Tech Talk: Updates from Brussels & a Preview of Tech Prom
It’s only February, but the proposals, rules, and regulations are coming out of Brussels rapidly. And as with GDPR, these proposals impact not just Europeans, but are driving policy debates globally. In this episode, CDT's EU lead Jens Henrik Jeppesen brings us the very latest from Europe.<br><br>After that, we welcome the amazing Lee-Berkeley Shaw, CDT's Director of Development, who share details about our 25th Anniversary Tech Prom celebration. The event takes place April 23 in Washington, DC - you won't want to miss it!<br><br>Also, this is my final episode as host of CDT's Tech Talk. It's been an absolute pleasure to host since our launch and I am grateful for all our listeners. I've loved talking to so many thoughtful and innovative people over the years.<br><br>The incredibly talented Jamal Magby is taking the hosting reigns. I have no doubt you will love his wit, smart questions, and melodious voice. I can't wait to see how he takes Tech Talk into the future and makes it his own.<br><br>More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
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Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.
CT. Tea.
Welcome to CDP's Tech Talk where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. Today, we have a great episode for you and we get to welcome a new host, Jamal Magby. Say hello, Jamal. Hi, everyone. So how excited are you to host this podcast? Couldn't be more excited. Kindly, Jamal is letting me have one last episode. And in this episode, I'll I'll chat with CDTs EU lead, Jens Henrik Jeppesen, who's going to share updates from Brussels on what has already been a very busy year in tech policy. And then I will chat with my dear friend, CDTs director of development, the amazingly, Berkeley Shaw, about our twenty fifth anniversary tech prom. That is something you won't want to miss. So let's get to it. It's only February, but the proposals, rules, and regulations are coming out of Brussels rapidly. And as with GDPR, these proposals impact not just Europeans, but are driving policy debates globally. So here with the very latest from the EU is Jens Henrik Jeppesen. Welcome back to Tech Talk, Jens.
Thank you, Brian.
So you have a whole new commission. How much of a priority is tech for them?
Well, it is one of the the the three major sort of strategic, headlines, if you will, of of EU policy for the coming mandate. And, the the, the phrase is Europe fit for the digital age. That's a good tagline. Yeah. Yeah. And and so, the, Margrethe Vestager, the the Danish, commissioner who was competition commission in in the previous commission, as she she remains in that role, and she's also having all up responsibility, for, digital policies, broadly speaking.
So she's a name to to pay attention to if you're, you know, a tech policy person looking at Europe. Any other commissioners or names that people should be monitoring, adding adding to their Twitter feed?
Sure. Thierry Breton, French commissioner, is, in charge of the, let's say, industrial policy aspects of this. So how to get Europe's digital infrastructure economy, business in shape that is his priority. And then you have Vera Jourova, Vice President of the Commission who is in charge of things like data privacy, and upcoming democracy action plan, and also negotiations between The US and the EU, things like privacy shield and and other, data exchange, agreements.
Okay. Very helpful. I will be sure to add those to my Twitter feed. So let's actually get into these issues here a bit. Let's start with the Digital Service Acts. I know that Digital Services Act. I know it's a big focus for you, and we have some concerns about it. Tell me what it is and and kind of what some of the the issues are with it.
Sure. So the president of the commission in July when she sort of published her, initial strategy document, said that she wanted to upgrade our liability and safety rules for digital platforms, services, and products. And what this means is the commission is going to reopen the ecommerce directive from 2000. And this is the European version of the Communications Decency Act section two thirty Okay. That you have in The US. We've heard a lot about that lately here. Yeah. Absolutely. And and and we have a similar discussion going on here. So so that, the ecommerce directive makes it possible for companies to host user content without being liable for the legality of that content. And this is going to be reviewed by, by the new commission. And so what we're concerned about is that we will end up with possibly onerous, no obligations for content hosts, to filter, monitor, prevent upload of content that may be illegal or may be considered harmful or just offensive or provocative. And this can have serious chilling effects, free expression online and it can force platforms both large and small to proactively filter and screen content using automated content moderation tools. Now, we understand the reasons why the commission is looking at this. It is primarily to do with problematic content that circulates on social media platforms. So politicians worry about hateful content and trolling and cyberbullying, disinformation and so forth. And so, you know, European countries at national level have also taken initiatives. In Germany, the NETZDG law came into force in 2018. Right. France is working on a hate speech law, and UK, no longer a member state, has also been targeting online harms.
So there's there's a lot of policy energy in this space. Yeah. It sounds like it. I mean, Brexit, we didn't even talk about and we'll just skip that for this episode. But, yeah, that's a big thing that that changed this year. So when we were chatting earlier, you mentioned that AI is also a priority. What's kind of happening on this, what I would say, is a bit of a buzzword of an issue, but one that the policymakers really seem to wanna focus on?
