ESRs Fatma Doğan and Aizhan Abdrassulova at Jagiellonian University’s Researchers Night

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On September 30th, Researchers’ Night is celebrated with various events and activities by Jagiellonian University, the oldest university in Poland. The university opened its doors to show how science is created and prepared many scientific attractions for the guests so that everyone could find something suitable for themselves.

ESR Fatma Doğan attended the “Astronomical Observatory of the Jagiellonian University” event. Unfortunately, due to some unexpected renovation works the event held place online, nevertheless, both ESRs have learned a lot about the mysteries of the universe.

ESR Aizhan Abdrassulova emphasizes the high level of organization of this important event in the scientific world, the university has thought out a system of early registration, ticket issuance, and the opportunity to choose an interesting topic from a wide range of topics presented. Following her personal interests, she attended events about climate problems and the influence of nature on the human body, which were also held online at our university. The events enriched her with new knowledge and gave her the opportunity to discuss her own research with other attendees.

ESRs Louis Sahi and Cristian Lepore at Nuit Europeenne des chercheur.e.s

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On Friday, September 30, more than 170 scientists from all disciplines slip away from their labs and met students at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse for an evening under the sign of science. They had more than 6 hours to discover the museum and join researchers from the three universities of Toulouse to discuss their findings, share experiences, and exchange thoughts about original and offbeat animations.


ESRs Louis Sahi and Cristian Lepore who are Ph.D. researchers at the University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, got the opportunity to discover the present concerns of astronomy and technological research along with LeADS collaborator Ali Kandi. They also had the opportunity to discuss their research with other participants.

 

LeADS at 2022 Researchers’ Night

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LeADS project will be present at the 2022 Researchers’ Night.

Bright Night – Pisa, Italy

ESRs Tommaso Crepax, Robert Poe, Qifan Yang (from SSSA) and Maciej Zuziak (from CNR) will be present at the event organised by Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.

More info here: https://www.lider-lab.it/2022/09/22/bright-night-2022-la-notte-della-ricerca/

Researchers’ Night – Toulouse, France

ESRs Louis Sahi and Cristian Lepore (from UT3) will be present at the event organised by the University of Toulouse III.

More info here: https://nuitdeschercheurs-france.eu/?2022

Researchers’ Night – Athens, Greece

ESRs Armend Duzha and Christos Magkos (from UPRC) will be present at the event organised by the National Technical University of Athens.

More info here: https://www.ntua.gr/ntuaren/

Malopolska 2022 – Krakow, Poland

ESRs Fatma Dogna and Aizhan Abdrassulova (from JU) will be present at the event organised by the Jagiellonian University.

More info here: https://nauka.uj.edu.pl/mnn

 

About Researchers’ Night

The European Researchers’ Night is a Europe-wide public event, which displays the diversity of science and its impact on citizens’ daily lives in fun, inspiring ways. This year, the event will take place in 25 countries on Friday, 30th September 2022.

The European Researchers’ Night aims to

  • bring research and researchers closer to the public
  • promote excellent research projects across Europe and beyond
  • increase the interest of young people in science and research careers
  • showcase the impact of researchers’ work on people’s daily lives

 

 

Workshop “Designing Human Rights Attentive AI – An Interdisciplinary Perspective”

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The LeADS project will co-organize a workshop, titled “Designing Human Rights Attentive AI – An Interdisciplinary Perspective” in a hybrid format at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków on Wednesday 21 September 2022.

Program:

13:30 – Welcome Lunch

14:30 – Welcome Speech JU and introductory remarks by Prof. Giovanni Comandé, Scuola Superior Sant’Anna.

15:00 – Session 1 – “Can we trust “fair AI”? Prof. Salvatore Ruggieri, University of Pisa

15:40 – Session 2 – “Privacy attentive AI in consumer markets: Two stories of business adaptation” Dr. Agnieszka Jablonowska,  European University Institute.

16:20 – Session 3 – “Ethical and Legal Issues in Accessing Biobank Data to develop AI”  Dr. Andrea Parziale, Maastricht University

17:00 – Session 4 – “Explaining AI in Cyber Defence” Dr. Marco Antonio Sotelo, INDRA

17:40 – Session 5 – “Explainability: The Example of fintech” Dr. Angelo Dalli, Umnai Malta.

