The Gazette 1990

JULY/AUGUST 1990

GAZETTE

mation, Industries and Innovation) has established a Legal Advisory Board on the Information Market comprised of a number of experts from each Member State. The Legal Advisory Board was given the task of analysing the legal conditions pertaining to the creation and development of a real common information market taking into account the possibility of specific Community action and the barriers which have arisen due to diverging national legal approaches. In December 1985, D.G. X111 of the Commission requested the Centre de Recherches en Informa- tique et Droit of the Facultés Universitaires de Namur in Belgium and the Computer/Law Institute of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, to carry out a study of the legal aspects of consumer-oriented telebanking and teleshopping and to bring recommendations for action by the Community to the attention of the Legal Advisory Board on the Information Market. Telebanking, Teleshopping and The Law is the fruit of this study which is also the first in a new series of books called Compu t e r / Law, published by Kluwer Law and Taxation Publications. Prof. Guy P.V. Vanderberghe in the preface to Telebanking, Tele- shopping and The Law states that the importance of the study lies in the fact that consumer-oriented telebanking and t e l eshopp i ng create a set of new legal problems, which present themselves in a similar way in all Member States but which are tackled differently in such a way that might cause a barrier to the Common Market. Telebanking, Teleshopping and The Law sets out the factual con t ext of t e l ebank i ng and teleshopping. Then the legal issues relating to evidence, signature, liability, contractual problems, privacy, competition, fraud and private i n t e r na t i onal law are discussed. A questionnaire pre- sented to experts in every Member State and their replies are published in an annex. The expert consulted in Ireland was Dr. Robert Clark, Lecturer in Law, University College, Dublin - but desc r i bed as belonging to the University of Dublin. In fact, Dr. Robert Clark is on the International Board of Editors and is jointed (inter alia) by the United K i ngdom Editor,

Professor Colin M. Campbell, Professor of Jurisprudence at the Queen's University in Belfast. Freedom of Data Flows and E.E.C. Law contains the proceed- ings of the 2nd Celim Conference. The aim of Celim (The European Commi t t ee Lex I n f o rma t i ca Mercatoriaque) is to bring together lawyers from all spheres and all types of training working on issues concerning business law, informa- tion science law in its widest sense and specifically international law in the European context. Advanced Topics of Law and information Technology deals in part with the interaction between law on the one hand and the gathering, storage, distribution and reporting of data, especially, but not exclusively, by making use of computer and telecommunication technology on the other. In his contribution, "Privacy and trans- border data f l ow", Prof. Poullet examines some recent legal issues in this area, especially in the light of the fact that through telecom- munication, computer networks are borderless. In his paper, Mr. Kaspersen examines the "Stand- ards for computer crime legisla- tion". Professor Vivant writes on "The Challenge of Computer Law". Professor Spoor examines "Expert Systems and Copy r i gh t ". Mr. Me i j boom con t r i bu t es " Legal Rights to Source Code". "Product Liability for Software in Europe - a Discussion on the E.C. Directive of 25 July 1985" is the title of the chapter c on t r i bu t ed by Mr. Stuurman. " The Law of the Books and the Law of t he F i l es" (Professor Bing), "Legal Expert Sys t ems" (Professor Martino), "Knowledge Representation and Legal Expert S y s t ems" (Mr. Oskamp), "Hypo: A Precedent - Based Legal Reasone r" (E.L. Rissland and K.D. Ashley) are among the titles of the remaining chapters. The aim of Knowledge Based Systems in Law is to report on research concerning theories and methods for developing know- ledge-based systems in law which were conducted at the Faculty of Law, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the most technical of the four books in the present series. However, the authors state honestly in the preface that it is their intention to

T E L E B A N K I N G, T E L E S H O P P I NG A N D T H E LAW. Edited by V. Poullet and C.P.V. Vandenberghe [Kluwer. 1988, xi + 388 pp. DFI.162 or US Dollars 86] F R E E D OM OF DATA F LOWS A N D EEC LAW. By Paul Hansen and others. [Kluwer.1988. x + 131pp. DFI 101 of US Dollars 57] A D V A N C ED T O P I CS OF LAW A N D I N F O RMA T I ON T E C H N O L O GY Edited by C.P.V. Vandenberghe. [Kluwer. 1989. xii + 260 pp. DFL. 138 or US Dollars 74] By A.W. Koers and Others. [Kluwer. 1989. xvi + 191 pp DFL. 76 or US Dollars 41] We are in the throes of a silent revolution. The integration of com- puters in the telecommunication network described as digitisation - the encoding, transformation and transmission of any informa- tion, voice, data, and visual messages as bits - is transforming the way people communicate. Transaction services, such as home shopping, home banking, and electronic mail, will shortly be available via the telephone. The Commission of the European Communities, Directorate General X111 (Telecommunications, Infor- K N OWL E D GE B A S ED S Y S T E MS IN LAW

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