Electronic Communication Networks Research Articles

Legal regulation of personal data protection in electronic communication networks

Legal regulation of personal data protection in electronic communication networks

COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Privacy Rights in Ghana: A Critical Analysis of the Establishment of Emergency Communications System Instrument, 2020 (EI 63)

AbstractIn December 2019, the world woke up to the news of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Since then, governments across the globe have deployed various measures to contain the spread of the disease. The government of Ghana, among other measures, issued the Establishment of Emergency Communications System Instrument, 2020 (EI 63) to establish an emergency communications system to aid contact tracing during public health emergencies. This executive instrument has been criticized for illegally “legalizing” the breach of the privacy rights of electronic communications network subscribers in Ghana. This article critically analyses EI 63 in relation to the right to privacy of communication enshrined in Ghana's 1992 Constitution. It argues against the constitutionality of EI 63, calls for its revocation and replacement with an act of Parliament enacted with due regard for Ghana's legislative framework on the protection of the right to privacy of communication.

Current Aspects of Legal Regulation for Monitoring Electronic Communications and Removal of Information from Electronic Communication Networks in Ukraine

The article is focused on studying current aspects of normative and legal regulation for monitoring electronic communications in foreign countries and in Ukraine; on the features of conducting search and investigative actions on the removal of information from electronic communication networks.
 The legislation of Ukraine does not currently provide the procedure for creation and implementation of interception systems for electronic communications, does not define organizational and technical requirements that should guarantee conditions for monitoring such activities, despite the relevance of modern legal regulation of conducting search, operative and technical measures in communication networks. rapid development of electronic information technology.
 The legislator made an attempt to legally regulate the implementation of operative and technical measures in electronic communication networks in the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine dated from April 13, 2012, which provided the removal of information from transport telecommunication networks. Relevant norms were also provided in the Law of Ukraine “On Operative and Search Activities”. Regarding the dynamic development of legislation, which is primarily due to the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Electronic Communications” dated from December 16, 2020, the author of the article has stated the need to update the existing procedure for such activities.
 The author has suggested measures, the realization of which should improve the capacity of authorized law enforcement agencies to combat crime in the field of information and communication technologies: adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Interception of Electronic Communications”, amendments to the Laws of Ukraine “On Electronic Communications”, “On Operative and Search Activities”, “On Counterintelligence Activities”, “On Combating Terrorism”; bringing the norms of domestic legislation in line with the provisions of the Convention on Cybercrime; creation of conditions necessary to improve the capacity of authorized state agencies to remove information from electronic communication networks; establishing proper cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies.

Requirements of EU law enforcement agencies for lawful interception of information in electronic communications networks

The article is devoted to the analysis of regulatory and legal acts and normative documents of the EU on information interception in electronic communication networks in the context of preparation of technical regulations of the united system of technical means.

Мистецтво в системі філософії освіти. Ч. 2.

Modern reformation-educational processes are influenced by digital technologies, electronic communications networks, media-art practices, etc. Hence we get the actuality of creative potential of art for pedagogical activity as the concept of philosophy of education. Human consciousness inherents organic interdependence theoretically-cognitive (knowledge, ideas, comprehension of the boundary principles of human existence, culture, procedure of philosophical reflection) and social-psychological (feelings, will) elements. Author’s perennial experience incorporates interactive forms of artistic knowledge activation of pedagogical specialties students: preparations and guided tours by students (museums, architecture of Lviv, etc.), developing skills to conduct dialogues about art and education of the countries which languages are taught in pedagogical institution (Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain). In accordance personal and pedagogical experience of intersubjective communication, existential and cultural self-determination is enriched. In the system of philosophy of education, art is designed to harmonize human existence, to balance the sensory-emotional and rational-intellectual spheres of consciousness. The spread of electronic media requires a thorough study of their impact on humans, given the cognitive problems of communication technologies, information and computer systems, digitalization. A variety of artistic phenomena form a holistic system. Moreover, beliefs are knowledge that has passed through the world of feelings and human will. An open humanitarian space, new dialogical, communicative, cultural opportunities for interaction of nature-man-culture-society-universe, the universal nature of self-organization of human life, education of intersubjective cultural communication between carriers of different types of worldview, values, spiritual traditions is methodologically important.

Effect of malpractice claims on orthopedic and traumatology physicians in Turkey: A survey study.

