France in Europe in general, we have one
of the most protective legislation when it comes to data and privacy
However new technologies development and their new uses harm to jeopardize these legal protections

to simplify one could say that there are combined phenomena
on one hand, more and more data is being collected in different ways
as we surf the Internet and as we use our mobile phones and even more in the future because of what is known as the Internet of Things large amounts of data are collected often unknown to people involved

so data collected massively besides that there is a growing interest
from different individuals and organizations to exploit these data 
that is called data analysis
data analysis and everything involving big data is a very public issue these days at that point, one can really notice the tensions between privacy protection as it is under current law and what they intend to do in practice

for example for Big Data, the logic is to collect as much data as possible to then be able to analyze it to infer new knowledge
but on matters and in directions that we don't necessarily know when collecting the data that goes completely against the law

currently in France and generally in Europe the collection  of personal data must serve specific purposes which are defined at the time of the collection 
and once these objectives are met the data must be deleted

so this is the complete opposite of what people who analyze data on a large scale intend to do
I'm not suggesting that information technologies are inevitably a threat to
privacy
but we can also design  new technologies aimed to protect privacy to fill the  gap big data and data analysis that I mentioned earlier 

so ultimately we could consider it a subject of research on information technology

for example to solve this large-scale data collection and analysis gap
anonymization technique maybe designed we know it is in fact statutory that
personal data protection law doesn't safeguard anonymous data 

because  by definition anonymous data is not personal when exploiting data massively it is convenient to first anonymize them
but data anonymization is a very complex matter 
what anonymous data relly means
this is a very elusive thing to define so today a
leading research topic in the field
concerns robust anonymization techniques


the right to control our own data is also expected in France and in Europe in
general
this is occasionally called informational self-determination and
like other rights, this one is being undermined in several ways
particularly through the widespread use of algorithms nowadays
especially predictive or decision-making algorithms
that concerns a wide range of fields and even our everyday activities
for example, when it comes to the field of information it is well known that
today more and more people get their information from social media
but we don't always know the information obtained through social media is graded by algorithms and we don't necessarily know how algorithms work

this can have a major impact on a right to be informed or over censorship

it was even brought up upon the u.s. presidential election
some social media were accused of bias one ranking information
favoring one candidate over another and these accusations are reinforced as
we don't know precisely how these algorithms work

but this is only one of all the examples regarding employment for instance
it's known to some companies in the u.s. use algorithms to rank applications
so this allows them to hire people without having to interview
regarding insurance, we could receive premium offers calculated by the user
profiling algorithms same goes for bank loans more seriously maybe there is an emerging use of this kind of algorithms in police and judicial matters

as far as police it's what's known as predictive policing many saw the movie
Minority Report today this dystopian kind of scenario is conceivable with the predictive police which is already implemented in certain County
in the United States
it is  used to anticipate the areas and even the days of the week
at greatest risk of crime or misdemeanors
so police forces will be deployed during those hours and at those spots based on algorithms but then again there are related risks like the risk of discrimination and stigmatization of some populations
so the rather opaque uses of algorithms are likely to create new risks
and to jeopardize certain rights like those related to non-discrimination
fair treatment let alone the right to be informed


I've just spoken about decision-making algorithms
but there are other situations in which source codes
are integrated like on trains Subway's planes and ever more frequently
on self-driving cars, source codes make major decisions but in those cases it
would be even a matter of life and death as self-driving cars decide whether to brake accelerate or turn

therefore the questions we face today concern liability
who is responsible in case of malfunction
when dealing with gigantic software including millions of lines of code
provided maybe by a range of actors how to determine the misfunction or damages were caused by a given software component or generated by a particular sub or supplier

again these are complicated issues involving legal notions like liability
 compensation and technical  issues as we must be able to analyze the
concerned logs and to point out the area where the error occurred
and thereby the components and suppliers that must be held responsible

all this shows as regards linkage between legal and technical matters
there are many difficult questions about software and the technical 
tools that we currently use on a daily basis
that can raise complex questions concerning the law and way more
so one can argue that these are societal
or even ethical issues we hear more and more about robotics in the social context in the medical field or even in military activity which raises ethical
questions
then it's crucial that not only technicians and policymakers understand
these issues public, in general, must comprehend them as well
most importantly of course the younger
generations the high school students it really is an essential point in
education today to make it clear that these digital tools and new
services bring up truly complex issues legal and political issues and also in a
broader sense ethical issues



concerning the treatment of large quantities of data I referred  earlier to  two technical solutions saying that anonymization might be one of them turning transparency, particularly in algorithms, this is a subject that initiates significant research work and that  arises highly important questions for example how to prove that an algorithm used to scream applicants to determine which candidates will be selected for a given position
how to make sure that this algorithm won't lead to discrimination these are
extremely complex questions and to do that it is not enough to disclose the
source code we must be able to analyze it and understand it 
now there are movements
what is called explainable AI or XAI
how to manage to explain the results of an algorithm
especially algorithms used in artificial intelligence those based on machine
learning
nowadays we often use algorithms based on machine learning
that are able to make predictions or to establish connections classifications
ties than are extremely subtle sometimes highly accurate but whose results we are unable to explain that raises major challenges for those who use the results of the algorithms
and evidently, that also raises certain issues regarding societal and political
matters
can we trust these algorithms in a situation
in which their results will
to make important decisions that impact individuals this also represents an emerging topic nowadays and I have no doubts that it will become a major issue over the next decade