Jag har alltid varit en smula avundsjuk på min chef för alla de internetkonferenser som hon blir inbjuden till runtom i världen. Så när hon föreslog att jag skulle följa med till årets upplaga av Internet Governance Forum var jag inte sen att instämma i att det var en mycket bra idé. Att årets konferens skulle hållas på Bali gjorde inte mitt intresse mindre.

Imorgon torsdag anordnar Sveriges Konsumenter och tidningen Råd & Rön ett seminarium med namn "Företagen och dina hemligheter - ett seminarium om konsumtion och integritet". Inbjudna till panelsamtalet, som jag ska såga längs med fotknölarna, är socialdemokraten Morgan Johansson, miljöpartisten Maria Ferm och folkpartisten Nina Lundström. Alltså kom igen, vem ska stå upp för integriteten i detta samtal? Ferm? Miljöpartiets största bedrift i denna fråga är att de lyckades bordlägga datalagringsdirektivet med ett år tillsammans med Vänsterpartiet.

Nåväl, min huvudfråga till Miljöpartiet kommer att vara: Om vi får se ett regeringsskifte och ni på allvar menar att ni inte vill spionera på hela oskyldiga individer i Sverige, kommer regeringskansliet att sluta beställa signalspaning från FRA?

Having in mind that W3C will decide about the future of EME in the new HTML5 standard in a very short time, we decided to set up a panel debate that can help to raise awareness about this topic in general. 

Setting up the event was a great deal of work; it took pretty much the whole week and as the deadline was approaching, the more challenging it was to do everything absolutely neccessary in order to have it ready. Having deadlines in days is ok, but having deadlines in hours and minutes can be lethal. In the end we were given a very nice room inside of the PHS building (sorry for eurojargon - it is this building). 39 people made it to our panel session, mostly people from the EU institutions (both Parliament and the Commission) as well as other guests, journalists, or IT evangelists and other interested ones. We were also streaming our event online - and we had to overcome a lot of difficulties in order to do that. Various non-profit organizations and institutions as well as the Pirates in Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic were informed. 

Amelia's article published several days ago explains the problem with EME in general. Our debate made the maint topic much broader - and brought some interesting views.

I am happy to see that this last weekend there has been much discussion about the on-going DRM-discussions in W3C. One commentator argues that the W3C is anyway not very important and that therefore actors like Mozilla don't need to leverage any influence over their standard discussions. At Ars Technica it is written that the DRM-standard at W3C will not be worse than flashplayer, for instance, and that therefore it doesn't matter.

During the 5th European Innovation Summit, I was invited to present my views on standardisation processes and innovation. Standardisation is a very important activity and allows for open platforms that can be used by different parties. However, standardisation can also be a political point - laws are effectively the way we standardise behavioural norms for society. My address therefore focused on this issues, but was free form and therefore it is recollected from memory:

Address:

Standardisation is a clearly convenient tool, but it's important to remember that not all standardisation is always done on a purely technical level. Opting for a particular standardised norm can also be a political choice, and so we have in the European Union the situation that many of the north-eastern member states, like Finland and the Baltics, have railroads that are built according to an old Soviet or Russian standard width rather than the European standard width. It is clear that for the purposes of logistics, it was politically appropriate in each of those regions to pick one width for the railroads and stick with it. Now there is a frenetic discussion in the Baltics about whether to adapt their railroads to European standard widths. From a cost perspective that is unlikely to be beneficial. It costs a lot of money to build infrastructure. On the other hand, they may wish to have a larger exchange of goods with their European Union peers than with Russia, and from that political perspective of integration the discussion of railroad width makes sense. This is to show that standardisation can affect norms, economies and the perceived identities of entire nation states.

Curiosity killed the cat, as they say in English, and the medical confidentiality cat is one cat we may not want to kill too lightly.

I had the fortune of being invited to a panel discussion at European Health Forum in Gastein, Austria, on big data and medicine. This is a rapidly developing field – how can we exploit and make use of personal data to provide better medical services and get better research. In one way, the pharmaceutical industry and many medical companies are jumping on the already existing bandwagon from the advertisement industry. But it's also important to realize that the pharmaceutical sector is suffering from blockbuster patents expiring – having been able to extort the legislator for only two additional years of market exlusivity and seeing their ability to ever-green patents reduced by competition law, they need to quickly replace their existing block-buster based sales model with something else. And they have went for big data.

Because the discussion was freeform I will recount from memory the discussions.

Detta året hade jag nöjet att återigen vara med på Bok och bibliotek tillsammans med Piratpartiet. Jag hade också, för andra året i rad, möjligheten att göra ett trettio minuters anförande om mina goda politiska gärningar i EU-institutionernas monter. Informationspolitik framstår ofta som oundviklig och ogenomträngbar, men det är inte sant. Det är inte heller sant att det inte går att förändra saker och att riktningen på hela övervakningsapparaten är oundviklig. Det finns däremot många politiska frågor om teknologi som inte tas i beaktande och där det krävs att man är lite smart - smarta teknologier löser inga problem på egen hand, utan det krävs också tydliga visioner för samhället. Piratpartiet menar framför allt att samhälle, teknologi och innovation går hand i hand. Vi motsätter sig uppfattningen att politiskt ledarskap på något sätt står emot till exempel marknadsutveckling och menar istället att en tydlig riktning för både samhälle och marknad leder till bättre innovationer och förutsättningar för alla.