This study aimed to investigate the malpractice claims experienced by orthopedic and traumatology physicians and to determine their effects on burnout, job satisfaction, and clinical practice. A questionnaire survey was conducted on orthopedic and traumatology specialists between May 2019 and February 2020. Data collection was carried out via e-survey at "turk-ortopedi" mail group, which is an electronic communication network of orthopedic and traumatology physicians. For data collection, sociodemographic data forms were used including the general characteristics, working conditions, and the malpractice claim events along with the Maslach Burnout Inventory scale to evaluate burnout and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire to investigate job satisfaction. In total, 353 orthopedic and traumatology physicians (348 men, 5 women), including 37 professors, 41 associate professors, and 275 surgeons, completed the questionnaire. In total, 65.4% of the participants (231 physicians and 471 relevant dossiers) stated that they were currently facing a malpractice claim. Emotional burnout and hesitant behavior in medical practices were significantly higher among the physicians who had undergone an investigation/trial with the claim of malpractice (p<0.05), whereas intrinsic job satisfaction was significantly lower (p<0.05). It was determined that orthopedic and traumatology physicians dealing with arthroplasty, vertebral surgery, hand surgery, and foot/ankle surgeries had undergone significantly more trials (p<0.05). In the evaluation of the burnout levels and job satisfaction scores of the physicians according to the age, academic title, seniority, and institution, it was determined that burnout level decreased with age, those between the ages of 25 and 34 years were exhausted the most, and job satisfaction increased with age. It was also found that burnout level decreased and job satisfaction increased as the academic title became higher, and attending physicians were the most exhausted. Moreover, burnout level decreased as seniority increased, the most senior ones were the ones most exhausted, and job satisfaction increased with seniority. Evidence from this study has revealed that malpractice claims cause emotional burnout, low intrinsic job satisfaction, and a hesitant behavior in medical practice for the orthopedic and traumatology physicians. The concept of malpractice alone may result in unnecessary analyses/examinations for patients. Level IV, Diagnostic Study.

Conditions of autonomous access to information during interception of information from electronic Communications networks

The article is devoted to the problem of autonomous access to information during interception of information from electronic communications network. The concept of “united system of technical means” is defined. Structure of united system technical means is proposed. The conditions for autonomous access are given.

Protection of privacy in the period of Covid-19 pandemic

During the pandemic of COVID-19 in April 2020 the Ministry of Health in Bulgaria began the administration of the Virusafe contact tracking application. With the Law on Emergency Measures and Actions, declared by a decision of the National Assembly of 13th March 2020 amendments to the Electronic Communications Act were adopted. The purpose of the legislative amendments was to provide access of the competent authorities to the localization data from the public electronic communication networks of the individuals, who have refused or do not fulfill the obligatory isolation or treatment under art. 61 of the Health Act. This publication aims to analyze the main features of mobile applications for tracking the contacts of infected persons, as well as the adopted legislative changes, comparing them with the standards of personal data protection provided in the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 and Directive 2002/58/EC on the right to privacy and electronic communications.

CYBERSECURITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA: A RETROSPECTIVE FOR THE PERIOD 2015-2020

The process of implementing information technologies in all areas of economic, political, social life, etc. in the Republic of Moldova has also determined the evolution of cybercrime. New “virtual” dimensions of national infrastructure are being formed, which are becoming more and more important for local and international politics. As a result, in recent years it has been found that computer systems, networks and data are being used more and more frequently for criminal purposes, and the materials that could be evidence of these crimes are also stored and transmitted through these networks by perpetrators. Cybercrime, espionage, propaganda, diversion and excessive exploitation of personal data through electronic communications networks are used as basic tools at all stages of designing a hybrid security threat. Cyberspace-specific threats are characterized by asymmetry and accentuated dynamics and global character, which makes them difficult to identify and counteracted by measures proportional to the impact of the materialization of risks. Moldova is currently facing threats from cyberspace at the address of critical infrastructures, given the increasing interdependence between cyber infrastructures and infrastructures such as those in the financial banking, transport, energy and national defense sectors. The globality of cyberspace is likely to amplify the risks to them by affecting both the sector to the same extent private as well as public. Threats to cyberspace can be classified in several ways, but the most commonly used are those based on motivational factors and the impact on society. In the prevailing conditions cybersecurity is becoming one of the most important areas for ensuring internal security and the effective operation of state institutions in all spheres of social and economic life.

