Category: Biotech and Bioinformatics

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COVID-19: fake news and individual arrogance

Like many people, I often talk about COVID-19 and its impacts in various areas. By academic and professional habit, I try to do so by applying three criteria:

  • to talk about things I have direct knowledge of, to ask for explanations (explanations, not “clarifications”),
  • when I have to draw conclusions of my competence that require non-legal knowledge,
  • to avoid talking about topics outside my area of knowledge.

This attitude, proper of people accustomed to reasoning on a logical basis, is less widespread than one might think and not (only) out of ignorance, but out of a form of intellectual arrogance in the name of which the fact of having competence in an area self-attribute title and authority to talk about whatever topic comes on the floor. Continue reading “COVID-19: fake news and individual arrogance”

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COVID-19 and Government communication in Italy

At every press conference, starting with those announcing the first containment measures, the watchword of government communication was “sugaring the pill”.

It is a reasonable choice because conveying the perception that everything is under control and therefore spreading optimism is undoubtedly essential to contain negativity and defeatism. Too bad that, in practice, this has produced ambiguous and opaque messages. Continue reading “COVID-19 and Government communication in Italy”

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Copyright on Information. A Dangerous Path

In its “Re-use of Public Sector information” website section, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner writes verbatim

All of the information featured on our website is the copyright of the Data Protection Commission unless otherwise indicated. You may re-use the information on this website free of charge in any format.

At first sight this statement might looks innocuous, but actually it carries a blatant mistake that will turns into a dangerous trend: imposing copyright on information.

In the EU, Copyright – better, the Right of Author – grants legal protection to the way an idea is creatively put in writing or in whatever way can be perceived by a human beings. In other words, this Shakespear’s quote from Hamlet’s Act II, Scene II

Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.

is protected by the Right of Auhtor because of the “how” (creative form) rather than of the “what” (raw information). 1

Therefore, the statement of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner is a wrong enforcement of the Right of Author prerogatives.

But why is it dangerous too?

The talk I did at the 2004 Licensing Executive Society of Britain and Ireland Annual Conference, lately edited in a paper published by Ciberspazio e Diritto (English version available here) explains what is at stake:

The impossibility of securing patents did not stop the attempts to establish some sort of “ownership” on the genetic information, and alternative ways have been sought. As far back as 1987, Walter Gilbert, one of the pioneers in bioinformatics research, declared to the Washington Post: “I don’t believe in the patentability of the genome. What we are actually interested in is securing copyrights on the sequences. This means that if someone wishes to read the code, they will have to pay us to get access. Our goal is to make the information available to everyone. Provided they pay a price.

Imposing “copyright” over information, then, is not only wrong because there is no creativity on raw data. Is dangerous because it is a way to deprive people of their right to knowledge (right to science) and to be informed (free speech)

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  1. Of course Hamlet is in the public domain regime, but the moral Right of Author still stands ↩
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The German DatenschutzKonferenze to issue non viable GDPR compliance hints for medical research

The Datenschutzkonference (DSK) the body that gathers the German Data Protection Authorities has published a document on the relationship between the Recital 33 of the GDPR and its application to scientific research. And as often happens when this topics is involved, the results are useless, inconsistent and inapplicable. A more detailed analysis will allow us to understand the reason for such a harsh judgment on this document. Continue reading “The German DatenschutzKonferenze to issue non viable GDPR compliance hints for medical research”

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Race is the new black

Since people have been anesthetized to the “privacy threats” that everybody and his cousin is seeing around, now “race” is the new trend to bash profiling, surveillance and whatever else the “human rights ? warriors” pick as “enemy-of-the-day”.

This article from wired.com – that matches the same “philosophy” of this one published by Wired.it about the racism of algorithm – hints at ? a new trend to give trollers something to (keyboard) fight for: forget privacy, RACE is the buzzword-to-go to show righteous indignation!

Algorithms are bad for RACE, Artificial Intelligence is bad for RACE, face recognition is a RACE thing… computer and RACE, smartphone and RACE, videogames and RACE, RACE, RACE, ? RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE, ?RACE.

p.s. Sorry Monty Python.