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In May 2019 the LSE launched its future strategy LSE 2030, with the following opening statement: "Our strategy lays out the guiding principles and commitments that will help us shape the world's future…" That is what a good teacher tells their students: that they not only are the future, but that they have the capacity and responsibility to shape the future. In the context of Big Data Ethics this is aptly phrased by Richards & King: "We are building a new digital society, and the values we build or fail to build into our new digital structures will define us." Algorithms are an integral part of our digital society. The ever growing availability of data in combination with incredible computing power led to today's success of algorithms. There is, however, also reason for cautiousness and concern. To mention just a few threats:• Decisions based on algorithms and profiles without the one who decides being able to provide an adequate explanation. For instance, people do not get a loan because the algorithm decided so based on the data related to the applicant. Or, parents are visited by social workers because the algorithm determined there is a risk of school drop out of their kids;• The use of biometric data which indelibly connects the individual to their data profiles such as the use of facial recognition software to connect physical appearance to online information;• Mass surveillance by both government and business.Given what algorithms can and might do, we as a society in general, and lawyers in particular, have a responsibility to decide how we want to shape the world we live in. What algorithms we do allow and what not, and in case we allow algorithms, under what conditions?

The area of Information Technology Lawyers is a fascinating one. Both from a practical and an academic perspective the opportunities of applying Information Technology to law are tremendous. At the same time, however, lawyers are amongst the most conservative professionals, and traditional late adapters of technology. Nowadays the gap between Information Technology Lawyers is closing more and more, in particular due to the Internet and the richness of legal sources that can be found online. This book provides material to further bridge the gap by showing people with a legal background what is possible with Information Technology now and in the near future, as well as by showing people with an IT background what opportunities exist in the domain of law. Any lawyer should read this book about the current practice of IT in the legal domain, and what is to be expected in the near future. The book is meant for both practitioners and academics, and can serve in any (post)graduate courses on computer science, law, business, etc. The editors Arno R. Lodder and Anja Oskamp are both affiliated to the Computer/Law Institute of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and before co-edited books on IT support of the Judiciary, as well as the first two editions of the Dutch handbook on IT Lawyers.

In 2017, the Dutch alternative dispute resolution (ADR) initiative e-Court handled 20,000 debt collection claims via an online arbitration procedure, and this number was expected to double in 2018. In September of that same year, the Chairman for the Council of the Judiciary, Frits Bakker, argued on the Day for the Judiciary that in the future most lawsuits can be handled automatically and that a robot judge could work fast, efficiently and cheaply. However, in January 2018, Frits Bakker seemed to have changed his mind and criticized e-Court for its lack of impartiality, lack of transparency, unlawfully denying people the right to a state Court, and for being a 'robot judge'. Ultimately, all criticism boiled down to one issue: that the defendant's right to a fair trial was not sufficiently protected in e-Court's procedure. This accusation led to a huge media outcry, and as a result Courts were no longer willing to grant an exequatur to e-Court's arbitral awards until the Supreme Court had given its approval. This forced e-Court to temporarily halt its services. Questions such as 'is arbitration desirable in the case of bulk debt collection procedures?' and 'are arbitration agreements in standard terms of consumer contracts desirable?' are relevant and important, but inherently political. In this article, we argue that the conclusion of the judiciary and media that e-Court's procedure is in breach of the right to a fair trial is not substantiated by convincing legal arguments. Our aim is not to evaluate whether online arbitration is the best solution to the debt collection claim congestion of Courts in the Netherlands, but instead to assess e-Court's procedure in the light of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The conclusion is that e-Court's procedure sufficiently guarantees the right to a fair trial and thus that the criticism expressed was of a political rather than legal nature.

Humans can process only small amounts of data, computers can process almost infinitely. But also computers need to act smart or intelligent, because otherwise even they get swamped and/or might produce useless information. Algorithms help in structuring and analyzing vast amounts of data. With the growth of data we have to rely increasingly on algorithms. These algorithms may perform better than alternative approaches we used to rely on. However, algorithms can be opaque, and the danger is that we get obscured by algorithms. Intelligence agencies use algorithms to distinguish between persons of interest and others. Law enforcement uses analytics and data mining to identify suspects and to support investigations. Businesses profile users in all kind of categories. Surveillance is omnipresent. The impact on privacy is not necessarily depending on who does the surveillance. It depends not only on the actors, but on various factors. Sometimes what businesses do impacts severely on the privacy of consumers, sometimes the work of police or intelligence agencies does not. In this paper we focus on surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies. Our aim is to dissect data analytics by intelligence agencies, and to suggest what privacy related law should focus on more than it does today. With an understanding of how big data algorithms usually work we discuss in this chapter the use of algorithms from a privacy and data protection angle. First, we briefly introduce the central concepts of data protection and privacy against the background of the General Data Protection Regulation introduced by the European Union in 2012, published in 2016 and effective as of 25 May 2018. The core of the chapter consists of elaborating upon three issues: 1. The stages of data processing while using of algorithms, how it affects privacy and what safeguards the law should provide; 2. The role of the human factor: how and when should humans be involved in evaluating outcomes, and also under what circumstances human interference is better abstained from; 3. The relevance of scale and scope: in the light of privacy, numbers matter. However, so far in law a discussion on the relevance of numbers (or scale) is largely absent.