Regulating Transitions in Technology and Law

BILETA 2020, Tilburg, 7-8 April 2020

BILETA’s annual conference 2020 will take place in Tilburg, hosted by the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), part of the department on Law, Technology, Markets and Society (LTMS).

In the last few years, new terms have become more and more popular and have drawn the attention of both the general public and legal experts, and also the regulators: datafication, smartification, platformisation, economic integration, but also migration and climate mitigation. There is a common denominator to each and every one of these concepts: Change. A transition from a given ‘old’ to an unknown or uncertain ‘new’. Change itself is closely related to technology. Change can be the intended result of the application of a technology, or it may be one of its unintended side effects. In any case, the development of technology by humanity poses complex moral and legal questions as to the acceptable intended and unintended effects that technology has on a given society, and how society and individuals shall react to them. In other words, technology is transforming society on many fronts. In recent years, we have seen the sustained move from atoms to bits, rise of social media and the sharing economy, and the rapid development of cloud computing, big data, smart devices, and robotics. Along with these developments we see a continuous stream of new legal and regulatory issues. Furthermore, the very discipline of legal studies can be deeply affected, for the good or for the bad, by some technological advancements, such as AI and technology-enhanced learning tools.

We welcome papers on the following (and other) topics, with a particular welcome for papers that address regulatory challenges in technology and law, or issues connected to legal education:

• Privacy and data protection

• Mass and targeted surveillance

• Intellectual property law

• Cybercrime, cybersecurity, predictive policing

• Law and the creative industries (e.g. content regulation, taxation, consumer issues, competition)

• Legal education, regulation, and technology-enhanced learning

• Legal and ethical aspects of AI, algorithms, machine learning, automation

• Approaches to regulation and governance

• Future technologies and law

• Human rights and technology

Abstracts of up to 500 words should be uploaded to Easychair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bileta2020) by Sunday 19 January 2020.

The conference will take place on 7th/8th April 2020 at Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University (The Netherlands), including the BILETA Annual Dinner at the EVE (Tuesday 7th), and the BILETA AGM and informal events on the evening of the 6th of April. Discounts on the registration fee will be available for participants from BILETA member institutions and for early registration, and a substantial reduction will be available to PhD candidates. Registration will open in early January. The University has made arrangements at a preferential rate with a number of nearby hotels. As accommodation is not always ample in Tilburg, please make your arrangements as soon as possible (accommodation options available on the BILETA 2020 website at https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research- groups/tilt/tilt-bileta-2020). Eindhoven Airport is primarily served by low-cost airlines (including service to/from a range of European cities); Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is well connected by train with Tilburg (about 90’ minutes), and has the widest range of direct flights.

Queries? Please contact conference organisers Prof. Eleni Kosta and Dr Leonie Reins, as well as the events coordinator Femke Abousalama (bileta2020@uvt.nl). See also https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/tilt-bileta-2020.