DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP AND LAW

The course aims at introducing students to the subject of “digital citizenship”, intended as a heuristic concept for examining how uses of digital infrastructures – understood not simply as a set of technical tools but as constituted through social relations and practices – contribute to broader civic culture.
Following this idea “digital constitutionalism” will also be examined, intended as the attempt to configuring internet as a place inhabited by full-fledged citizens rather than by simple consumers, by bringing constitutional approaches to the internet which try to articulate political rights, governance norms, and limitations on the exercise of power on the Internet.
Within this framework the idea of Privacy will be analysed as a crucial dimension of digital citizenship in the digital age, in front of the development of Big Data and machine-learning. The principles of a democratic internet governance will be analyzed (such as net neutrality, access, data control, etc.), as well as the main principles of the European General Regulation on Data Protection (GDPR).
Spme practical activities, to be conducted either individually or in group, will be proposed to complement lessons (for example, but not limited to: Tracking online, Metadata and profiling, Big data, machine-learning and new issues of privacy, Obfuscation).