The workshop close with a general discussion regarding the topics previously debated.

 

For registration, please contact segrliderlab@santannapisa.it

This event will be recorded.

Freedom not Fear 2022 Conference

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From the 2nd– 5 September 2022 “Freedom not Fear” Conference took place in Brussels, Belgium, organized and funded by European activists with the aim of discussing the newest trends in digital rights in Europe. ESR Barbara Lazarotto attended the Conference as a participant, taking part in the discussions and networking with MEPs and other participants.

On the first day of the Conference, the topics discussed were the new European CSA Regulation, the collection of data by European Agencies such as Frontex and Europol, the impact of the AI Act on the banning of biometric surveillance apps such as Clearview, and the proposed new European Electronic Identity System, with the participation of EDRi Network, Statewatch, Epicenter.Works, and Digitalcourage.

The second day had the participation of MEP Marcel Kolaja (member of the Pegasus Committee) to discuss the impacts and the measures against surveillance software such as Pegasus in fundamental rights. Assistants of MEP Patrick Breyer hosted a brainstorming session related to the impacts of ChatControl regulation. Amongst concurrent sessions about Data Retention, ESSIF, and eIDAS. In the afternoon, MEP Karen Melchior hosted a session related to the bad and the good opportunities of the new EU Digital Legislation.

On Monday, the group headed to the European Parliament where they were able to have a tour and also meet with MEPs Patrick Breyer and Cornelia Ernst to discuss the further developments of EU Digital Legislation. In the afternoon the group joined another meeting with MEP Saskia Bricmont where they had the opportunity to learn more about her workings at the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs, the Conference ended with the participants watching a session of the LIBE Committee at the EP.

ACM FAccT Conference & Doctoral colloquim

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The fifth annual ACM FAccT conference brought together individuals interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems. It was held in-person in Seoul, South Korea and online from June 21-24 2022.

Both ESR Xengie Doan attended the conference in person, along with Marietjie Botes from the University of Luxembourg who presented a paper. Xengie applied and was selected to attend the doctoral colloquium.

The doctoral consortium took place in the morning of the 21st. Professor Seth Lazar, with a philosophy background, and Professor Michael L. Littman, with a Computer Science background, began with a conversation about interdisciplinary research. Then, Professor Lazar gave a short introduction of his paper, “Legitimacy, Authority, and the Political Value of Explanations” and ended with valuable insights he learned from doing interdisciplinary research: 1) Don’t focusing too much on trying to have one uber definition to rule them all; 2) beware of false friends in two fields that have fundamental differences. Then the session opened to a Q&A session. Some relevant questions were asked about how to legitimize interdisciplinary research, how to find opportunities, and the mindset to approach research.

After that, the participants had lunch roundtables with mentors, all of whom were distinguished figures in their field. Some were renown professors, some had just spoken on a panel earlier in the day, or some had just found out they won a Distinguished Paper Award at the conference. The mentors were all incredibly kind and willing to give their lunchtime to speak with students.

Following a mentor roundtable, students were put into peer roundtables generally based on topics. Due to my research involving health data, I was put into a group with other PhD students working on health data. There were students in law, AI, and more. We ended up sharing out thesis topics and common issues we were dealing with, such as the opaqueness of ML decisions, the complexity of health data, the overhyping of AI for marketing, and more.

Overall, the FAccT doctoral consortium was a valuable experience that allowed me to meet individuals working on many different fields. It helped me become more knowledgeable and confident working on an interdisciplinary thesis with elements of computer science, privacy, health, and Human Computer Interaction.

AI & Society 2022 Summer School in Pisa

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From the 4th to the 8th of July 2022, the first edition of the “AI & Society Summer School”, organized by the Italian National Ph.D. program in Artificial Intelligence, PhD-AI.it, took place at the University of Pisa. The summer school consisted of lectures, panels, poster sessions, and project works. The aim was to advance the frontier of AI research with internationally renowned scientists and build a community for the next generation of AI researchers, innovators, and professionals. All ESRs, Tommaso Crepax, Mitisha Gaur, Robert Lee Poe, Qifan Yang, Maciej Krzysztof Zuziak in the Pisa group of LeADS participated in this summer school.

