Διαδικτυακά φίλτρα - Σύσταση του Συμβουλίου της Ευρώπης

Η Επιτροπή Υπουργών του Συμβουλίου της Ευρώπης υιοθέτησε στις 26.03.2008 τη Σύσταση CM/Rec(2008)6 «σχετικά με τα μέτρα για την προώθηση του σεβασμού της ελευθερίας της έκφρασης και την πληροφόρηση σχετικά με τα διαδικτυακά φίλτρα».

Στόχος της Σύστασης είναι η αναγνώριση κοινών προτύπων και στρατηγικών στα κράτη μέλη του Συμβουλίου όσον αφορά τα διαδικτυακά φίλτρα, προκειμένου να καταστεί ευχερής η άσκηση της ελευθερίας της έκφρασης και των θεμελιωδών δικαιωμάτων που κατοχυρώνει η ΕΣΔΑ.

Με τη Σύσταση λαμβάνεται υπόψη ότι η χρήση φίλτρων μπορεί να σημαίνει την απαγόρευση πρόσβασης σε διαδικτυακούς τόπους, η πρακτική δε αυτή, ως γνωστόν, ασκείται από απολυταρχικά καθεστώτα, και συνιστά παραβίαση της ελεύθερης έκφρασης γνώμης. Βεβαίως, τα φίλτρα έχουν και θετικές λειτουργίες, όπως στην περίπτωση που περιορίζεται στους ανηλίκους η πρόσβαση σε διακτυακούς τόπους με περιεχόμενο ακατάλληλο. Συνακόλουθα, η παραπάνω Σύσταση αποτελεί ένα θετικό βήμα για τη συνεργασία των φορέων στην υιοθέτηση κοινών στάνταρτ όσον αφορά το λογισμικό που φιλτράρει το διαδικτυακό περιεχόμενο.

Στο Παράρτημα της Σύστασης περιέχονται τα ακόλουθα συμπεράσματα - αρχές:


