eSignature Legality for Time off Policy in European Union

How to eSign a document: e-signature legality for Time Off Policy in European Union

what started with a virus so small your eyes couldn't see it this is about providing future for Humanity the commission has decided to find Google 4.34 billion euros this is your man on the moon moment we are innovating here and we hope that you like it long live Europe hello and welcome to this edition of Europe calling a podcast from the European commission unpacking its key initiatives and taking a long look inside throwing a spotlight on the big political picture and its impact on our everyday lives here in Europe with the people at the heart of the issues with me Paul Anderson and me Olaf Ponce today we're focusing on the Digital Services act the DSA Europe's comprehensive legislation covering our online life and rights and the activities of the big players dominating the scene and the new obligations on them and we're joined by the woman who's arguably doing more than anyone else to shape and hone the DSA Margaret evestair Executive Vice President of the European commission for Europe fit for the digital age since 2019 and European commissioner for competition since 2014. a very warm welcome to Europe calling vice president vestaga well thank you very much and thank you for having me this is great now let's kick off straight away with a couple of questions close to people's direct interests in burning the news headlines in recent weeks for example Elon musk's confused to say the least takeover of Twitter officials all over being banned from using tick tock on the workphones and looming mass redundancies in the tech world so Margarita how would you characterize the state of social media today well I just read a news article about researchers who've been following uh Twitter since the mosque takeover founding that the number of anti-Semitic tweets have more than doubled that of course is extremely worrying because it shows how much the signaling of the leadership means as to how things are actually being managed on the positive side I also saw that youngsters they were trying to limit their screen time so get off the screen and into playing conversation having fun for real with their friends and that of course is uh too quite opposing things but it also shows that we need to do something in order to make sure that on the one hand side that we you know protect and cherish our freedom of expression while at the same time make sure that illegal content is dealt with harmful content is dealt with so that you can feel safe and liberated when you use social media on the question of Twitter is it a concern um for you that so much power has been concentrated in the hands of its new owner well I don't think it's so much a question of ownership I think it's a question about the signaling and how you approach the power of the platform that you own or that you lead because before the Digital Services act well a lot of decisions they were taken in closed boardrooms or by you know in this case single owners that would you know in a in a very profound manner shape our interactions shape our society shape how our democracy could develop so we are in times where the fact that things are more in flux also shows that we need democracy to step up and switching from Twitter to tick tock was it really necessary to ban you officials from using it on their work phones and if so why there are ongoing investigations with Tick Tock when it comes to their management of our data and privacy and those are not concluded yet so it's trying to be you know careful that's data from the work that we do is not ending up in places where it's should not end up I think Tick Tock they do quite a lot to show that they can protect data while at the same time I think it's a wise thing to say well better safe than sorry now this juncture we're don't do something a bit different we're inviting French journalists Limerick for an outside quizzical look on the DSA and at the end of her Reflections to put one thought provoking question to you commissioner a Europe fit for the digital age that's what margreta vestaga is expected to deliver so can Europe become fit for the digital age or is it destined to remain in the shadow of the United States well there's certainly No Lack of ambition on Europe's sport or at least there wasn't when the gronco godil shakshihak resistor vanglo Saxony Gemini was president of France remember project Cuero the European digital giant Shirak wanted to create as a competitor to Google indeed I will show you had forgotten about that and speaking of Google it's something of a bad Noir when it comes to the Commission in her previous role as competition commissioner Ms fasterger dished out a fine of more than four billion dollars to the company one of several punishments it's received for abusing its Market position Apple Facebook and Microsoft have also been fined eye-watering amounts and yet it appears this company's products services and influence players larger role as ever in our daily lives no wonder the U.S tech Giants spanned hugely on lobbying the commission the matter of that lobbying has come in for closest scrutiny lately with MEPS setting up a whistleblower website to report doji Tech lobbying the flagship digital legislation of this commission so far is the Digital Services act designed to regulate illegal content promote transparent advertising and Tackle this information few pieces of EU legislation have consumed as much energy from the EU institutions as president from the alliance said in her Mission letter to miss vestaga catching up where we lag behind means a passive approach is not an option for Europe just the spur for a woman renowned for her intellect pragmatism and unflappability you may also know that Miss vestiker likes to knit a hobby we have in common so far she hasn't dropped a stitch maybe she's a modern-day incarnation of Madame defarge the Revolutionary tricotus from Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities Knitting away incredibly while a chaotic Revolution unfolds in Paris the question that I'd like and answer to is whether as was the case for Madame defarge the revolution Can Be Tamed or whether it takes on a life of its own [Music] that was French journalist and Limerick there so a vice president do you think the social media Revolution indeed Can Be Tamed or are we too late already I don't think we have much choice because we need to tame it otherwise we put our democracy as risk we put Innovation at risk and I think they will judge us very very harshly if we do not manage because then we have de facto left sort of the decisions that shape our society to decisions taken in transparency in closed boardrooms and everything of course is in the enforcement so now we have privacy legislation we have legislation on how to provide Digital Services we also have legislation on how to behave in a market if you have you know a lot of Market power what we call a gatekeeper and we need to implement that if we do not enforce it it's