The welcome lectures were given by Prof. Dino Pedreschi, Prof. Marco Conti and Prof. Vincenzo Ambriola. After that, Prof. Alessio Malizia gave his lecture, “MiniCoDe – Minimise algorithmic bias in Collaborative Decision Making with Design”, and interacted with the participants on how to address bias in algorithms. After an hour-long poster session in the afternoon, Prof. Anna Monreale hosted a panel on “The Future of AI Research” with five women scientists – namely Prof. Francesca Chiaromonte, Prof. Rita Cucchiara, Prof. Fosca Giannotti, Prof. Michela Milano, Prof. Sara Tonelli – in different areas. The following lectures of the summer school covered social artificial intelligence, developmental robots for language learning, trust and theory of mind, human face recognition, deep learning theory, interdisciplinarity of data science and AI, etc.

During the poster session, ESRs showed great poster presentations and introduced their works on “interplay between privacy protection and market competition in the digital revolution (Yang Qifan)”, “differential privacy and differential explainability in the data sphere” by Mitisha, “unchaining data portability potentials in a lawful digital economy” by Tommaso Crepax, “the distinction between fairness and bias by Robert Lee Poe, and “use of distributed personal data management for personalization of digital services by Maciej Krzysztof Zuziak. All ESRs had active discussions with the participating scholars.

On the last day, ESRs presented their project works from their groups, involving “reducing polarization in social media through diffusion models” by Qifan Yang, “polarization detection via the semantic network” by Mitisha Gaur, “a smart mobility platform to improve urban air quality” by Tommaso Crepax, “a multi-way explainable interface for high-risk public use applications by Robert Lee Poe and “continual active learning for healthcare” by Maciej Krzysztof Zuziak. The proposals from Tommaso’s group and Mitisha’s group won second and third prizes.

 

7th Summer Academy for Global Privacy Law 2022

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From the 27th to the 1st of July 2022 the “7th Summer Academy for Global Privacy Law 2022: Engineering data regulation(s) in an age of reform” took place at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels – VUB, one of the LeADS beneficiaries. In a hybrid format, the Summer Academy focused on the EU data governance reform, emphasizing coherence, comprehensiveness, and effectiveness. ESRs Onntje Hinrichs and Barbara Lazarotto were on the organization team along with Lina Jasmontaite, Muhammed Dermican, and Michael Van den Poel.

The program dedicated each day to a regulatory instrument, placing each regulatory text within its proper background and ecosystem, before analyzing its regulatory approach and (still draft) provisions. There was particular attention to the regulation’s relationship with specific aspects of the EU data protection law, particularly with the GDPR.

In the morning, participants attended lectures by selected speakers including internationally recognized academics, policymakers, data protection authorities, and civil society representatives. In the afternoon, they engaged in role-playing sessions focused on real-life possible applications of regulations.

Barbara Lazarotto and Muhammed Dermican (Brussels Privacy Hub Managing Director and Ph.D. candidate) were the Lecturers of the Role-Playing Session named “Selling Books on Amazon: Why would you even need the DMA?”, which explored the relationship between the Digital Markets Act with the GDPR. The participants were divided into different groups that represented different roles such as Amazon Legal Team, NOYB, EDPS, DG Competition, and Publisher’s Law Firm, and had as objective to defend their interests facing an online market sale scenario. In the end, all participants discussed their points of view about the case, the DMA, and its connections with Competition Law and Data Privacy Law.

The Summer Academy ended by strengthening the understanding of the participants regarding the EU data governance reform and further questions that might appear in the future.

LeADS project at AIAI 2022

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The LeADS project is organising a workshop, titled “Best Practices for the development of intelligent and trustworthy algorithms and systems, at the 18th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations (AIAI). The workshop will take place on Sunday, 19th June in Crete, Greece, and is divided into three sessions: 1) Panel discussion on Data Ownership, Privacy and Empowerment 2) Panel discussion on Trustworthy Data Processing Design and 3) Poster Session.

