International Journal of Law and Information Technology - current issue

Identifying the Identity Thief: Is it time for a (smart) Australia Card?

Cradduck, L., Mccullagh, A. — 2008-06-27

Identity theft restricts victims' lives, even if the stolen identity is not used for criminal purposes, as victims may be unable to obtain documents or benefits until the thief is prosecuted. The issue for regulators and consumers is that with the expansion of digital technologies identity theft is at once easier to perpetrate and harder to detect. This paper reviews the regulation of identity theft in Australia in light of the introduction by the Queensland Government on 7 February 2007 of a specific offence of identity theft. Aligned with this is the introduction on the same day by the Australian Government of the Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill 2007 under which a smart ‘Access Card’ will be issued to Australian residents who receive Federal benefits. This paper discusses issues that will influence the effectiveness of these schemes.

Legal Issues in Wireless Building Automation: an EU Perspective

Gadzheva, M. — 2008-06-27

Wireless building automation solutions promise to revolutionize home and commercial building management where fast deployment, increased building efficiency and optimal occupant comfort and convenience are top priorities. The ability to support people and/or device mobility, easy building reconfiguration, data, voice and video applications plus emerging indoor location-based services will unlock their future success. Wireless building automation systems are still at an early stage of development; however, as more and more building functions and applications are controlled electronically and wirelessly, constant occupant surveillance, tracking, personal profiling and security breaches, would raise deep concerns about the survival of privacy. Building privacy and security in the initial design should ensure that all necessary or required controls exist to protect access to and dissemination of personal information over the wireless building automation network. The applicability of the new EU regulatory framework for electronic communications and services will depend on the legal qualification of the network and services: private, public or a mixture of both.

Looking for zero-sum or win-win outcomes: A game-theoretical analysis of the fair use debate

Chang, Y.-L. — 2008-06-27

DRM (Digital Rights Management) affects the traditional doctrine of fair use. Currently the fair use debate in essence involves an ‘interest conflict’ between the information industries and the individual user. That is, industry prefers fared use while the user’s preference is for traditional free use. In order to make the fair use solution feasible, it depends heavily on the industry and user’s willingness to obey the final outcome. This paper argues that the key point required to accommodate the fair use debate is the coordination concept which is important but long ignored because we have been used to treating fair use debates as an all-or-nothing problem. Hence, this paper recommends that the ‘battle of the sexes’ game, long accepted as useful for dealing with the coordination problem involving interest conflict between the parties and also Schelling’s ‘focal point’ concept (exploring expectation convergence of all affected parties) can provide useful game-theoretic insight for lawyers to think about how to avoid zero-sum solutions to the fair use debate.