage with knowledge acquisition and dissemination and as ethical guardians in their education and training roles of future generations of researchers. The core values of scientific research transcend disciplinary and national boundaries and approaches to the organisation and oversight of research systems can impact significantly upon the ethics and conduct of researchers. This book draws upon legal expertise to critically analyse issues of regulation, conduct and ethics at the important interface between scientific research and regulatory and legal environments. In so doing it aims to contribute important additional perspectives to the existing literature. Case studies are engaged with to assist with the critical analysis of the current position and the consideration of future possibilities. The book will be of interest to academics in the fields of science, law and policy; science and law students; and scientific researchers at more advanced stages of their careers. Research professionals in government and the private sector and legal practitioners with interests in the regulation of research should also find the work of interest.

This book analyses the phenomenon of digitally mediated property and considers how it problematises the boundary between human and nonhuman actors. The book addresses the increasingly porous border between personhood and property in digitized settings and considers how the increased commodification of knowledge makes visible a rupture in the liberal concept of the property owning, free, person. Engaging with the latest work in posthumanist and new materialist theory, it shows, how property as a concept as well as a means for control, changes fundamentally under advanced capitalism. Such change is exemplified by the way in which data, as an object of commodification, is extracted from human activities yet is also directly used to affectively control - or nudge - humans. Taking up a range of human engagements with digital platforms and coded architectures, as well as the circulation of affects through practices of artificial intelligence that are employed to shape behaviour, the book argues that property now needs to be understood according to an ecology of human as well as nonhuman actors. The idea of posthuman property, then, offers both a means to critique property control through digital technologies, as well as to move beyond the notion of the self-owning, object-owning, human. Engaging the most challenging contemporary technological developments, this book will appeal to researchers in the areas of Law and Technology, Legal Theory, Intellectual Property Law, Legal Philosophy, Sociology of Law, Sociology, and Media Studies.

Cyberspace is a difficult area for lawyers and lawmakers. With no physical constraining borders, the question of who is the legitimate lawmaker for cyberspace is complex. Rethinking the Jurisprudence of Cyberspace examines how laws can gain legitimacy in cyberspace and identifies the limits of the law?s authority in this space. Two key questions are central to the book: Who has authority to make laws within cyberspace and how do laws in cyberspace achieve legitimacy? Chris Reed and Andrew Murray answer these questions by examining the jurisprudential principles that explain law in the physical world and rethinking them for the cyberworld. In doing so they establish that cyberlaw is more similar to traditional law than previously thought, but that establishing legitimate authority is quite different. This book provides the first thorough examination of the jurisprudence of cyberspace law, asking why any law should be obeyed and how the rule of law is to be maintained there. Academics and researchers who are interested in the regulation of cyberspace will find this to be a compelling study. More broadly, it will appeal to those researching in the fields of transnational legal studies, jurisprudence and legal thought.

The Internet is not an unchartered territory. On the Internet, norms matter. They interact, regulate, are contested and legitimated by multiple actors. But are they diverse and unstructured, or are they part of a recognizable order? And if the latter, what does this order look like? This collected volume explores these key questions while providing new perspectives on the role of law in times of digitality. The book compares six different areas of law that have been particularly exposed to global digitality, namely laws regulating consumer contracts, data protection, the media, financial markets, criminal activity and intellectual property law. By comparing how these very different areas of law have evolved with regard to cross-border online situations, the book considers whether cyberlaw is little more than "the law of the horse", or whether the law of global digitality is indeed special and, if so, what its characteristics across various areas of law are. The book brings together legal academics with expertise in how law has both reacted to and shaped cross-border, global Internet communication and their contributions consider whether it is possible to identify a particular mediality of law in the digital age. Examining whether a global law of digitality has truly emerged, this book will appeal to academics, students and practitioners of law examining the future of the law of digitality as it intersects with traditional categories of law.

