Legal informatics presentations at e-Government Konferenz 2013

Several legal informatics presentations are listed in the program for e-Government Konferenz 2013, to be held 11-12 June 2013, in Linz, Austria:

• Mag Michael Fuchs & Mag Markus Poplari: Aktuelles zum Zentralen Personenstandsregister
• Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Michael Glatz: Justiz 3.0
• Dipl.-Ing. Christian Habernig: ePartizipation in Wien
• ADir. Thomas Halwachs & Mag Gerhard Köhle: Durchgängiges e-Government zwischen Verwaltung, Wirtschaft und Bürger/innen am Beispiel des Zentralen Waffenregister (ZWR)
• Gerhard Hartmann: „Wien stellt ‚e‘ zu“ – Die elektronische Zustellung von behördlichen Dokumenten
• Dipl.-Ing. Herbert Hüttenbrenner: Plattformübergreifende Registereinbindung
• Dipl.-Ing. Robert Ortner & Martin Mitter: eFWP elektronischer Flächenwidmungsplan, Abwicklung von Umwidmungsverfahren
• Dr Arne Tauber: Elektronische Signatur – Quo Vadis: ein Rückblick und ein Ausblick
• Prof. Dr. Arthur Winter: Österreichische Registerlandschaft

Clark on E-Conveyancing in Australia

Professor Dr. Eugene Clark of Griffith University School of Business has published E-Conveyancing in Australia: An Important Step Along the Journey to E-government, Journal of Law, Information, and Science, 21(1) (2011).

Here is the abstract:

This article has two broad objectives. First, it reports on progress towards achieving the Australian National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS). Secondly, the article analyses the significance of the NECS in the general context of e-Government. The NECS project was established by Australian state and territory governments in 2005 and significant progress has been made over the past five years. When the NECS is completed, conveyancers, legal practitioners, financial institutions, mortgage processors and other players involved in conveyancing will be able to access the NECS online with an electronic workspace provided for each property transaction.

The system will allow users to provide, secure, certify and sign documentation. Digital Signature Certificates (DSCs) will ensure authentication and prevent repudiation and various risk mitigation and fraud prevention measures will be taken. Financial settlement will occur through the Reserve Bank’s Information and Transfer System (RITS) and the State and Territory Revenue Offices will receive duty and tax payments electronically. Consumers will be able to track the progress of their transaction via limited Internet access to the NECS. Financial institutions will be able to integrate their services and mortgage documentation systems with the NEC system. Collectively, the NECS is an excellent example of the substantive and procedural challenges involved in making e-government a reality.

Mason and Bromby on Electronic Identification, Authentication and Signatures in the European Digital Single Market

Stephen Mason, Barrister, and Dr. Michael Bromby of Glasgow Caledonian University, have published Response to Digital Agenda for Europe: Electronic identification, authentication and signatures in the European digital single market. Public consultation, European Journal of Law and Technology, 3(1) (2012).

Here are the authors’ recommendations:

It is recommended that the EU consider each item [that is the subject of the consultation] (electronic identification, electronic authentication and electronic signatures) separately.

Each Member State of the EU has implemented the Directive on electronic signatures in a different way, taking into account their legal and cultural norms. The way the Directive has been implemented has not caused e-commerce to fail. No evidence has been put forward to suggest that e-commerce between Member States is not effective because of the way electronic signatures are implemented in different Member States. It is recommended that in relation to Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures, OJ L 13, 19.01.2000, p.12, the EU either:

• repeal the Directive, or
• alter the Directive to be a Regulation, or
• repeal those parts of the Directive dealing with the technical details relating to advanced electronic signatures and qualified electronic signatures.

For more information, please see the complete article.

Legal Informatics Papers at Cyberspace 11 Conference

Several papers on legal informatics — click here for abstracts — were presented at the Cyberspace 11 Conference, held 25-26 November 2011 in Brno, Czech Republic.

Legal informatics papers appear in the “Legal Informatics” panel of the conference, and also in several other parts of the conference. For full text of papers, please contact the authors.