Certainly. So in fact, in this strategy document from from, July, the commission president, said made a commitment to, propose legislation for a European approach to artificial intelligence within a hundred days of taking office. So a lot of people scratch their heads and wondered, what that might possibly look like since AI is, as you say, a catchphrase and it's, covers such a broad range of applications and services and products. And and it's just hard to imagine what a single piece of legislation would look like that would cover that whole spectrum. But anyway, the the so what the commission has now announced that we will do is to publish a, a policy strategy document. So not legislation, but kind of setting out options and and consulting with, with interested parties. And, we don't know exactly what that will look like. But on the basis of, of what has transpired so far, it's probably due with opportunities and challenges. So for opportunities, so the commission clearly recognizes the potential of these technologies in terms of meeting challenges in public health and transportation environment and energy and so forth. And so the commission argues that the EU needs to strengthen its capabilities and try to close the gap with the places like U. S. And China. So, European policymakers realize that Europe is lagging behind in these countries in terms of industrial applications and consumer applications and that this is not a sustainable situation given how important this technology is likely to be for future competitiveness. So, so the commission is driving actions to coordinate, to drive more investment into the into research and development, sort of and coordinate national centers of excellence in in research and so forth and to push more rapid uptake of these technologies Okay. Well in private sectors.
That those are the opportunities. What are some of the risks that you think this will address?
Yeah. So, so many have raised various concerns to do with AI automated decision making, machine learning. And so this has to do with risks to individuals' fundamental rights to privacy and protection from unfair discrimination. And so many, many academics and civil society organizations and others have realized that, if these tools are not deployed carefully, and implemented carefully, they can exacerbate problems of historical bias and discrimination, and that we need to think carefully about how to how to do that. And so this ties to some of the work that CDT has been doing on decisions. So examples are in education, employment and criminal justice, for example. So I think we can expect the commission to look at how to make sure that the companies that deploy and public authorities that deploy these technologies do this in a way that is explainable and understandable. And so that they don't lead to the kind of of unjustified discrimination that that is both unethical and illegal. Also, there is a particular, focus on, facial recognition technology Of course. Yeah. Exactly. As a as a technology that has its own, new, risks and and problems that need to be managed. And so I think you'll find it's it's similar discussions that that you have in in The US. And so, the commission is looking at, how to, how to ensure that, these new solutions meet some obligations on transparency and accountability and that there is a regulatory oversight to to ensure and and enforce, let's say, for example, rules on discrimination and, and and bias. Yeah. So, so that that's, that's some of what we can expect. And and so this,
this policy document is is expected out on the February 19. Oh, very soon then. Very, very soon. But it's it's it's great that they are considering the the ethical sides of AI here. You don't necessarily get a lot of policymakers themselves always talking about that here in The US. So it's great to hear that that's a a priority part of this policy document. So let's shift topics a little bit then to the another one. Digital evidence being collected by law enforcement. Obviously, this crosses borders. And similar to the CLOUD Act in The US, which people can find information about on CDT's website, There are proposals moving in Europe as well. Tell us a bit about those proposals. What's happening?
Yes. Yes, Brian. And and you're exactly right that that the the EU legislation of the discussion is is is a mirror of the of The US Cloud Act. Okay. And, it was published in, it was proposed, in 2018. And the idea is to enable a law enforcement agency or a court in one member state to issue direct, orders to communication providers in other member states for disclosure of electronic data that they seek for, criminal investigations. This can be content data or metadata or subscriber information. Okay. Now, yeah, and it doesn't matter where the data is stored or which member state the comms provider is headquartered and what the nationality or the or the residents, country of residents, of the person whose data is sought. So it really gives law enforcement very broad powers to, to order electronic information from a very broad set of providers. So as as CDT, we have we have accepted that traditional mutual legal assistance treaty type models will not be able to scale to deal with the demands for electronic data and the new necessary. But we argue that that the proposal that the commission move forward does not have enough procedural and privacy safeguards. And so, we, we we have we have published several several, posts and papers, on the e evidence proposals outlining the kinds of improvements that we would like to see. And so, we were very pleased to see that the European Parliament, is now setting out to address these problems. That's good. Yeah. So so they are they the the problem that they're they're trying to solve is that the original commission proposal puts a lot of trust and confidence into that into the, the authority that is issuing the order. And it gives no possibility almost no possibility for any other authority to review that order and make sure that it respects privacy rights and that it doesn't involve privileged confidential information, for example, information communications, with doctors, lawyers, and journalists. And so this is what the European Parliament has set out to, to solve. And so we're very much in support of, of the parliament's line, and we will try to help, we'll certainly try to, make sure that, that parliament's model, is adopted and and supported as as this legislation is, is negotiated.