A novel framework for retrieval of image using weighted edge matching algorithm

With enormous development in diverse kinds of images through electronic communication networks, it becomes a demanding chore to retrieve the efficient result from a wide collection of images. CBIR i.e. content based image retrieval answers the problem as it selects visual image contents or features to deal with images. Since images are represented by certain features to facilitate accurate retrieval of the required images here this article proposed a method to extract certain features from the image based on color, texture, and shape. This paper has proposed an approach named as weighted edge matching information retrieval (WEMIR) to perform content based image retrieval. It is a fusion approach to extract the color, texture and shape features from images. With the single feature extraction, acceptable outcomes are not formed. Hence multi-feature extraction is developed to perform retrieval of images. To extract the color feature, the higher order of confined mean is used to improve the lower contrast to gain high contrast. To extract the texture features multi optimization techniques are used and for shape feature extraction weighted edge matching technique is used. Pixel content is extracted from each image present in the database as well as for the test image provided. Based on the proposed method WEMIR the optimal features are obtained for query and image database. By using image distance measure corresponding images are retrieved from the database. The competence of the proposed WEMIR is measured using precision and recall. The proposed method shows better retrieval results while compared with the traditional methods.

Дистанционное образование — современные реалии и перспективы развития

Researched is the problem of distance education in Russia in the context of the coronavirus pandemic that spread throughout the world in 2020. It describes and analyzes results of survey in the form of questionnaire of both Students and Lectors of Higher Educational institutions in several provincial cities of Russia. As a result of the study it was revealed that about 70% of students and more than 90% of Lectors believe, that the educational process in higher education is inappropriate to completely transfer online. Lectors noted that optimal form of organizing the educational process is combination of online and offline formats. The survey in the form of questionnaire made it possible to assess strengths and weaknesses of organization and content ofdistance education in Russian Universities, difficulties and problems that have arisen among Lectors and Students, and prospects for development of the phenomenon under study. First of all, it is necessary to note insufficient readiness of both Lectors and Students to switch to distance mode. Many organizational difficulties were associated with unstable operation of electronic educational environment, educational portals, information and communication networks, as well as with failures in the Internet. Research has shown that these issues need to be addressed over the long term. Both Students and Lectors recognize that distance learning is a good addition to existing traditional educational system, and some forms of educational work can be left online.

Zgoda na przetwarzanie danych osobowych i profilowanie. Uwagi na tle wyroku Trybunału Sprawiedliwości UE z dnia 1 października 2019 r. w sprawie C-673/17

Przedmiot badań: Przedmiotem badania jest wyrok TSUE z dnia 1 października 2019 r. w spra­wie C-673/17 (Planet 49). W niniejszym artykule przedstawiona została analiza problemu prze­twarzania danych osobowych w zakresie obowiązków informacyjnych i warunków udzielenia zgody, wymaganych przez RODO, w sytuacji przetwarzania danych osobowych przez informa­tyczne narzędzia zbierania danych, które wywierają wpływ na sferę prywatności użytkownika sieci łączności elektronicznej jako informacje, w tym dane osobowe przechowywane w urządze­niach końcowych, służące zdalnej identyfikacji i śledzeniu użytkowników końcowych.1&#x0D; Cel badawczy: Celem badawczym artykułu jest ocena rozwiązań prawnych dotyczących obo­wiązków stosowania plików cookies jako jednej z technologii, która przechowuje informacje na urządzeniach użytkowników końcowych lub uzyskuje do tych informacji dostęp. W aktual­nym stanie prawnym brak jest legalnej definicji plików cookie nie tylko ze względu na to, że nie jest to jedyna technologia, pozwalająca na zbieranie informacji z urządzeń końcowych, ale także z uwagi na różne źródła pochodzenia plików cookie i ich funkcje (np. cookie analityczne, marketingowe, związane z bezpieczeństwem). Pliki cookie instalowane na urządzeniu końco­wym użytkownika mogą zawierać numer przypisany do danych rejestracyjnych użytkownika. Oznacza to, że skojarzenie takiego numeru z danymi osobowymi użytkownika powoduje per­sonalizację danych przechowywanych przez pliki cookie, wobec czego zbieranie danych za pomocą tych plików może być przetwarzaniem danych osobowych. Jedną z form zautomatyzo­wanego przetwarzania danych osobowych, które polega na wykorzystaniu danych osobowych do oceny niektórych czynników osobowych osoby fizycznej jest profilowanie. Przetwarzanie danych osobowych uwarunkowane jest zaistnieniem przesłanek dopuszczalności przetwarzania danych wskazanych w art. 6 i 9 RODO, wśród których znajduje się zgoda podmiotu danych. Zgoda jako jedna z niezależnych podstaw przetwarzania danych osobowych ma na celu za­gwarantowanie autonomii informacyjnej podmiotu danych w sytuacji, gdy to właśnie od jego decyzji zależy możliwość przetwarzania danych. Dla zakwalifikowania danego działania lub oświadczenia jako wyrażenie zgody konieczne jest kumulatywne wystąpienie jej elementów konstrukcyjnych, wymienionych w art. 7 RODO, których spełnienie konieczne jest także w wa­runkach wyrażania oświadczeń on-line.&#x0D; Metoda badawcza: Stosując metodę prawno-porównawczą, przeprowadzona została anali­za obowiązujących przepisów z uwzględnieniem tego, że Trybunał w Luksemburgu w wyroku z 1 października 2019 r. w sprawie C-673/17 (Planet 49) wypowiedział się na temat zgody na zamieszczenie plików cookie o funkcji marketingowej oraz zakresu informacji, jakich należy udzielić przy pozyskiwaniu takiej zgody.&#x0D; Wnioski: Zamieszczenie plików cookies o treści marketingowej wymaga zgody, spełnienia wa­runków jej pozyskiwania oraz zachowania standardów informacyjnych zgodnych z RODO.

