| Ferrari, V. Money after money: Disassembling value/information infrastructures 2023. @phdthesis{nokey,
title = {Money after money: Disassembling value/information infrastructures},
author = {Ferrari, V.},
url = {https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=30904422-2233-4400-bc5f-e7971b33f758},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-04-21},
abstract = {This manuscript is a journey through coexisting, emerging or speculated about, types of digital value transfer infrastructures. Using digital value transfer infrastructures as a central case study, this thesis is concerned with unpacking the negotiation processes that shape the governance, design and political purposes of digital infrastructures that are closely linked to the public interest and state sovereignty. In particular, the papers that are assembled in this manuscript identify and inspect three main socio-technical developments occurring in the domain of value transfer technologies: a) the privatization and platformization of digital payment infrastructures; b) the spread of blockchain-based digital value transfer infrastructures; c) the construction of digital value transfer infrastructures as public utilities, from the part of public institutions or organizations. Concerned with the relationship between law, discourse and technological development, the thesis explores four transversal issues that strike differences and peculiarities of these three scenarios: i) privacy; ii) the synergy and mutual influence of legal change and technological development in the construction of digital infrastructures; iii) the role of socio-technical imaginaries in policy-making concerned with digital infrastructures; iv) the geography and scale of digital infrastructures. The analyses lead to the argument that, in the co-development of legal systems and digital infrastructures that are core to public life, conflicts are productive. Negotiations, ruptures and exceptions are constitutive of the unending process of mutual reinforcement, and mutual containment, in which a plurality of agencies \textendash expressed through legal institutions, symbolic systems, as well as information and media structures - are entangled.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {phdthesis}
}
This manuscript is a journey through coexisting, emerging or speculated about, types of digital value transfer infrastructures. Using digital value transfer infrastructures as a central case study, this thesis is concerned with unpacking the negotiation processes that shape the governance, design and political purposes of digital infrastructures that are closely linked to the public interest and state sovereignty. In particular, the papers that are assembled in this manuscript identify and inspect three main socio-technical developments occurring in the domain of value transfer technologies: a) the privatization and platformization of digital payment infrastructures; b) the spread of blockchain-based digital value transfer infrastructures; c) the construction of digital value transfer infrastructures as public utilities, from the part of public institutions or organizations. Concerned with the relationship between law, discourse and technological development, the thesis explores four transversal issues that strike differences and peculiarities of these three scenarios: i) privacy; ii) the synergy and mutual influence of legal change and technological development in the construction of digital infrastructures; iii) the role of socio-technical imaginaries in policy-making concerned with digital infrastructures; iv) the geography and scale of digital infrastructures. The analyses lead to the argument that, in the co-development of legal systems and digital infrastructures that are core to public life, conflicts are productive. Negotiations, ruptures and exceptions are constitutive of the unending process of mutual reinforcement, and mutual containment, in which a plurality of agencies – expressed through legal institutions, symbolic systems, as well as information and media structures - are entangled. |
| Ferrari, V. The platformisation of digital payments: The fabrication of consumer interest in the EU FinTech agenda In: Computer Law & Security Review, vol. 45, 2022. @article{nokey,
title = {The platformisation of digital payments: The fabrication of consumer interest in the EU FinTech agenda},
author = {Ferrari, V.},
url = {https://www.ivir.nl/computerlawsecurityreview_2022/},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105687},
year = {2022},
date = {2022-05-19},
journal = { Computer Law \& Security Review},
volume = {45},
abstract = {This paper investigates, through a qualitative analysis of official documents, how certain imaginaries about technology filter into EU policymaking, allowing or accelerating the transformation of payment infrastructures into the platform economy.
One of the ways in which socio-technical imaginaries filter into policymaking is, it turns out, by informing an image of the consumer which serves to justify measures for the realization of a desired future. In particular, the documents offer a view of the consumer as an actor that is empowered by digitisation. The thesis of this paper is that this view of the consumer is partial: the rhetoric of consumer technological empowerment outweighs and conceals much needed considerations about the vulnerability of consumers vis-a-vis data-intensive payment technologies. Ultimately, the fault lies with the future imaginaries upon which such image is grounded. The vision of the digital payment infrastructure portrayed in the documents is in fact problematic for two reasons. First, the technologies that are portraited as desirable are chosen based on industry interests and trends rather than considerations of benefits and risks that these technologies entail. Secondly, the assumption that a liberalized market will offer more and better choices is flawed, as platformisation entails risks of monopolization and abuses of market power. We suggest that policymakers in this domain should be more critical of the risks entailed by platformisation, and open their imagination to alternative technological futures.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
This paper investigates, through a qualitative analysis of official documents, how certain imaginaries about technology filter into EU policymaking, allowing or accelerating the transformation of payment infrastructures into the platform economy.
