Students: a) will have knowledge of some basic concepts useful to the lawyer on the functioning of the network and the computer, allowing an awareness of the centrality and importance of new technologies at the social level and at the juridical level. b) They will develop a better analytical capacity for problems, training themselves to reflect on new or strongly debated and problematic issues for contemporary law.
The course offers a historical introduction to the development of information technology, briefly reviewing its evolution in the functional sense (development of information systems) and technology (computer development). Central is the attention for its 'interdisciplinary' character.
Some basic notions are introduced on the functioning of the computer and the Internet, as well as on the processing of legal information, with this some hints on the basic concepts are introduced to help students to carry out independent research on databases (at least in the University databases).
Alongside the technological part, some ethical issues (political and juridical), raised by the social pervasiveness of informatics, are introduced in the course, paying attention to current issues (protection of freedom of speech, privacy, piracy, biotechnology). By tackling these aspects, we introduce some historical notions, related to social control and surveillance, as well as notions such as that of 'information society'. In this path, therefore, due to the pervasiveness of technology, a reflection is sought in various directions: from the possible effects of the technological society on the functioning of democracy, to original issues from the interdependence between computer science and other disciplines (such as genetics and biology), to discuss the difficulties that arise in terms of their regulation.
- Historical development of legal informatics: division in a functional and technological sense.
- From mainframes to laptops
- The use of calculus to study society: The notion of automatic calculation and the concept of data: the society seen with computational lens
-The Internet networks
-Data and ontologies. Data collections. Search for data.
- The information society. Historical origin of the concept and contemporary developments. Computer Ethics
- Problems raised by research and technological innovation: ethical, political, legal. Particular attention to regulatory difficulties.
- Pervasivity of information technology: with attention to the themes of freedom of speech, privacy and piracy. Social control and surveillance. The c.d. electronic democracy
-Interdisciplinary connections, computer ethic. Relations, influences and interdependencies between computer science and other disciplines (eg. genetics and biology. Artificial intelligence.
- Insights with external guests
For students attending the course:
- suitable parts of the book indicated in class
- study of the material discussed during the lesson e/o distributed for the seminars.
NON attending students:
- A. Contaldo, M. Iaselli, R. Oneda, F. Peluso, E. Tucci e G. Vaciago, L'informatica per il giurista, Maggioli Editore, 2019
o
- G. Sartor,
L'informatica giuridica e le tecnologie dell'informazione. Corso di informatica giuridica, 3° ed.,
Giappichelli, Torino, 2016
The students of non-juridical courses of degree must arrange a specific program with the teacher.
reading suggestions:
B.S.Noveck, Wikigovernment, Brookings I.Press, 2009.
P. Vigna, M.J. Casey,
The truth machine, St. Martin's Press, 2018.
N. Carr, The Glass Cage, Norton, 2014.
the course is divided between lectures and classroom exercises, mainly in groups in order to promote the development of reasoning and ethical-legal argumentation.
The course provides for attending students written exercise in progress, along with discussions in the classroom, that will be evaluated for the final vote, The final exam is oral.
Oral is the entire exam for non-attending students.
The course will host some in-depth seminars conducted by experts and scholars of the subject.