Guidelines I. Using and controlling Internet filters in order to fully exercise and enjoy the right to freedom of expression and information Users’ awareness, understanding of and ability to effectively use Internet filters are key factors which enable them to fully exercise and enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the right to freedom of expression and information, and to participate actively in democratic processes. When confronted with filters, users must be informed that a filter is active and, where appropriate, be able to identify and to control the level of filtering the content they access is subject to. Moreover, they should have the possibility to challenge the blocking or filtering of content and to seek clarifications and remedies. In co-operation with the private sector and civil society, member states should ensure that users are made aware of activated filters and, where appropriate, are able to activate and deactivate them and be assisted in varying the level of filtering in operation, in particular by: i. developing and promoting a minimum level of information for users to enable them to identify when filtering has been activated and to understand how, and according to which criteria, the filtering operates (for example, black lists, white lists, keyword blocking, content rating, etc., or combinations thereof); ii. developing minimum levels of and standards for the information provided to the user to explain why a specific type of content has been filtered; iii. regularly reviewing and updating filters in order to improve their effectiveness, proportionality and legitimacy in relation to their intended purpose; iv. providing clear and concise information and guidance regarding the manual overriding of an activated filter, namely whom to contact when it appears that content has been unreasonably blocked and the reasons which may allow a filter to be overridden for a specific type of content or Uniform Resource Locator (URL); v. ensuring that content filtered by mistake or error can be accessed without undue difficulty and within a reasonable time; vi. promoting initiatives to raise awareness of the social and ethical responsibilities of those actors who design, use and monitor filters with particular regard to the right to freedom of expression and information and to the right to private life, as well as to the active participation in public life and democratic processes; vii. raising awareness of the potential limitations to freedom of expression and information and the right to private life resulting from the use of filters and of the need to ensure proportionality of such limitations; viii. facilitating an exchange of experiences and best practices with regard to the design, use and monitoring of filters; ix. encouraging the provision of training courses for network administrators, parents, educators and other people using and monitoring filters; x. promoting and co-operating with existing initiatives to foster responsible use of filters in compliance with human rights, democracy and the rule of law; xi. fostering filtering standards and benchmarks to help users choose and best control filters. In this context, civil society should be encouraged to raise users’ awareness of the potential benefits and dangers of filters. This should include promoting the importance and significance of free and unhindered access to the Internet so that every individual user may fully exercise and enjoy their human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the right to freedom of expression and information and the right to private life, as well as to effectively participate in public life and democratic processes. II. Appropriate filtering for children and young people The Internet has significantly increased the number and diversity of ideas, information and opinions which people may receive and impart in the fulfilment of their right to freedom of expression and information without interference by public authorities and regardless of frontiers. At the same time, it has increased the amount of readily available content carrying a risk of harm, particularly for children and young people. To satisfy the legitimate desire and duty of member states to protect children and young people from content carrying a risk of harm, the proportionate use of filters can constitute an appropriate means of encouraging access to and confident use of the Internet and be a complement to other strategies on how to tackle harmful content, such as the development and provision of information literacy. In this context, member states should: i. facilitate the development of strategies to identify content carrying a risk of harm for children and young people, taking into account the diversity of cultures, values and opinions; ii. co-operate with the private sector and civil society to avoid over-protection of children and young people by, inter alia, supporting research and development for the production of “intelligent” filters that take more account of the context in which the information is provided (for example by differentiating between harmful content itself and unproblematic references to it, such as may be found on scientific websites); iii. facilitate and promote initiatives that assist parents and educators in the selection and use of developmental-age appropriate filters for children and young people; iv. inform children and young people about the benefits and dangers of Internet content and its filtering as part of media education strategies in formal and non-formal education. Furthermore, the private sector should be encouraged to: i. develop “intelligent” filters offering developmental-age appropriate filtering which can be adapted to follow the child’s progress and age while, at the same time, ensuring that filtering does not occur when the content is deemed neither harmful nor unsuitable for the group which the filter has been activated to protect; ii. co-operate with self- and co-regulatory bodies in order to develop standards for developmental-age appropriate rating systems for content carrying a risk of harm, taking into account the diversity of cultures, values and opinions; iii. develop, in co-operation with civil society, common labels for filters to assist parents and educators in making informed choices when acquiring filters and to certify that they meet certain quality requirements; iv. promote the interoperability of systems for the self-classification of content by providers and help to increase awareness about the potential benefits and dangers of such classification models. Moreover, civil society should be encouraged to: i. debate and share their experiences and knowledge when assessing and raising awareness of the development and use of filters as a protective measure for children and young people; ii regularly monitor and analyse the use and impact of filters for children and young people, with particular regard to their effectiveness and their contribution to the exercise and enjoyment of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by Article 10 and other provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. III. Use and application of Internet filters by the public and private sector Notwithstanding the importance of empowering users to use and control filters as mentioned above, and noting the wider public service value of the Internet, public actors on all levels (such as administrations, libraries and educational institutions) which introduce filters or use them when delivering services to the public, should ensure full respect for all users’ right to freedom of expression and information and their right to private life and secrecy of correspondence. In this context, member states should: i. refrain from filtering Internet content in electronic communications networks operated by public actors for reasons other than those laid down in Article 10, paragraph 2, of the European Convention on Human Rights, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights; ii. guarantee that nationwide general blocking or filtering measures are only introduced by the state if the conditions of Article 10, paragraph 2, of the European Convention on Human Rights are fulfilled. Such action by the state should only be taken if the filtering concerns specific and clearly identifiable content, a competent national authority has taken a decision on its illegality and the decision can be reviewed by an independent and impartial tribunal or regulatory body, in accordance with the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights; iii. introduce, where appropriate and necessary, provisions under national law for the prevention of intentional abuse of filters to restrict citizens’ access to lawful content; iv. ensure that all filters are assessed both before and during their implementation to ensure that the effects of the filtering are proportionate to the purpose of the restriction and thus necessary in a democratic society, in order to avoid unreasonable blocking of content; v. provide for effective and readily accessible means of recourse and remedy, including suspension of filters, in cases where users and/or authors of content claim that content has been blocked unreasonably; vi. avoid the universal and general blocking of offensive or harmful content for users who are not part of the group which a filter has been activated to protect, and of illegal content for users who justifiably demonstrate a legitimate interest or need to access such content under exceptional circumstances, particularly for research purposes; vii. ensure that the right to private life and secrecy of correspondence is respected when using and applying filters and that personal data logged, recorded and processed via filters are only used for legitimate and non-commercial purposes. Furthermore, member states and the private sector are encouraged to: i. regularly assess and review the effectiveness and proportionality regarding the introduction of filters; ii. strengthen the information and guidance to users who are subject to filters in private networks, including information about the existence of, and reasons for, the use of a filter and the criteria upon which the filter operates; iii. co-operate with users (customers, employees, etc.) to improve the transparency, effectiveness and proportionality of filters. In this context, civil society should be encouraged to follow the development and deployment of filters both by key state and private sector actors. It should, where appropriate, call upon member states and the private sector, respectively, to ensure and to facilitate all users’ right to freedom of expression and information, in particular as regards their freedom to receive information without interference by public authorities and regardless of frontiers in the new information and communications environment.