Okay. Well, I'm gonna let you talk about one final topic here because it's certainly generating, headlines and interest. Although I'm sure there are probably 10 or 20 other topics we could talk about. Let's pivot to the terrorist content online regulation. What's happening on that front?
Okay. So the European Commission proposed, this regulation back in September 2018. Member States adopted their position in December 2018 and the European Parliament did its reading in April 2019. So there is now a final compromise being negotiated. So the draft regulation that the commission proposed would make it mandatory for content hosts to comply with orders to remove allegedly terrorist content within one hour of receiving an order. Wow. And the proposal would also require content hosts who responded to referrals of content. So that means a referral would be, a notification from the police say that, a certain piece of content, may be in violation of the terms of service. And that, but it would be voluntary for the content host to to deal with to to remove it or leave it up. And there is also, an element in the regulation that we would enable, authorities to force content host to use, filtering technologies, monitoring technologies, for to to to manage uploads. So we've been very active on this this proposal. We we, in our view, it was far too vague in its definition of what is terrorist content. It, covered a a huge and a very broad set of, of companies, not only, content hosts, but also infrastructure providers. And, it also, enabled, basically, law enforcement agencies to order takedowns, without, without any kind of judicial, yeah, without a court order. So really a, a proposal that would that might have very, very, significant, free expression, impact. So, we work with, with parliament, and, and and, unfortunately, parliament made a lot of improvements to the text both on definitions of terrorist content, the competent authorities that are appointed to act under this regulation, And they and parliament also removed monitoring and filtering obligations. So the negotiations are still going on. And again, on this one, we are supporting the parliament's position and and working with both, NGOs and and, and industry groups, that are impacted, by the proposal. And we hope for a an outcome that's more balanced than, what the commission had originally proposed.
Well, Jens, it sounds like you have a very, very busy year ahead. Thank you very much for the thorough update. And before I let you go, I'm gonna plug that anyone who is interested in these issues and wants a monthly update, which you all produce a beautiful monthly update on tech policy in Europe, they should subscribe to your e newsletter, which they can do so just by going to cdt.org. Thank you, Yen, so much for joining Tech Talk.
Thank you, Brian.
CDT is gearing up for our twenty fifth anniversary annual dinner, a k a tech prom. This is the tech policy event of the year, and the 2020 version will undoubtedly be the very, very best ever. The mastermind behind that event is CDT's brilliant director of development, Lee Berkeley Shaw, And she join us joins us today to talk about it. Welcome Leigh Berkley.
Hi, Brian.
Are you so excited to be on Tech Talk? I am so excited. Although I'm sad because it's your last one. Well, you're the perfect guest to be on my last one. I had Yens earlier, now you. It's like the perfect CD farewell. Oh, thank you. CD T farewell. I can't even get the name right now. I know. Don't forget us yet. Alright. So top level, even though all our listeners should know, what is Tech Prom? What makes it so magical?
Well, Tech Prom is our annual dinner. For years, it was just called the annual dinner until it got colloquially dubbed Tech Prom. Much better name. Much better name. It stuck. So now we primarily just call it that. It features about a thousand members of the tech policy, community, from all sectors in industry. And it's tough to pinpoint what makes it magical, but it is. Started in the late nineties with a handful of people who really cared about these issues, and now we have over a thousand, and last year, we sold out. We literally could not put more tables in the room. I think the magic comes in networking. I think that CDT has a unique way of bringing together people from disparate communities and helping them see their commonalities. So you might have privacy experts in the same conversation with First Amendment lawyers and figuring out they have a lot in common or technologists and civil rights activists sharing a tale. And I think that tech prom stands apart in a city with a lot of dinners because we're bringing people out of their silos and into general conversation. Finally, I'd also just say it's fun. Tech prom has a a reunion feel to it. We all hop jobs all over the industry. I mean, case in point, Brian. Yikes. But it means that you're gonna run into old friends, colleagues, classmates. I suppose that could be good or bad, but it's a great way to see and be seen,
and for somebody new to the space, it's a great way to find out who the movers and shakers are. That is a great point. So before we go any further, let's make sure we've got the date, the location announced. What's the date? What's the location?
