Sofia Ranchordas › Six Degrees of Digital Separation

Le Centre de recherche en droit, technologie et sociétéprésente :

Governments in both developed and developing countries have made in the past decades significant investments in the digitalization of public services. Digital-government tools have the potential to deliver significant savings and optimize the delivery of public services. Nevertheless, even in developed countries, there are still citizens who do not have equal access to digital technology or are not competent users. The digitization-by-default of public services is currently leaving many individuals behind. As new digital divides emerge, digital inequality is not only reproducing longstanding socioeconomic inequalities but it is also placing itself as a standalone source of exclusion. While there is abundant humanities literature on the digital divide, recent legal scholarship has overlooked the legal implications of the unequal access and usage of digital government. This talk delves into the impact of digital exclusion on the exercise of citizens before the public administration and conceptualises digital exclusion as a novel form of inequality.

À propos de la conférencière

Sofia Ranchordas is a Professor of European and Comparative Public Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Sofia Ranchordas conducts research on public law and technology from an interdisciplinary perspective. Her research interests include the study of data-driven regulation, the impact of Big Tech on fundamental rights and good administration as well as new approaches to better regulation, experimental legislation, and innovation policy. She has published a number of articles and books on these topics and is a regular speaker at international conferences. She held previous academic positions at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, Tilburg University and Leiden University. Sofia Ranchordas has been the recipient of both national and international grants and awards (e.g., Niels Stensen Fellowship, Knight Foundation, NWO Smart Governance, KNAW). She is the General Editor of the Review of European Administrative Law and co-founder of the European Law & Tech Network. She has advised the Dutch government and the European Commissionon several matters regarding the regulation of new technological developments.