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Big Brother is watching you. And not only that – new methods of evaluating and manipulating behavior are starting to threaten our freedom. In her new book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power”, Harvard economist Shoshana Zuboff takes a critical look at the new…
The post What is surveillance capitalism? appeared first on HIIG.

India’s new human-trafficking bill could criminalise sex workers and curtail free speech.
The article by Laxmi Murthy was published in Himal South Asian on September 26, 2018.

Shweta Mohandas participated in a Round Table Discussion on Personal Data Protection Bill, orgnanised by SFLC on September 25, 2018 in Bangalore. She also moderated the first session - Data Protection Principles (Rights and Obligations).
See the agenda of the event here.

Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Ambika Tandon participated in a meeting organized by IDRC for grantees under their networked economies programme to discuss gender-based outputs and development outcomes in their work. The event was held in Ottawa on September 20 - 21, 2018, facilitated by Gender at Work.

Sunil Abraham, Anubha Sinha and Swaraj Paul Barooah attended the Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest, in Washington DC, from September 24 - 29, 2018. The event was co-organized by PublicCitizen, Washington College of Law, American University, O'Neill Institute and the American Assembly, Columbia University.
CIS participated in several of the sessions spread over the 5 days:

Arindrajit Basu attended the event 'Cyber-security in the age of Smart Manufacturing.' The event 'BTS - CyberComm 2018' was organised by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & industry (FICCI) in association with Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society, and Government of Karnataka at The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru on September 26, 2018.

The 12-digit Aadhaar number is now out of bounds for fintech companies in India.
The article by Nishant Sharma was published in Bloomberg Quint on September 27, 2018. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

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Book by Jamie Susskind: “Future Politics confronts one of the most important questions of our time: how will digital technology transform politics and society? The great political debate of the last century was about how much of our collective life should be determined by the state and what should be left to the market and civil society. In the future, the question will be how far our lives should be directed and controlled by powerful digital systems — and on what terms?

El IX CICES es el mayor evento mundial sobre erosión y recuperación de zonas degradadas, y se desarrollará el 26, 27 y 28 de septiembre de este año en Santiago. El evento contará con la participación de 30 países y del experto Shubhendu Sharma, creador del método para establecer bosques en tiempos reducidos.

Depuis plusieurs années, le port de signes religieux au sein des institutions publiques est un enjeu social important dans la société québécoise. Au milieu des années 2000, lors des travaux de la commission Bouchard-Taylor, de nombreux Québécois sont stupéfaits de constater que plusieurs de leurs concitoyennes de confession musulmane affichent publiquement leur religiosité au moyen d’un foulard couvrant leurs cheveux, le hijab. Certains projets de loi ont proposé d’interdire le port de signes religieux pour l’ensemble du personnel des organismes publics ou parapublics.

Last week Facebook found itself at the heart of a security breach that put at risk the personal information of millions of users of the social network.
On September 28, news broke that an attacker exploited a technical vulnerability in Facebook’s code that would allow them to log into about 50 million people’s accounts.

Emily Matchar at Smithsonian: “About 40 percent of American adults are obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30. But obesity is not evenly distributed around the country. Some cities and states have far more obese residents than others. Why? Genetics, stress, income levels and access to healthy foods are play a role.

I Congresso Internacional de Direito e Gênero08h30 até 18h30O Evento: O I Congresso Internacional de Direito e Gênero se propõe a debater, de maneira crítico-reflexiva, temas fundamentais para compreender as diversas formas de dominação que se originam da desigualdade de gênero, com especial ênfase no papel exercido pelo Estado e pela sociedade nesse processo.

Organization Completes Fifth Year of Service and Looks to Expand Reach, Impact
This press release was originally posted by the NYU Tandon School of Engineering on September 26, 2018.

This post reflects arguments made in a joint background paper published by the Internet Society and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) ahead of the G20 Women’s Group (W20) Summit in Argentina 1-3 October.

Fake news code: Google and several operators of social networks have signed a code of conduct to combat fake news, CNet reports. The code of conduct, pushed by the European Union, stipulates that they must work to disrupt advertising revenues of accounts and websites that spread disinformation. The code also requires that the websites empower people to report disinformation and access other news sources.

Paper by Nikos Askitas, Rafik Mahjoubi, Pedro S. Martins, Koffi Zougbede for Paris21/OECD: “Experience from both technology and policy making shows that solutions for labour market improvements are simply choices of new, more tolerable problems. All data solutions supporting digital Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) will have to incorporate a roadmap of changes rather than an unrealistic super-solution.

Rektorin Prof. Dr. Anja Steinbeck und Prorektor Prof. Dr. Christoph J. Börner (Studienqualität und Personalmanagement) heißen die Studienanfänger/innen im Hörsaal 3A (Gebäude 23.01) willkommen und informieren gemeinsam mit dem AStA-Vorstand zum Studium und zum Hochschulalltag an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität. Die Landeshauptstadt wird durch Bürgermeister Friedrich G. Conzen vertreten sein.

Join a symposium exploring new approaches for a more cooperative society, based on the thinking of the late philosopher Ivan Illich.
Saturday 13 October: 11.00-18.00
Register Here.
What to expect