This book seeks to provide and promote a better understanding and a more responsive and inclusive governance of the automation and digital devices in public institutions, particularly the law and justice sector. Concerns related to AI design and use have been exacerbated recently with the recognition of the discriminatory potential that can be embedded into AI applications in public service institutions. This book examines issues relating to the assigning of responsibility in a public service produced and delivered on the basis of an automated mechanism. It encourages critical thinking about the legal services and the justice institutions as they are transformed by AI and automation. It raises awareness as to the prospect of transformation we face in terms of responsibility and of agency and the need to design a citizen-centered and human rights compliant system of technology assessment and AI monitoring and evaluation. The book calls for a comprehensive strategy to enable professional practitioners and decision makers to engage in the design of AI driven legal and justice services. The work draws on on-going research and consulting activities carried out by the author across different countries and different systems in the legal and justice sector. The book offers a critical approach to encourage a new mindset among legal professionals and the justice institutions thus empowering and training them to develop the necessary responsiveness and accountability in the justice sector and legal systems. It will also be of interest to researchers and academics working in the area of AI, Public Law, Human Rights and Criminal Justice.

i) Several heated topics on internet regulations are examined. ii) The WTO case law method is applied. iii) The author of this book is a professor from one of the top institutes in China. iv) General readers interested in China's cyber law and international public law are also welcome to read this book. v) The Chinese version of this title sold over 3500 copies.

This work argues that current cryptocurrency regulation, particularly in the areas of enforcement and compliance, is inadequate. It proposes reflexive regulation as an alternative approach. This book provides strategies for a reflexive regulation approach to cryptocurrencies, developed through the identification of the internal self-regulatory mechanisms of the cryptocurrency system. Apportioning blame for current problems to the regulators' failure to take into account the inherent technical features of cryptocurrencies, the work promotes reflexive regulation in which the law acts at a subsystem-specific level to install, correct, and redefine democratic self-regulatory mechanisms. It provides strategies for this approach, developed through the identification of the internal self-regulatory mechanisms of the cryptocurrency system. These are identified as imbedded in the technical functionality of computer code and consensus-based distributive governance mechanisms respectively. In addition to providing a technical, historical and legal overview of cryptocurrencies, the book concludes by providing recommendations aimed at redirecting code and consensus towards achieving regulatory goals. In this way, it draws from the theory of reflexive law, in order to provide both a substantive and jurisprudential perspective on the regulation of cryptocurrencies and to illustrate how Financial Technology (Fintech) regulation can only be effective once regulators consider both the 'Fin' and the 'tech' in their regulatory approaches. The book will be of interest to researchers, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of Financial Regulation and Jurisprudence, Financial Crime, Banking Regulation, Information Systems, and Information Technology.

This book critically confronts perceptions that social media has become a 'wasteland' for young people. Law has become preoccupied with privacy, intellectual property, defamation and criminal behaviour in and through social media. In the case of children and youth, this book argues, these preoccupations - whilst important - have disguised and distracted public debate away from a much broader, and more positive, consideration of the nature of social media. In particular, the legal tendency to consider social media as 'dangerous' for young people - to focus exclusively on the need to protect and control their online presence and privacy, whilst tending to suspect, or to criminalise, their use of it - has obscured the potential of social media to help young people to participate more fully as citizens in society. Drawing on sociological work on the construction of childhood, and engaging a wide range of national and international legal material, this book argues that social media may yet offer the possibility of an entirely different - and more progressive -conceptualisation of children and youth.

This book helps lawyers, practitioners, legislators and students understand and cope with the challenges of e-commerce, and to learn about the most up-to-date technology and regulation of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). It introduces different forms of online dispute resolution, against the background of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) developments in the off-line environment; crucially, it examines the current technology and legal status of ODR in the EU, US, Asia and Australia, and discusses the relations between the various parties in dispute resolutions, especially the Fifth party for the provider of the technology. It further analyses the four most successful examples, such as Michigan Cybercourt, WIPO-UDRP, eBay-SquareTrade and AAA-CyberSettle. Finally, a proposal for resolving e-contract disputes via ODR is provided, and a code of conduct recommended in order to regulate the electronic commerce market.
Based on exclusive research and up-to-date best practices within the online dispute resolution fieldSimple and clear with an in-depth analysis and of a wide range of topics such as technology, management and lawProvides practical solutions to real-world problems with a proposal of core principles and codes of conduct, which is of great value in academia and legislative organizations such as the European Commission and UNCITRAL