The Broadband Cost Reduction Directive: A legal primer in cross-sector regulation of infrastructures

Infrastructures have mostly developed and have also been regulated in silo, especially in the liberalization phase. As economic, societal and technological patterns toward convergence of infrastructure sectors can now be observed, how to regulate such phenomena obviously raises many questions. In this context, the cross-sector regulation laid down by the Directive 2014/61/EU on measures to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks constitutes an interesting legal primer in EU law, although little discussed. Six years after the adoption of the Directive, the present paper aims to draw lessons from it, from its transposition and from the related dispute-settlement practice in the Member States, with the perspective of cross-sector regulation. What type of cross-sector regulation does the Directive bring about? What are the factors having an influence on the (im)balance between the sectors and/or sectoral regulations? It seems all the more necessary that the newly appointed European Commission (“EC”) announced its willingness to revise the Directive within the next 5 years. The study of the BCR Directive may also contribute to inform how to regulate the phenomenon of increasing convergence between network industries. The paper refers to “cross-sector regulation” as, broadly, a type of regulation where several sectors, traditionally subject to specific regulations, are brought together, irrespective of the mode of interaction between them. Particularly, “cross-sector regulation” does not assume that the sectors and/or the sectoral regulations would be placed on an equal footing.

(Re-)defining software defined networks under the European electronic communications code

This article assesses some aspects of innovative developments in the deployment of electronic communications networks in the European Union: software defined networks (SDN) and network functional virtualization (NFV). The overall research for this article focuses on the re-regulation of the 2018 European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), and the 2018 Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) Regulation. It addresses the Commission's desire to promote innovation to compete better on the global communications and technology markets, whilst also mitigating network security risks. After an introduction of the technological aspects, this Article discusses: (i) the innovation that the deployment of SDN and NFV by software suppliers or service providers may bring to, predominantly, mobile electronic communications networks; (ii) the legal status of SDN and NFV, and, possible rights and obligations for the suppliers; and (iii) the allocation of the responsibility and liability for and costs of network and information security where SDN and NFV are deployed in electronic communications networks. The context is the network deployment of 5G frequencies in the period 2020–2022.

Electronic communications apparatus and property: Surveyors beware

The introduction of the Digital Economy Act 2017 followed by the New Electronic Communications Code are legislation changes that property owners, investors and developers should be aware of. In particular, the ability of electronic communications network operators to take property owners to court to seek to impose rights over their property assets and the restrictions on removing phone masts without a court order are having a fundamental impact on how the property sector perceives mobile phone masts and other electronic communications infrastructure. This paper reviews some of the issues that are causing difficulty between the property sector and network operators, particularly issues that professionals advising property owners should be alive to and upon which early specialist advice may be prudent before engaging with network operators.

The Traditional Concept of Habeas Corpus and Modern Dangers for Privacy Through the Use of Wearable Apps

Wearable devices (WDs) are a specific part of the general concept of the “Internet of Things”. This concept refers to infrastructure in which many sensors are designed to record, process, and store data locally, or interact with each other both in the medium range, through the use of radio frequency technologies (e.g. RFID, bluetooth, etc.), or through an electronic communications network. The devices involved are not only traditional computers or smartphones, but also daily life objects (things), such as wearable devices, home automation geo-referencing, and assisted navigation objects. Indeed, the “Internet of Things” refers to a further development of the Internet resulting from physical objects networking. These objects may be equipped with a unique identifier (for example, a serial number), recognizable even by radio frequency. However, the identification of these objects could also be made without resorting to radio tags, simply by combining sensors and automatic recognition procedures (for example, the recognition of a barcode carried out with a mobile phone connected to the Internet). The current state of research on this issue concerns mainly the use of WDs in daily life, and the enforcement of privacy rules, due to the capacity of WDs for the massive collection of personal data, such as in the health care and labour contexts, both sensitive areas for discrimination.

