Contact: nylegalhackers@gmail.com
Website: http://legalhackers.org/ | Registration: http://legalhackers.org/privacyhack2014
Twitter: @legalhacknyc | #legalhack | #privacyhack
NEW YORK. From February 8 through February 9, in New York City, the Bay Area, and London, the Legal Hackers, along with Open Notice, the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Customer Commons, will hold a legal hackathon to tackle one of the most explosive issues in the policy landscape: data privacy. Gathering legal, policy, and technical minds in the same room, this event offers participants the opportunity to collaborate and examine hot-button privacy issues — including Do Not Track, government surveillance, and cross-border data transfers — that we see splashed across headlines on a daily basis. The goal of this legal hackathon is to build tangible solutions to the privacy concerns created by the current technological and legal landscape at both the national and international levels.
What is a legal hackathon? A legal hackathon is an event that brings together teams of lawyers, policymakers, academics, and technologists to collaborate and develop on-the-spot, technology-enabled solutions to challenging legal and policy issues. Participants at the Data Privacy Hackathon will form teams to build tools that address an aspect of a data privacy problem that interests them. These teams will have approximately 24 hours, over two days, to work on their project. The teams will then present the results before a panel of judges on the evening of February 9. The most creative, valuable, and socially beneficial results will receive cash prizes.
Why privacy? It’s fair to say that no other single law and policy issue poses as much of a challenge to the world of modern technology as privacy. The question of how much control a person, corporation, or government can or should exert over the information flowing across today’s networks remains deeply contested. Yet even as another Edward Snowden revelation raises new concerns over surveillance, hundreds of thousands of consumers are voluntarily downloading mobile applications that offer free products and services in exchange for their data. Meanwhile, the laws regulating privacy are often incomprehensible for both consumers and small businesses, making it difficult for the law to serve the public good it was designed to protect.
A global concern. An event like this has never been more important. The uncertain data privacy landscape presents a host of challenges, but also offers exciting opportunities for creative technical and legal minds to come together to build real solutions. Join the Legal Hackers 2/8/14 – 2/9/14 to take part.
Registration for participants is free at http://legalhackers.org/privacyhack2014.