Below you can find the detailed programme:

 

Legality Attentive Data Science

Workshop: Best Practices for the development of intelligent and trustworthy algorithms and systems

19/06/2022

 

10:30 – 11:30 AM

Panel 1: Data Ownership, Privacy, and Empowerment

Pointing to its limitations, legal uncertainties and issues with implementation, quite a few legal scholars argue that a new legal instrument in the form of data ownership is unnecessary. However, ownership and property are at the core of liberal political theories of the modern state and modern law, as these form the source of rights and liberty. And if data is a valuable resource, forms and scales of its ownership should be discussed- not only in legal writing but also in public debate. Reflecting on the current regimes of data exchange and ownership structures related to data, this panel will discuss if and how a potential data ownership right can empower data subjects and right holders. Covering the scope and elements of a potential data ownership right, the panelists will guide us to have a closer look at the powers and limitations of such a right in relation to pervasive technologies such as AI and machine learning. Some questions the panel will explore: How would a potential data ownership right integrate with existing data protection law? Would it potentially empower individuals regarding access rights and ‘data portability’? Can we talk about collective ownership of data? If so, how can we justify it dwelling on the political questions of property and dispossession? 

Duration: 60 min (including 15 min debate)

Moderator: Imge Ozcan, LSTS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Panelists:

  • Katerina Demetzou, Future of Privacy Forum 
  • Paul De Hert, LSTS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (remote participation) 
  • Afonso Ferreira, CNRS, Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse

 

11:30 AM – 12:00 PM Coffee Break

 

12:00 – 01:00 PM

Panel 2: Trustworthy Data Processing Design

Data are fuelling the economy. The borders between personal and non-personal data, sensitive and non-sensitive data are fading away while the need for their secondary uses is growing exponentially. The Panel focuses on these issues moving from legal, ethical and technological framework needed to design data processing trustworthy for all the players. 

Duration: 60 min (including 15 min debate)

Moderator: Giovanni Comandé, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna

Panelists: 

  • Jessica Eynard, Toulouse Capitole University 
  • Elias Pimenidis, University of the West of England 
  • Gabriele Lenzini, University of Luxemburg 
  • Salvatore Rinzivillo, Italian National Research Council

 

01:00 – 2:15 PM

 

Poster Session: Gallery Walk on “Best Practices for the development of intelligent and trustworthy algorithms and systems”.

 

In addition, University of Piraeus, a LeADS beneficiary, in collaboration with University of Sunderland, is co-organizing the second workshop on “Artificial Intelligence and Ethics” (AI & ETHICS – https://ifipaiai.org/2022/workshops/#aiethics), which will take place on Monday, 20th June.

We are looking forward to engaging with the interdisciplinary and diverse community at AIAI, sharing our research and having fruitful discussions surrounding our project.

LeADS Project at CPDP 2022

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The annual Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference (CPDP) will take place from 23 May to 25 May in Brussels, Belgium. CPDP is widely considered as the go-to conference for everyone whose work touches privacy and data protection. CPDP brings together a stimulating mix of stakeholders from all over the world to exchange ideas and discuss the emerging issues and the latest trends.

LeADS Project is organising a dissemination and public engagement activity at CPDP. Through interacting with the diverse community that CPDP brings to Brussels, we will spread the word about the ongoing research and activities taking place within the LeADS Project. Apart from informing the conference participants about LeADS Project, we will also organize a dissemination activity where ESRs Xengie Doan and Barbara Lazarotto will present their research using creative tactics. You can find us at the exhibit space in the main venue (Les Halles de Schaerbeek).

Some of LeADS Project beneficiaries are also contributing to CPDP with panels and talks. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa is organising a panel titled “Justice 3.0: AI In and For Justice and Case Law as Big Data Challenges” which is programmed to take place on Wednesday, 25th May. Prof. Giovanni Comandé from LeADS consortium will be moderating the panel. Another LeADS beneficiary, University of Luxembourg‘s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) is also organizing a panel which is titled “Privacy Design, Dark Patterns, and Speculative Data Futures”. The panel is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 24th May. Dr. Arianna Rossi from LeADS consortium will speak on the panel. Prof. Paul De Hert, from Vrije Universiteit Brussel will deliver the opening remarks to the conference.

We are looking forward to engaging with the interdisciplinary and diverse community at CPDP, sharing our research and having fruitful discussions surrounding our project.