This volume presents new research in artificial intelligence (AI) and Law with special reference to criminal justice. It brings together leading international experts including computer scientists, lawyers, judges and cyber-psychologists. The book examines some of the core problems that technology raises for criminal law ranging from privacy and data protection, to cyber-warfare, through to the theft of virtual property. Focusing on the West and China, the work considers the issue of AI and the Law in a comparative context presenting the research from a cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary approach. As China becomes a global leader in AI and technology, the book provides an essential in-depth understanding of domestic laws in both Western jurisdictions and China on criminal liability for cybercrime. As such, it will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of AI, technology and criminal justice.

Class actions in privacy law are rapidly growing as a legal vehicle for citizens around the world to hold corporations liable for privacy violations. Current and future developments in these class actions stand to shift the corporate liability landscape for companies that interact with people's personal information. Privacy class actions are at the intersection of civil litigation, privacy law, and data protection. Developments in privacy class actions raise complex issues of substantive law as well as challenges to the established procedures governing class action litigation. Their outcomes are integral to the evolution of privacy law and data protection law across jurisdictions. This book brings together established scholars in privacy law, data protection law, and collective litigation to offer a detailed perspective on the present and future of collective litigation for privacy claims. Taking a comparative approach, this book incorporates considerations from consumer protection law, procedural law, cross-border litigation, tort law, and data protection law, which are key to understanding the development of privacy class actions. In doing so, it offers an analysis of the novel challenges they pose for courts, regulatory agencies, scholars, and litigators, together with their potential solutions.

Digital Totalitarianism: Algorithms and Society focuses on important challenges to democratic values posed by our computational regimes: policing the freedom of inquiry, risks to the personal autonomy of thought, NeoLiberal management of human creativity, and the collapse of critical thinking with the social media fueled rise of conspiranoia. Digital networks allow for a granularity and pervasiveness of surveillance by government and corporate entities. This creates power asymmetries where each citizen's daily 'data exhaust' can be used for manipulative and controlling ends by powerful institutional actors. This volume explores key erosions in our fundamental human values associated with free societies by covering government surveillance of library-based activities, cognitive enhancement debates, the increasing business orientation of art schools, and the proliferation of conspiracy theories in network media. Scholars and students from many backgrounds, as well as policy makers, journalists and the general reading public will find a multidisciplinary approach to questions of totalitarian tendencies encompassing research from Communication, Rhetoric, Library Sciences, Art and New Media.

In 1918 a young Carl Schmitt published a short satirical fiction entitled The Buribunks. He imagined a future society of beings who consistently wrote and disseminated their personal diaries. Schmitt would go on to become the infamous philosopher of the exception and for a while the 'Crown Jurist of the Third Reich'. The Buribunks - ironically for beings that lived only for self-memorialisation - has been mostly lost to history. However, the digital realm, with its emphasis on the informatic traces generated by human doing, and the continual interest in Schmitt's work to explain and criticise contemporary constellations of power, suggests that The Buribunks is a text whose epoch has come. This volume includes the first full translation into English of The Buribunks and a selection of critical essays on the text, its meanings in the digital present, its playing with and criticism of the literary form, and its place within Schmitt's life and work. The Buribunks and the essays provide a complex, critical and provocative invitation to reimagine the relations between the human and their imprint and legacy within archives and repositories. There is a fundamental exploration of what it means to be a being intensely aware of 'writing itself'. This is not just a volume for critical lawyers, literary scholars and the Schmitt literati. It is a volume that challenges a broad range of disciplines, from philosophy to critical data studies, to reflect on the digital present and its assembled and curated beings. It is a volume that provides a set of fantastically located concepts, images and histories that traverse ideas and practices, play and politics, power and possibility.