Le Métayer et al. on Liability Issues in Software Engineering: Case Study of eSignatures

Daniel Le Métayer of INRIA Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes, and colleagues, have published Liability Issues in Software Engineering: The Use of Formal Methods to Reduce Legal Uncertainties, Communications of the ACM, 54(4), 99-106 (April 2010). Here is the abstract:

This paper reports on the results of a multidisciplinary project involving lawyers and computer scientists with the aim to put forward a set of methods and tools to (1) define software liability in a precise and unambiguous way and (2) establish such liability in case of incident. The overall approach taken in the project is presented through an electronic signature case study. The case study illustrates a situation where, in order to reduce legal uncertainties, the parties wish to include in the contract specific clauses to define as precisely as possible the share of liabilities between them for the main types of failures of the system.

European eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015

The European eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015 has been posted.

The plan includes several legal informatics components, including eSignatures, eIdentity, and online access to laws.

HT Jacques Raybaut.

European e-CODEX Project Website Available

e-CODEX, a new European legal information systems interoperability project, apparently coordinated by the European Commission Directorate-General Justice, has been described on a new Website.

e-CODEX appears to be intended to “support the further development of the European e-Justice portal,” and to carry out interoperability goals expressed in “The Council Action Plan on European e-Justice,” and the European Commission’s report, “Towards a European e-Justice Strategy.”

According to the Website, the project will work on the following topics/functions:

• “e-Identity-management for natural and legal persons, roles,
  mandates and rights, user authentication and authorization
• e-Signatures, verification and implementation
• e-Payment
• e-Filing, exchange of documents and data
• document standards.”

HT Ronald van den Hoogen.

New 2010 Issue: Digital Evidence & Electronic Signature Law Review

A new issue, designated volume 7, 2010, of Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review has been published. The new issue contains many articles of potential interest to legal informatics researchers.

Kubiak et al. on Mediated Signatures: Towards Undeniability of Digital Data in Technical and Legal Framework

Przemyslaw Kubiak of Politechnika Wrocławska, and colleagues, presented a paper entitled Mediated Signatures – Towards Undeniability of Digital Data in Technical and Legal Framework, at LIT 2010: The 3rd Workshop on Legal Informatics and Legal Information Technology, held 3 May 2010, in Berlin, Germany, in conjunction with BIS 2010: The 13th International Conference on Business Information Systems. Here is the abstract of the paper:

We present an approach different from the classical framework of qualified electronic signatures that seem to offer much better properties regarding usability, costs, risk level as well as security in technical sense. Our approach is based on mediated signatures and chaining mechanisms that replace time stamping services.

For the full text of the paper, please contact the authors.

Call for Papers: LSPI 2010: International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Law

A call for papers — with submission deadlines for papers of 10 September 2010 and for abstract presentations of 15 October 2010 — has been issued for LSPI 2010: International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Law, to be held 3-5 November 2010 in Barcelona, Spain.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

• “Cybercrime
• E-signatures
• E-forensics and Evidence
• Email monitoring and privacy issues in the workplace
• Data retention & protection
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Contract and Tort
• Virtual Companies
• E-commerce law
• Media & entertainment law
• Data mining
• Internet Freedom Phishing, virus, malware etc.
• Trustmarks Legal risks and protection strategies
• E-government & E-democracy
• Privacy, Virology and security issues
• Jurisdiction in Cyberspace
• Cloud computing
• Online gaming
• Mobile technology
• Robots & Intelligent agents
• Consumer Protection
• Cross-border ADR and Litigation
• Content Regulation and Liability Issues
• Telecommunication law and technology
• Licensing and franchising
• IT Outsourcing
• Taxation of cross-border transactions
• Jurisdictional barriers to regulation and enforcement
• E-trade
• Audio-visual technology
• Broadband technology
• Virtual worlds: regulation and taxation issues
• Biometrics
• Risk Management
• Brain Computer Interfaces”

For more information, please see the call for papers.