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Robots are an increasingly common feature in North American public spaces. From regulations permitting broader drone use in public airspace and autonomous vehicle testing on public roads, to delivery robots roaming sidewalks in major U.S. cities, to the announcement of Sidewalk Toronto – a plan to convert waterfront space in one of North America’s largest cities into a robotics-filled smart community – the laws regulating North American public spaces are opening up to robots. In many of these examples, the growing presence of robots in public space is associated with opportunities to improve human lives through intelligent urban design, environmental efficiency, and greater transportation accessibility. However, the introduction of robots into public space has also raised concerns about, for example, the commercialization of these spaces by the companies that deploy robots; increasing surveillance that will negatively impact physical and data privacy; or the potential marginalization or exclusion of some members of society in favour of those who can pay to access, use, or support the new technologies available in these spaces. The laws that permit, regulate, or prohibit robotic systems in public spaces will in many ways determine how this new technology impacts public space and the people who inhabit that space. This begs the questions: how should regulators approach the task of regulating robots in public spaces? And should any special considerations apply to the regulation of robots because of the public nature of the spaces they occupy? This paper argues that the laws that regulate robots deployed in public space will affect the public nature of that space, potentially to the benefit of some human inhabitants of the space over others. For these reasons, special considerations should apply to the regulation of robots that will operate in public space. In particular, the entry of a robotic system into a public space should never be prioritized over communal access to and use of that space by people. And, where a robotic system serves to make a space more accessible, lawmakers should be cautious to avoid providing differential access to that space through the regulation of that robotic system.
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In the era of smart phones, creepshots, and sexual photos taken and shared without consent, the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R v Jarvis will be sure to shape the cultural landscape of what is now known as image-based abuse. The Court’s upcoming decision will determine when and where a person will be criminally liable for taking pictures of women and girls without their knowledge, for his or her sexual gratification. In this three-part blog post, we discuss three central issues that aros
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The impact of drones on women’s privacy has recently garnered sensational attention in media and popular discussions. Media headlines splash stories about drones spying on sunbathing or naked women and girls, drones being used to stalk women through public spaces, and drones delivering abortion pills to women who might otherwise lack access. Yet despite this popular attention, and the immense literature that has emerged analyzing the privacy implications of drone technology, questions about how the drone might enhance or undermine women’s privacy in particular have not yet been the subject of significant academic analysis. This paper contributes to the growing drone privacy literature by examining how the technology can be especially apt to impact women’s privacy. In particular, various features of the technology allow it to take advantage of the ways in which privacy protection has traditionally been - and in many cases continues to be - gendered. While the analytical focus is on the gendered privacy impacts of drone technology, the article and its conclusions are about more than women's privacy. Examining some of the differential impacts of the technology, and the laws that guide its use, helps to reveal broader inequities that can go unseen when we think about technology without social context. The paper ultimately argues that drone regulators cannot continue to treat the technology as though it is value-neutral - impacting all individuals in the same manner. Going forward, the social context in which drone technology is emerging must inform both drone-specific regulations, and how we approach privacy generally. This paper is framed as a starting point for a further discussion about how this can be done within the Canadian context and elsewhere.
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The combination of human-computer interaction (“HCI”) technology with sensors that monitor human physiological responses offers state agencies purportedly improved methods for extracting truthful information from suspects during interrogations. These technologies have recently been implemented in prototypes of automated international border kiosks, in which an individual seeking to cross a border would first have to interact with an avatar interrogator. The HCI system uses a combination of visual, auditory, infrared and other sensors to monitor an individual’s eye movements, voice, and various other qualities throughout the interaction. This information is then aggregated and analyzed to determine whether the individual is being "deceptive". This paper argues that this type of application poses serious risks to individual rights such as privacy and the right to silence. Highly invasive data collection and analysis is being integrated into a technology that is designed in a way that conceals the full extent of the interaction from those engaging with it. Border avatars are being misconstrued as technological versions of a human border agent, when in fact the technology enables a substantially more invasive interaction. The paper concludes by arguing that courts, developers, and state agencies institute strict and strong limits on how this technology is implemented and what information this emerging technology can collect from the individuals who engage with it.
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