Projects per year
Organization profile
Organisation profile
The interdisciplinary Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS, created in 2003) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is devoted to analytical, theoretical and prospective research into the relationships between law, science, technology and society. LSTS's core expertise is legal, but we also have a strong track record in legal theory, philosophy of sciences and bio-ethics, and we engage in criminological (surveillance & security) and STS-research too. In the broadest wordings: LSTS's main challenge is to (re)think the constitutive principles of democracy and the rule of law (including principles as precaution, participation, accountability and responsibility) in relation to contemporary scientific and technological developments that seem to confront citizens with irreversible decision-making processes with a major impact on their lives. LSTS nurtures a bottom-up interdisciplinary approach, whereby disciplinary scientific (legal, criminological, sociological, technological, etc.) practices and research meet, seek mutual interest and understanding, and build up articulations that remain respectful of the different constraints of the disciplines involved, their own way of constructing questions and issues and their mutual impacts. Schematically speaking, in LSTS there are two main research tracks althoug they are strongly interrelated and interdependent. Most of the members of our team are committed to both tracks, even if that can be to a considerably different extent. Very often, both tracks conflate to one integrated research dynamics. The first track" - is conceptual and mainly inspired by and building further upon the work LSTS did in 2002-2007 within the multidisciplinary Interuniversity Attraction Pole, coordinated by Gutwirth ("The loyalties of knowledge", for traces of this project see http://www.imbroglio.be/site/index.php). This perspective focuses upon generic questions concerning the relationship between law, science, technology & society. Starting with the IAP-project, we did not stop to concretely work with researchers from very different disciplinary perspectives (including the computer sciences) aiming at cross-fertilisation and mutual participation in the process of building up the research questions and producing answers. We have been pursuing this path steadily, in the FP6 and FP7 projects we are participating in, which are always international and interdisciplinary (including 'hard' sciences) networks. Our focus is also fundamental because on the one hand we endeavour to rethink and reconceptualise the singularity of disciplinary scientific practices in contrast to other practices, such as those of lawyers, technologists and policy-makers (cf. Isabelle Stengers' 'écologie des pratiques'; Bruno Latour's 'régimes d'énonciation' or 'modes d'existence', both thinkers were involved in the IAP project), and on the other, we explore the way such different practices articulate and interact. This conceptual research track benefits greatly of the input from very practical and disciplinary scientific work done in the second track, both as regards the research done on questions of positive law and the exploration of thematic issues such as privacy by design, PNR-data exchanges, the commodification of bodily materials, the use of location data, GMOs, etc. The second track lies more within positive legal science and contains both analytical (state of the art) research and more prospective research (aiming at inspiring new legal policies), starting from legal issues raised by scientific and technological innovation. Such issues include biometrics, electronic publishing, autonomic computing, ambient intelligence, social networks, the 'virtual home', 'omnisensing', medical applications of ICT, ICT for the aging, cybercrime, patents and human dignity, and so on. In the context of this track, next to the more technical hermeneutical legal work (e.g. in the field of data protection and privacy, human rights, criminal law, copyrights or patents), we provide for more fundamental prospects, but we also learn from the interdisciplinary practice, which practically feeds the first line of research. LSTS counts around 35 researchers, including ZAP, seniors, postdocs, predocs and free lance researchers ("vrijwillige medewerkers"), not all of them mainly affiliated to LSTS. At present the core group counts around 20 researchers, most of them paid on external funding (FP7, FWO, IWT-SBO, tenders, ...). LSTS senior members also teach in different disciplines and different universities both at graduate and post-graduate level (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Leiden University, Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Katholieke Universiteit Brussel, etc.) LSTS is the main organiser of the yearly Computers, Privacy and Data Protection or CPDP conferences (www.cpdpconferences.org)
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Network
Profiles
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Irina Baraliuc
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Criminology - Project Coordinator/Manager
- Metajuridica - Project Coordinator/Manager
- Law Science Technology and Society
Person: Researcher, Administrative/technical staff
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Istvan Mate Borocz
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Law Science Technology and Society
- Faculty of Law and Criminology
- Metajuridica - Academic
Person: Researcher, PhD
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Gertjan Boulet
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Faculty of Law and Criminology
- Metajuridica - Academic
- Law Science Technology and Society
Person: Researcher, PhD
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Fabienne Brison
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Private and Economic Law - Academic
- Business & Contracts
- Law Science Technology and Society
- Communication Sciences - Academic
Person: Researcher, Professor
Projects
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EUAR38: H2020: INTREPID : Intelligent Toolkit for Reconnaissance and assessmEnt in Perilous Incidents
1/10/20 → 30/09/23
Project: Applied
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EUAR30: H2020: RIA : Search and Rescue : Emerging technologies for the Early location of Entrapped victims under Collapsed Structures and Advanced Wearables for risk assessment and First Responders Safety in SAR operations
Papakonstantinou, V., De Hert, P. & Markopoulou, D.
1/07/20 → 30/06/23
Project: Applied
Research output
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Between masks and curfews: Critical synopsis of the guidance issued by national supervisory authorities on analogue and digital body temperature measurement in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the EU
Borocz, I. M. & Gkotsopoulou, O., Jan 2021, In : Privacy in Germany. 2021, 1, 11 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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Border Control and New Technologies: Addressing Integrated Impact Assessment (PERSONA Deliverable D5.2: textbook of assessment of no-gate crossing point solutions (1st version))
Kloza, D. (ed.), Burgess, J. P. (ed.), Kloza, D., Burgess, J. P., Ioannidis, N., Casiraghi, S., Calvi, A., Lidén, K., Van Dijk, N., Vazquez Maymir, S. & Tanas, A., 24 Jan 2021, (Submitted) Brussels. 168 p.Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report › Research
File -
Brexit mag geen aanleiding zijn tot de liberalisering van nieuwe plantmodificatietechnieken!
Gutwirth, S., Van Dijk, N., Stengers, I. & Visser, M., 15 Jan 2021, Knack Magazine.Research output: Contribution to specialist/vulgarizing publication › Article › Vulgarizing
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Digisprudence: the design of legitimate code
Diver, L., 2021, (Accepted/In press) In : Law, Innovation and Technology. 13, 2, 37 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Open Access -
How to watch the watchers? Democratic oversight of algorithmic police surveillance in Belgium
Van Brakel, R. E., 2021, (Accepted/In press) In : Surveillance & Society.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Activities
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Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) 2021
Olga Gkotsopoulou (Organiser), Istvan Mate Borocz (Chair)27 Jan 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participating in or organizing a public lecture/debate
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Teaching "Entrepreneurship" at University of the Aegean MBA
Vagelis Papakonstantinou (Participant)1 Jan 2021 → 30 Jun 2021Activity: Other › Research and Teaching at External Organisation
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Introduction to the concept of (data protection) impact assessment
Dariusz Kloza (Lecturer)3 Feb 2021Activity: Other › Research and Teaching at External Organisation
File -
Bélgica y la protección de datos en tiempos de pandemia
Gloria Gonzalez Fuster (Speaker)25 Feb 2021Activity: Talk or presentation › Talk or presentation at a conference
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Social Media monitoring and movement tracking of political dissidents. The end of political asylum in the EU?
Marcus Michaelsen (Speaker), Sibel Top (Speaker)28 Jan 2021Activity: Talk or presentation › Talk or presentation at a conference