Ioannis Iglezakis

Call for chapters- Digital Libraries

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Proposal Submission Deadline: September 15, 2008
E-Publishing and Digital Libraries: Legal and Organizational Issues
A book edited by Dr. Ioannis Iglezakis and Dr. Tatiana-Eleni Synodinou
University of Thessaloniki, Greece
And Assoc. Prof. Sarantos Kapidakis, Ionian University, Greece.
Introduction
Information and communication technologies are transforming many aspects of modern society, including scholarship and cultural communication. This becomes evident in the case of digital libraries, which organize content in a digital format that is made available to users worldwide. The production of a digital library poses a number of technical and organizational issues, which will be dealt with by experts in information society. Also, legal issues are emerging concerning the acquisition and processing of IPR protected material and licensing, as well as issues concerning the preservation of cultural heritage.
Objective of the book
This book will aim to provide a deeper understanding of the organisational and legal issues regarding digital libraries, and will include contributions from specialised experts detailing the organisational and legal issues related to digital libraries.

Target audience
The target audience of this book will be composed of professionals and researchers in the field of ICTs in various disciplines, e.g. library, education, computer science and management, as well as experts in the field of law, e.g. lawyers, academics, etc.
Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
I. Organisational issues
1.Creation of digital libraries
2.Academic repositories
3.Software/systems design & development - frameworks, construction, digitization
4.Modes of access
5.Searching - browsing
6.Optical character recognition
7.Representation of texts, audio, video
8.Markup and metadata
9.Deep web
10.Interoperability
11.The EU- i2010 initiative
II.Digital Library and Copyright issues
12.The digital Library as a database (originality, protection of contents)
13.The digitization of contents : rights and limits (partial digitization, loss of quality, moral rights)
14.Orphan works
15.Digital repositories
16.The web-linking and the digital Library
17.The commercial exploitation of the offline digital Library: the problematic of the technological measures of protection versus the private copy
18.Digital library and the users rights : the question of Quotations
19.The author’s remuneration: (possible ways) royalties, lump sum
III.Cultural Aspects
20. Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage by means of Digital libraries
IV.Contractual issues
21. Rights management (contracts with right-holders)
22. The commercial exploitation of the digital Library on Internet : legal framework and types of contracts with the users
23. Open content in libraries – contractual issues
V.Legal issues concerning the management of IP and the digital library
24. Open libraries and the critical question of the liability of host provider (eg the Wikipedia case)
25. Management of digital libraries and personal data protection
26. Exploitation of a digital work of mind and standardization: open standards versus close standards
27. Applicable law to the digital library issues and the problematic of the limits to the speech freedom in some countries.

Example Chapters
Possible chapter [and comments], for the Organizational Issues, could be:
Production of Digital Information and Publishing [including Digitization, OCR, Formats, Representation of Information, Markup Languages, TEI]
Reproduction of Digital Information [including copies, properties, presentation of digital information]
Information Architectures [including Repositories, generalized and specific access restriction policies, dissemination]
Indexing of information [text or otherwise, including Metadata, Dublin Core, feature extraction]
Seeking Digital Information [including Web, robots, Digital Libraries, Deep Web, portals]
Finding Aids and Tools [including semantics, Thesaurus, Ontologies, Web2.0, Annotations, personalization, ...]
Collections, Databases, Interoperability, Harvesting, OAI
Long Term Preservation [including Legal deposit and responsibility of all parties]
Emerging challenges of Digital Information [including who is the copyright holder on collective works, copying properties, publishers and users, overpriced journals, multiple use of information, open access issues, using user/usage data, etc]


Submission procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before September 15, 2008, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by September 30 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by January 15, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference) and “Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.


Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:
Dr. Ioannis Iglezakis
Faculty of Law
UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI
Tel.: +302310996577 * Fax: +302310996550 * GSM +306977077410
E-mail: iingleza@law.auth.gr