Forget About It?

While scholarly attention largely gravitates towards the debate on regional versus global delisting under EU law, this paper scrutinizes the Google v CNIL ruling concerning the conditions and methods of EU-wide delisting in light of the preliminary reference questions posed. The focus lies in the intricate analysis absent from the dispositif, which leaves many complexities to the evaluation of the national data protection authorities and the courts, and, concerningly, to the solely discretion of the search engine operators. Nuanced analyses absent from the dispositif address the crucial aspects in defining the territorial scope such as the role of geo-blocking, the possible public interest variations within the EU and the regulatory cooperation frameworks, particularly in light of Google’s standard delisting procedure. Furthermore, the research highlights the concerns about the varying levels of protection for EU citizens, contrasting the delisting procedure before the search engine operator and the formal proceedings involving the data protection authorities and the courts. By exploring a significant decision by the Belgian data protection authority, the author illustrates the possibilities for regulatory cooperation to achieve a cohesive and comprehensive approach to EU-wide delisting. The author advocates for regulatory transparency in this legal area and explicit guidance from the European Data Protection Board toward ensuring that the “right to be forgotten” is applied consistently and in a manner that genuinely protects individuals’ rights across the EU.

ABSTRACTEuropean data protection aims to protect the privacy and related rights of individuals, purposes which come into tension with the free speech of professional journalism. Moreover, statutory Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) act as the ‘guardians’ of the data protection framework across the European Economic Area. In light of this, the article explores the enforcement efforts of these critical actors through both a DPA questionnaire and a DPA website review. The results indicate that, notwithstanding stringent statutory provisions enforceable by DPAs in many Member States, activity has been patchy even in areas which raise limited free speech concern (e.g. tackling significant inaccuracy). Nevertheless, many DPAs do engage in this area especially when sensitive or important confidential information is involved. The stringency of local law also positively correlates with the extent of enforcement, whilst the level of resourcing surprisingly does not. The article proposes action by both Member States and DPAs to ensure more regulatory coherence under the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation.

With the continuous development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photography and mapping technology, there are more and more air-to-ground information acquisition methods, which provide more choices for both industry and entertainment. Under the help of drones, operators can obtain and collect information on the ground, and air-to-ground images are often the convenient types. However, the issue of privacy protection can not be ignored here. In special situations, it will violate the right of privacy. Faced with such a problem, how to properly prevent privacy leakage and protect air-to-ground information security has become an unavoidable topic. In this paper, we make a detailed survey to summarize the relevant both technical and legal issues. Specially, the whole survey can be divided into four main parts: overview of airborne optical equipment, possible privacy infringement methods based on drones, privacy protection in drones applications and related legal aspects. Based on the survey content in this article, we can set up several valuable research directions in this field and improve the privacy protection in civilian drones applications. More effective privacy protection methods will also be applied to industry to enhance the application effect of UAV aerial photography technology.

‘Private jurisprudence’ and the right to be forgotten balancing test

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, its application in the field of psychological counseling is gradually increasing. With its efficient and convenient characteristics, AI psychological counseling provides psychological support and help for more people. However, this process also comes with a host of ethical issues, particularly privacy and data protection challenges. This paper aims to explore the ethical issues of privacy and data protection in AI psychological counseling, and put forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to promote the healthy development of AI psychological counseling. The research results show that although AI psychological counseling has the advantages of efficiency and convenience, there are also ethical issues such as privacy protection, data abuse, and human emotion neglect. This paper proposes to ensure the healthy development of AI psychological counseling by strengthening legal supervision, enhancing the ethical awareness of AI technology, and promoting human-computer collaboration.