worth nothing so so we are creating right now a community to help us look for compliance so consumer organizations NGO privacy organization business organizations to help watch if social media and if Market power comply with what democracy and ask has asked for them because otherwise it will not be possible and I think in particular when it comes to for instance hate speech other illegal stuff when it comes to harmful content when some people use their freedom of expression to try to silence others we have a lot to do so that's maybe a good moment to sort of wind Back to Basics and try to understand the nuts and bolts of this highly complex legislation could you describe in a few words what is the DSA and why do we need it well I think now in all European countries now you have legislation saying that hate speech is forbidden but you don't really have a mechanism to make sure that this is true so now the Digital Services act will ask every platform to have a system you know to deal with what is illegal to take it down but of course they might be mistaken there will be a gray zone so if your content is taken down you have the right to complain to say yeah you might find this hurtful but it's not illegal so you need to put it back up again and then you have things that are harmful so it's not illegal but it's it's harmful maybe disinformation and here we have a code of practice and disinformation so if you're a big platform well you need to use that in order for your services to be fine and also if you're a big platform you need to make a risk assessment you probably heard the Whistleblower Francis Hogan who says Facebook knows that Instagram may damage young women's mental health but they don't care now they will have to assess is this a risk and if they find that there is a risk they have to do something about it to take that risk away so that you can safely use Services instead of taking the risk on your mental health and all of that of course will be audited by external parties and then there is the Practical side of things which means that if you're a platform and you you sort of service small businesses you need to know these businesses so that it's not some account they just want to sell you you know dolls with lead or something that is poisonous or doesn't really work but that it's a real business where you can go complain to say listen this was not what I bought I want my money back or I want you to repair this so it's basically a system that brings order to our Digital Services as we meet them beyond that demand to better regulate content and better police you know the appearance of abusive content or offensive content what other things where consumers organizations and digital users telling you in the run-up to the drafting of this legislation that they wanted um to see appear in the legislation the main thing that sort of have been discussed back and forth is how to make sure that you can do two things at the same time that you can treat what is illegal in the real world is also seen and treated as illegal in our online World while at the same time protecting our freedom of expression because that is the tricky thing because of course there is a gray zone between what is illegal and what is your legitimate use of your freedom of expression and that has been the back and forth discussion because it's a really really important discussion and everyone ngos organizations should engage in this in order to make sure that we get it right because otherwise we take this risk that Authority regimes on this planet they will just say ta-da the Europeans are doing it as well now we can legitimately censor everything and that is really not the point and this is why this is a system with an obligation on those who will take down what is illegal also to enable people to complain about it eventually to have their things put back up again if they are not illegal now that leads exactly to our next question and there have been a lot of concerns raised about possible encroachments and free speech and the media which are contained in the DSA how do you answer these concerns we have some experience because we have this code of practice that has been in use already and all the big platforms they have signed up for this but what we have seen is that this is not enough it takes way too long it's not sufficiently systematic uh what has been done even though uh quite a lot of the platforms they have made efforts in order to do better but I don't think that it's legitimate in a society that becomes more and more digital where more and more of our lives are played out in the digital world if democracy do not have a strong presence because democracy should be you know something that is present in every minute of the day no matter if that minute is spent online or offline let's home in now on the views of users and professional and Cooperative bodies representing them we've been talking to senior figures in two organizations first iverna McGowan from the center for democracy and Technology [Music] the digital service versus Act is a landmark piece of legislation I think it's been rightly dubbed to the Constitution of the internet so I think there's a wonderful opportunity in particular to hold not just platforms but also governments to account it's introduced procedural safeguards transparency about algorithms and and also obligations both on the platforms and on Judicial Systems about how we deal with these individual disputes or discussions about content at the same time unfortunately there have been a few places that we're a bit concerned about for example The Proposal allows law enforcement to act as trusted flaggers in some places obviously um law enforcement are not judicial authorities they don't have Independence it's got to be capable doesn't it even of adapting very quickly to an ever-evolving digital world is there anything you'd have your eye on for the next generation of digital legislation I think what we see again and again is that it's why wiser to focus on some of those fundamental principles how do we make sure that there's not pervasive tracking of individuals how do we ensure that issues such as algorithmic discrimination and people are protected against that and how do we make sure that our privacy and data protection laws are upheld and robustly enforced in practice so pretty effusive praise there at the beginning of what we've just heard for the Digital Services act but also a basket of reservations what vice president would you pick out in particular that you'd want to address there well I think it's really important what was said that we need to know what artificial intelligence will do to all of this because there is a risk that artificial intelligence will discriminate us because it's built in a world that is discriminating so we need to make sure that technology is in some instances better than humans when you apply for a mortgage when you want to enter education when you want to have an insurance so you know all of these important areas that really makes a difference in your life that there