Alternative Trading Systems in the Corporate Bond Market

We investigate the trading of corporate bonds on alternative trading system (ATS) platforms. We draw a key distinction between request-for-quote (RFQ) and electronic communication network (ECN) trading protocols, which balance investors’ preference for immediacy and anonymity. Trades on ATS platforms are smaller and more likely to involve investment-grade bonds. Trades on ATS platforms are more probable for older, less actively traded bonds from smaller issues and for bonds traded by more dealers where inventory is high. Moreover, dealer participation on ATS platforms is associated with lower customer transaction costs of between 24 and 32 basis points.

Measuring electronic communication networks in virtual care teams using electronic health records access-log data

ObjectiveTo develop methods for measuring electronic communication networks in virtual care teams using electronic health records (EHR) access-log data. MethodsFor a convenient sample of 100 surgical colorectal cancer patients, we used time-stamped EHR access-log data extracted from an academic medical center’s EHR system to construct communication networks among healthcare professionals (HCPs) in each patient’s virtual care team. We measured communication linkages between HCPs using the inverse of the average time between access events in which the source HCPs sent information to and the destination HCPs retrieved information from the EHR system. Social network analysis was used to examine and visualize communication network structures, identify principal care teams, and detect meaningful structural differences across networks. We conducted a non-parametric multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to test the association between care teams’ communication network structures and patients’ cancer stage and site. ResultsThe 100 communication networks showed substantial variations in size and structures. Principal care teams, the subset of HCPs who formed the core of the communication networks, had higher proportions of nurses, physicians, and pharmacists and a lower proportion of laboratory medical technologists than the overall networks. The distributions of conditional uniform graph quantiles suggested that our network-construction technique captured meaningful underlying structures that were different from random unstructured networks. MANOVA results found that the networks’ topologies were associated with patients’ cancer stage and site. ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that it is feasible to use EHR access-log data to measure and examine communication networks in virtual care teams. The proposed methods captured salient communication patterns in care teams that were associated with patients’ clinical differences.

It's how we communicate! Exploring face-to-face versus electronic communication networks in multidisciplinary teams.

Previous research suggests that multidisciplinary team communication networks enhance knowledge exchange, learning, and quality of care in health organizations. However, little is known about team members' reliance on face-to-face versus electronic-based communication networks for information and knowledge exchange. The aim of the study was to describe patterns of face-to-face versus electronic-based communication networks in a multidisciplinary team and to explore the relationships between team communication networks and performance, measured as promptness of treatment implementation. We collected data on work-based communication among members of a multidisciplinary tumor board (MDT) in a large Italian research hospital. A social network survey was administered in 2016 to all board members to gather network data on face-to-face interaction and the use of electronically based communication channels (e-mail, text messages, and WhatsApp) for sharing clinical knowledge. Twenty physicians (71%) completed the survey. Archival data were accessed to obtain detailed information about 222 clinical cases discussed over a 1-year period during weekly MDT meetings. Minutes of board meetings were used to link all discussed cases to team members. We used the multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MR-QAP) to study associations between team member characteristics and communication networks. Negative binomial regression was employed to test relationships between team communication networks and performance. MDT members relied on different communication channels for knowledge sharing. The geographical proximity of team members positively predicted the frequency of face-to-face interaction. Physicians' seniority was related to the use of WhatsApp as a communication channel; greater interaction of this type was observed between team members of different seniority. Performance was related positively to face-to-face communication networks but negatively to communication via WhatsApp. Although team communication networks are important for knowledge exchange, health administrators must pay attention to the increasing propensity of team members to rely on electronic-based communication. The use of these easy-to-use tools can hinder the quality of group discussion and debate.

Feature Extraction Method of Transmission Signal in Electronic Communication Network Based on Symmetric Algorithm

Because the existing methods extract the signal characteristics of electronic communication networks, there is a problem of poor extraction. In this paper, a feature extraction method based on symmetric algorithm for transmission signals in electronic communication networks is proposed. The transmission signal in the time domain is decomposed by three-layer wavelet packet decomposition through threshold denoising and data dimension reduction. The adaptive floating threshold is used as a threshold to quantify the wavelet coefficients of the signal, which can effectively remove noise while retaining valuable transmission signal. Secondly, the feature extraction algorithm based on symmetric Holder coefficient is used to transform the transmitted signal from time domain to frequency domain, identify the signal sequence, and classify the signal sequence using neural network classifier. The simulation results show that the proposed method can extract the transmission signal of electronic communication network with the highest accuracy of 98.21%. This method can extract the amplitude and frequency characteristics of the transmission signal accurately under strong vibration environment. It is an efficient method for feature extraction of transmission signal.