The rapid development of smart technologies and digital infrastructure has transformed the way governments and organizations monitor and manage urban environments. Smart societies rely on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things devices, biometric identification systems, and large-scale data analytics to improve public services, enhance security, and optimize urban management. Digital surveillance systems have become a central component of smart city governance by enabling real time monitoring of public spaces, transportation systems, communication networks, and citizen activities. While these technologies provide numerous benefits in terms of public safety, crime prevention, and efficient resource management, they also raise significant concerns regarding privacy protection and civil liberties. Digital surveillance technologies collect and analyze vast amounts of personal and behavioral data, which may create risks related to unauthorized monitoring, data misuse, and excessive governmental control. Civil liberty advocates argue that widespread surveillance may undermine fundamental democratic principles such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to privacy. As smart societies continue to expand the use of surveillance technologies, it becomes increasingly important to understand how these systems influence public perceptions of privacy, governance transparency, and civil rights protection. This study analyzes the effect of digital surveillance systems on civil liberties within smart societies. The research develops a conceptual model that examines the relationships between digital surveillance intensity, perceived privacy risk, governance transparency, and protection of civil liberties. Data were collected from citizens, technology professionals, and policy analysts involved in smart city initiatives. Structural Equation Modeling using Smart Partial Least Squares was employed to test the relationships between constructs. The results indicate that increased digital surveillance intensity significantly raises perceived privacy risks among citizens. However, governance transparency and regulatory oversight mechanisms play a critical role in mitigating negative perceptions and protecting civil liberties. The study contributes to digital governance and technology policy research by providing empirical insights into the complex relationship between surveillance technologies and civil liberty protection in smart societies. The findings highlight the need for balanced governance frameworks that ensure security benefits while safeguarding individual rights and democratic values.

Objective: This paper analyzes the literature on the topic of privacy protection based on the core databases included in China Knowledge Network (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS) from 1976 to 2022, and provides reference for the subsequent research on privacy protection in China by comparing and summarizing the status of domestic and foreign research. Methods: The Web of science core collection database was used as the foreign data source, and the China Knowledge Network database was used as the domestic data source to retrieve the relevant literature built up to August 2, 2022, and the authors, countries, institutions, and keywords were compared and visualized by CiteSpace 6.1.R2 (64-bit). Results: A total of 8223 English-language and 4573 Chinese-language papers were included, and the number of relevant studies both at home and abroad was on the rise. Foreign scholars and institutions cooperate closely with each other and build a stable cooperation network; while the number of domestic research teams is small and cooperation is limited. Privacy concern and privacy protection are common research focuses at home and abroad, while foreign research focuses on online privacy concern and domestic research pays more attention to computer science privacy protection model. Privacy information is a current international research hotspot, and domestic AI privacy protection concerns are high. Conclusion: Domestic and foreign research in this field is increasingly concerned but each has its own focus, and domestic research has problems such as lack of cooperation and lagging research that need to be improved, and privacy protection is a direction worthy of in-depth research in the future.

Mobile edge computing (MEC) technology is widely used for real‐time and bandwidth‐intensive services, but its underlying heterogeneous architecture may lead to a variety of security and privacy issues. Blockchain provides novel solutions for data security and privacy protection in MEC. However, the scalability of traditional blockchain is difficult to meet the requirements of real‐time data processing, and the consensus mechanism is not suitable for resource‐constrained devices. Moreover, the access control of MEC data needs to be further improved. Given the above problems, a data privacy protection model based on sharding blockchain and access control is designed in this paper. First, a privacy‐preserving platform based on a sharding blockchain is designed. Reputation calculation and improved Proof‐of‐Work (PoW) consensus mechanism are proposed to accommodate resource‐constrained edge devices. The incentive mechanism with rewards and punishments is designed to constrain node behavior. A reward allocation algorithm is proposed to encourage nodes to actively contribute to obtaining more rewards. Second, an access control strategy using ciphertext policy attribute‐based encryption (CP‐ABE) and RSA is designed. A smart contract is deployed to implement the automatic access control function. The InterPlanetary File System is introduced to alleviate the blockchain storage burden. Finally, we analyze the security of the proposed privacy protection model and statistics of the GAS consumed by the access control policy. The experimental results show that the proposed data privacy protection model achieves fine‐grained control of access rights, and has higher throughput and security than traditional blockchain.

Along with the rapid development of information technology, people’s private information rapidly spread to the cyberspace. In the cyberspace, the disclosure of privacy is closely related to personal reputation and property interests, so that the protection of network privacy has become a popular and the most difficult matters today. Faced with the present situation of China’s legal system, the protection of network privacy is obviously insufficient compared with the developed countries. There are defects in the protection of network privacy which need to be further improved. The government must accelerate the development of the legal system to strengthen the protection of citizens’ online data and information. Only in this way, the citizens’ network privacy will not be infringed upon, and the internet will be fully utilized. In this paper, the related concepts of network privacy are introduced first. Then, the behavior mode and characteristics of violating the network privacy right is deeply analyzed. Finally, the problems and causes of the legal protection of network privacy in China is fully discussed and several suggestions are given in the end. The research conclusion of this paper can provide a reference for relevant legislation and personal network privacy protection.