The date is 04/23/2020, which is a Thursday night. Go ahead take that Friday off. You're gonna need to. Oh, my gosh. Yes. It's at the Anthem down at the Wharf. And for those of you who may not know, the Anthem is DC's coolest concert venue right now. This is a change we made last year to resounding success. So the event will have three floors of cocktails and interactives and receptions of a wonderful dinner,
and then a concert at the end. So we're taking advantage of that space. That's fun. I've actually seen Brandi Carlile and Robin at the Anthem. Those are the two I remember. Tech Prom is just as cool as the two of those wonderful Grammy award winning artists. So you've already touched on this a little bit. What are some of the special things that we're gonna have going on at Tech Prom for the twenty fifth anniversary?
Well, I think the first thing to mention is that whenever you have a big anniversary, people always think of it as a time to reflect on your past and think about all your successes, and it will be a little bit of that. But really, we wanna make this event about looking to the next twenty five years. So rather than come and spend too too much time looking backwards, we're gonna still be talking about the future. I think that's what CDT really excels at is looking ahead. So you can count on that. That being said, we will have, some fun interactives, which we hope will make people laugh, be a little playful, but also inspire conversation. We also will be introducing a new CDT video to tell you a little bit about who we are. Woo. And, more than that, I think we're just gonna take a minute to give a nod to our alumni.
And who knows? We may even have a new CEO by then. Well, wouldn't that be great? Well, that would be exciting. The unveiling of our new CEO. What are do you have anything special planned for the alumni? I mean, one of the things I've really enjoyed about being at CDT is, you know, once a CDTer, always the CDTer. So I we always have so many people who have worked here in the past come back. Anything special for them, I'll be an alumni then too. Oh, that breaks my heart.
But yes, we we do want to make sure that they feel welcome. We wanna make sure that they feel appreciated. We are setting up a CDT alumni lounge in one of the receptions as a place specifically for them where they can, congregate, where they can reunite with each other, they can leave messages, they can look at old photos, they can take a trip down memory lane, or they can make the connections of the future, however they wanna use that time. We'll also be taking some some, some comments from them on their memories and sharing those so that, hopefully, we can have their voices present throughout the night. Cool. You could just run episodes of Tech Talk, like, on loop. I think people would love that. We could. There's some really good ones. Good idea, Brian. I'll put that on the list. You're welcome. Just trying to make it a fun event. So if people want to attend, what are the ways they can do that? Well, okay. So truth be told, Tech Promise CDT's only fundraising event of the year, which means that it is the kind of event where you either need to sponsor the event or buy a ticket. Sorry about that, friends. That being said, sponsorships, are especially important to CDT because not only do they pay for the dinner, but they also support our work throughout the rest of the year. So if you're in a position to do that, we do encourage it. And if you're not able to attend but want to be supportive or have your brand represented, we do have marketing opportunities, and I'd be happy to talk with anyone about those if you're interested. As for individuals, we do have tickets available for purchase on our website. We also have a special rate for our friends in nonprofit, academia, and who work for the government. And for those who need to worry about these things, this event has been designated to comply with ethics guidelines, so you should be all in the clear there. Oh, well done. Yeah. And then finally, if you don't think you can be there the whole time or, quite frankly, you just wanna go to the concert, that's up to you. We do have a ticket available just for the last ninety minutes of the event, which is our dessert reception and concert. That is a great way to take stock of the event if you haven't been before and wanna check it out. That's great. So how should people get in touch with you minus go to the website, obviously, for information, but you specifically, the development team? Sure. The website is, of course, the best place to start, but you can reach out to me personally at lshaw@cdt.org or the developmentteam@developmentatcdt.org. Oh, that's clever. I know. How about that? And and that way, one of us will answer you.
And I'm not done with questions yet. Now we have the fun ones. What is the signature cocktail this year? Well, we haven't named it yet. So if you have thoughts on that, we take those too.
But it is a bourbon with, lemon, honey, a sprig of, I want to, rosemary,
and a sprig of mint, I believe. Well, yes. I would like to try that. And, what are you gonna wear? Have you picked out your dress yet or Goodness. Practical pants suit for Tech
Prom? I haven't yet. Thank you for the very personal question to close out this segment. I do think whatever I wear will have pockets because
I do find that those are handy in a pinch. That's true. She is working very hard at that event. Leigh Berkley, thank you for joining. All of the information on Tech Prom again is on our website cdt.org. Check it out. I will be going definitely, and I hope to see you there. And I know the entire c d d t CDT team does as well. Thanks, Lee Berkley. Thank you, Brian. We'll miss you. That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. It has been an absolute pleasure to be your host since we first launched, but I am beyond excited to listen to future episodes featuring the brilliant questions melodious voice of Jamal. I'm Brian Wasilowski. As always, thanks so much for listening.