is an obligation that if artificial intelligence is used that you're not being discriminated against so I think it's really important to focus where something real is at stake and that of course goes for everything we do that it's value based because we took a very strategic Choice early on and today it sounds absolutely trivial but it was to make sure that technology serves people it is for humans it's a tool for us to build better societies it is not for us just to be a small data point something to be exploited from a capitalistic point of view and the reason why it is not trivial is that ignored you can also be seen as something that is for the state to use to control the population or it can be seen as something that is for the corporate part of society to make the highest possible profit okay let's turn to Jan pen frat from the European digital rights network of ngos the TSA has achieved the visibility that we need for the issues around regulating online platforms and I think that's really important it has put the spotlight onto problems that many people weren't aware of before the DSA it should protect people's freedom of to express themselves and to access information and it should also Empower them to master their own online lives without being locked into what we call the walled Gardens of large online platform corporations so young is it just about enforcement or are there other factors at play here enforcing the DSA will be incredibly important and but on top of that the you can also start promoting and supporting independent decentralized open source software Technologies rather than getting hooked into the idea that the only thing we can do is regulate the existing Market of centralized commercial platforms we can do more than that if we only see our online spaces as a kind of shopping mall rather than a digital Public Town Square we won't be able to build it in a way that serves people for the purposes that we use the internet for [Music] so in a nutshell there are the walled Gardens of the large online platform corporations where they want us users to be happily locked inside and there is the question of the digital space imagined either as a sort of shopping mall or as a digital Public Town Square vice president what's your take on these two points well one thing is very practical uh for instance myself I would use sort of a normal text messaging I would use WhatsApp I would use signal and I have to remember now where was it that I got this message so for the future different sort of messaging services should work with one another so that I don't have to you know keep track of what happens in three or four different apps but I can have my messaging in one place and that interoperability is what sort of breaks the walls of the wall Garden so that you can go from one Garden to another Garden you can have several homes digital homes depending on on what is that you want to achieve and I think these are very practical things and also that we underline that you actually do have a choice as to whether you want to be tracked or not and here it's still work in progress I think a lot of people there just completely sort of overwhelmed by what they are asked to look at but when they ask a simple question do you want this app to track you people say um no actually I'd rather not and that of course is the point for digital empowerment that we do not feel scared or we are not in such a hurry to see the next cat video that we will take any box that is presented to us right as we near the end of this podcast now is our chance to put policy to one side and learn a little bit more about the person behind it a series of quick fire questions vice president demanding short quick fire answers that's a deal what are you currently reading I just finalized a Swedish writer called Julia sandgren the book is Tyrant samne I don't know if it exists in any other than the Scandinavian languages it's uh it's excellent but if I may recommend another one it is called Clara and the Sun and it's about a robot and it sort of tells you what can happen once these creatures becomes uh quite human-like what are you knitting at the moment oh you know I am the happiest woman on this planet because recently I became a grandmother for the first time so this will be probably the most knitted baby that you can imagine caps trousers sweaters everything who's tough in the commission would you have if you haven't yours oh well you know I try to be the president of the commission and failed in doing so and here I am quite happy with what I do if I should look at my other colleagues well it's really difficult to choose because I think they all have very very interesting things to do what are your plans for when you're posting this commission ends you mean after my fourth mandate yeah well it's a bit far in the future so I think difficult to say what's your favorite dish to cook or enjoy with family and friends I love to cook and they eat it so I must have at least some kind of talent but I cook a lot of different things and these days a lot of vegetarian dishes because I have three daughters and and they all prefer that so it would be something cauliflower in the oven with a lot of spice in order to make it a really yummy thing young indeed and what's your biggest concern related to the sustainability of the European project what's in that we show that it matters as we did under the pandemic when vaccines were provided when the corona pass was provided that we have shown under the energy crisis to make sure there was actually enough gas to heat our living rooms over winter and of course fundamentally as we do now to show our support to the ukrainians in the war that Russia has fought against them both to provide shelter for those who cannot stay but of course also to help them defend their country I think if democracy shows that then people will also support it what is the one piece of advice you would give to the young Margaret Wester if you had the chance to do so I think I would tell her to trust herself and Trust others because in my experience you know nothing happens without the team but every team consists of individuals who are different and each and every one must both trust themselves to do their best but also to trust others to do the same Executive Vice President for a Europe fit for the digital age many thanks for joining us it was my pleasure really nice talking with you thank you our thanks also to Our Guest Jan penfront from European digital rights and to Ivana McGowan from the center for democracy and technology and thanks you too for tuning in we look forward to your company at the next edition of Euro calling which you can listen on anytime on all the main podcast platforms for now goodbye for me Paul Anderson and from me Olive bronze what started with a virus so small your eyes couldn't see it this is about providing future for Humanity the commission has decided to find Google 4.34 billion euros this is your man on the moon moment we are innovating here and we hope that you like it long live Europe [Music]