With the rapid development of information technology, digital media has become an important part of people's daily lives. From social media to online shopping, from cloud computing to artificial intelligence, digital media not only greatly enriches people's lifestyles, but also brings unprecedented data privacy protection challenges. In particular, the wide application of computational big models (e.g., deep learning models, natural language processing models, etc.) has further exacerbated the complexity of data privacy protection. This paper aims to explore the privacy protection mechanism of digital media based on computational big models and analyse the resulting problematic use behaviour, with a view to providing references for research and practice in related fields, delving into the development of the convergence of computational big models and digital media, analyzing the manifestation of problematic use behaviors and privacy issues in digital media, exploring the challenges and countermeasures to prevent the privacy issues, and presenting the challenges and countermeasures to prevent privacy issues in digital media privacy protection mechanism under the computational big model. Successful privacy protection experiences and lessons of problematic use behaviors leading to privacy issues are summarized through case studies. Finally, the research results are summarized and future trends and research directions are outlined.

Regulating online search in the EU: From the android case to the digital markets act and digital services act

The First Freedoms and America's Culture of Innovation: The Constitutional Foundations of Aspirational Society. Narain D. Batra. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. 255 pp. $75 hardback.Discovering truth, voting wisely, and realizing one's identity; is trio of wellestablished justifications for protecting speech under First Amendment to U.S. Constitution, corresponding, respectively, to free-expression theories known as marketplace of ideas, democratic self-governance, and autonomy/human dignity.To this list, Narain D. Batra now adds another important free-speech value-innovation-in his timely and example-packed tome, The First Freedoms and America's Culture of Innovation. A professor of communications at Norwich University in Vermont who also writes for media outlets in India, Batra's thesis in his latest book is clear:The First Amendment provides Americans with essential cultural environment, primordial soup or embryonic conditions, for innovations to develop regardless of process, whether is recombinant, serendipitous, or simply someone fiddling and tinkering in garage or with iPad.Citing and channeling Justice Louis Brandeis' 1927 contention from Whitney v. California that it is function of speech to free men from bondage of irrational fears, Batra asserts that First Amendment creates spaces for innovative behavior by freeing us from irrational fears (whether is stem cell research for life enhancement or redefining idea of marriage by applying Fourteenth Amendment to gay marriage rights).But First Amendment and culture of innovation facilitates are only two of necessary conditions for making United States an aspirational society. The other variables, Batra believes, are steady influx of immigrants that produces brain flow and an open economic marketplace (not simply metaphorical marketplace of ideas). Simply put, takes free speech, free markets and freed-not free-brains.One strength of this book is author's ability to surf pop-cultural realm to illustrate larger points about free speech, communication technologies, innovation and aspirational society. On page 22, we find erstwhile California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger landing in hot political and cultural waters for Saturday Night Liveinfused crack about special interests, unions, and trial lawyers being girlie men. Exactly sixty pages later, we catch singer-actress Courtney Love diving into very different cauldron of hot water for tweeting allegedly defamatory remarks about clothing designer. And then there is Donald Trump's The Apprentice, characterized as a most spectacular materialization of myth of aspirational society.But these references are not to say that book fails to approach its topics with gravitas. Batra's chapter on China is excellent and, from an American perspective, almost exceedingly optimistic. He ends by pondering whether China has unique cultural power to challenge United States and West. Batra concludes does not. Authoritarian China cannot handle political freedom because does not have American cultural capabilities to do so, Batra writes, adding that the source of unique American cultural capabilities is First Amendment freedoms, which China cannot import without transforming itself into different society, one that will closely resemble United States. …

In this issue

Kelo v. New London: Deciding the First Case Under the New Bill of Rights

Taking a normative analyzing approach, this study summarized the framework of laws and regulations concerning privacy protection and analyzed the legislative problems in the privacy protection in a smart city scenario. Since the laws and regulations for privacy protection are scattered in the Constitution and other existing laws, the privacy protection in China is inevitably scattered in laws of particular areas. Major problems exist in almost all sections in collecting, spreading, storing and using personal information. Basic principles, including collection limitation, data quality, purpose specification, security safeguards, openness, should be followed for the improvement of the legislation of Chinese concerning privacy issues in smart cities.