One of the ways in which socio-technical imaginaries filter into policymaking is, it turns out, by informing an image of the consumer which serves to justify measures for the realization of a desired future. In particular, the documents offer a view of the consumer as an actor that is empowered by digitisation. The thesis of this paper is that this view of the consumer is partial: the rhetoric of consumer technological empowerment outweighs and conceals much needed considerations about the vulnerability of consumers vis-a-vis data-intensive payment technologies. Ultimately, the fault lies with the future imaginaries upon which such image is grounded. The vision of the digital payment infrastructure portrayed in the documents is in fact problematic for two reasons. First, the technologies that are portraited as desirable are chosen based on industry interests and trends rather than considerations of benefits and risks that these technologies entail. Secondly, the assumption that a liberalized market will offer more and better choices is flawed, as platformisation entails risks of monopolization and abuses of market power. We suggest that policymakers in this domain should be more critical of the risks entailed by platformisation, and open their imagination to alternative technological futures. |
| Ferrari, V. Crosshatching Privacy: Financial Intermediaries’ Data Practices Between Law Enforcement and Data Economy In: European Data Protection Law Review, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 522-535, 2020. @article{Ferrari2020b,
title = {Crosshatching Privacy: Financial Intermediaries’ Data Practices Between Law Enforcement and Data Economy},
author = {Ferrari, V.},
url = {https://edpl.lexxion.eu/article/EDPL/2020/4/8
https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/edpl_2020_04.pdf},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.21552/edpl/2020/4/8},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-12-22},
journal = {European Data Protection Law Review},
volume = {6},
number = {4},
pages = {522-535},
abstract = {Financial data are key to various law enforcement processes, including criminal investigations, anti-money laundering strategies and the implementation of national fiscal policies. However, financial data also qualify as personal data. While law enforcement objectives can derogate certain privacy-related legal safeguards, private financial firms should, in principle, comply with the privacy standards upheld by GDPR. Highlighting the most critical trends of the current financial industry (i.e. commercial exploitation of data; international dimension of financial informational networks; use of automated processing and decision-making tools), the present paper analyses how privacy and law enforcement priorities interplay in determining the governance of financial data. We conclude by recognizing that privacy loopholes exist in the current financial industry’s data practices, and that - as payments tend to be increasingly performed in digital manners, exponentially increasing the availability of financial data - privacy-enhancing payment methods should be encouraged and legitimised.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Financial data are key to various law enforcement processes, including criminal investigations, anti-money laundering strategies and the implementation of national fiscal policies. However, financial data also qualify as personal data. While law enforcement objectives can derogate certain privacy-related legal safeguards, private financial firms should, in principle, comply with the privacy standards upheld by GDPR. Highlighting the most critical trends of the current financial industry (i.e. commercial exploitation of data; international dimension of financial informational networks; use of automated processing and decision-making tools), the present paper analyses how privacy and law enforcement priorities interplay in determining the governance of financial data. We conclude by recognizing that privacy loopholes exist in the current financial industry’s data practices, and that - as payments tend to be increasingly performed in digital manners, exponentially increasing the availability of financial data - privacy-enhancing payment methods should be encouraged and legitimised. |
| Ferrari, V. The regulation of crypto-assets in the EU – investment and payment tokens under the radar In: Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 2020. @article{Ferrari2020,
title = {The regulation of crypto-assets in the EU \textendash investment and payment tokens under the radar},
author = {Ferrari, V.},
url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1023263X20911538},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X20911538},
year = {2020},
date = {2020-05-21},
journal = {Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law},
abstract = {Based on the guidelines issued by the European Securities and Market Authority and by the European Banking Authority, the article deals with the legal qualification of blockchain-based crypto-assets under EU law. Focusing on crypto-assets that function as a) investment instruments (that is, investment tokens) and as b) electronic money (that is, payment tokens), the work outlines shortages and drawbacks in the applicability and enforcement of existing EU legal frameworks regulating investment activities and payment services. With such analysis, the article seeks to inform the ongoing debate within European institutions on the need of regulatory intervention in this area, and it points out pressing questions to be tackled by further research.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Based on the guidelines issued by the European Securities and Market Authority and by the European Banking Authority, the article deals with the legal qualification of blockchain-based crypto-assets under EU law. Focusing on crypto-assets that function as a) investment instruments (that is, investment tokens) and as b) electronic money (that is, payment tokens), the work outlines shortages and drawbacks in the applicability and enforcement of existing EU legal frameworks regulating investment activities and payment services. With such analysis, the article seeks to inform the ongoing debate within European institutions on the need of regulatory intervention in this area, and it points out pressing questions to be tackled by further research. |
| Bodó, B., Ferrari, V., Giannopoulou, A., Quintais, J. Blockchain and the Law: A Critical Evaluation In: Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law & Policy, vol. 2, no. 1, 2019. @article{Quintais2019b,
title = {Blockchain and the Law: A Critical Evaluation},
author = {Quintais, J. and Bod\'{o}, B. and Giannopoulou, A. and Ferrari, V.},
url = {https://stanford-jblp.pubpub.org/pub/blockchain-and-law-evaluation},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-16},
journal = {Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law \& Policy},
volume = {2},
number = {1},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
|
