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Avant-propos

Charlotte Tessier, Michelle Albert-Rochette and Henry Laville

Le principe de neutralité du net, garant de la diversité des contenus en ligne et de leur accès

Paul Moussier
This article provides an overview of the principle of net neutrality, highlighting its virtues and limitations. A genuine legal guarantee of commercially and technically non-discriminatory access to the Internet for every individual, and of the diversity of content circulating online, the principle of net neutrality is not, however, devoid of any limits set by law, and is being put to the test by the constant innovations of the digital market and of service providers and major platforms. A principle of variable geometry in different parts of the world, net neutrality is particularly relevant at a time when major platforms are being regulated, notably in Europe, and calls for a broader approach than just network access.

Netflix est-elle vraiment inclusive pour les femmes ?

Sarra Medini
We can perfectly and without hesitation say that today the Netflix Company holds the largest share of the streaming market worldwide. It is the most consulted platform and its productions, films and series are among the most consumed by users. This positioning is, among other things, thanks to the image that the firm’s managers convey to everyone, that of being the most inclusive platform, in front of and behind the cameras, for women and all minorities. However, this observation must be put into perspective according to the figures produced by a recent study which showed that Netflix must make much more effort to ensure effective inclusion of women and not fall into hidden pink-washing which only conveys a single model of women and feminists.

La fracture numérique : angle mort des dernières réformes de la participation environnementale au Québec ?

Aurélia Friès-Flaubert
The reform of the Environmental Quality Act in 2017 led to the establishment of a new public consultation mechanism prior of the environmental impact assessment and review procedure : consultation on the issues that the impact study should address. This anticipated consultation mechanism, by providing the opportunity for anyone to participate early in the process and exert greater influence on project realization, was created exclusively online with no alternative means of participation. This study aims to examine the use of digital technology in environmental participatory mechanisms. Were the challenges of digital divide considered when creating this mechanism ? Does the established mechanism result in greater openness in the environmental impact assessment process and diversify the pool of participants ? The research indicates that while the creation of a new digital participatory mechanism offers certain advantages in terms of environmental participation, it did not address digital divide issues, resulting in an underutilized participatory tool that raises questions about the relevance of digital technology in ensuring better public participation in environmental matters.

Le numérique et la protection de la diversité environnementale : quelle mobilisation du droit de l’urbanisme ?

Mohamed El Arbi Aoka
Environmental protection has become an essential objective of planning law. In addition to regulating land use, it must also adapt to the new challenges facing the environment and its diversity. Among these challenges is the emergence of digital activity in our daily lives. This emergence, while necessary, has both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to protecting environmental diversity. The mobilization of urban planning law over the last two decades has been quite remarkable. Firstly, to protect environmental diversity against the disadvantages of digital industrial activity, namely the technological risks that can be generated by this activity. Secondly, it also consists in protecting this diversity by promoting a healthy and sustainable environment, which are essentially based on energy and environmental exemplarity.

La diversité des fonctions de la normalisation dans la législation relative à la protection des renseignements personnels

Henry Laville
While standardization constitutes one of the levers of action of the Canada’s Digital Charter and some of its benefits have been highlighted, the Canadian federal legislator has not embraced this regulatory tool in Bill C-27. However, Canada has both a standardization infrastructure called the National Standard System, overseen by the Standards Council of Canada, and experience in incorporating a technical standard, the “CAN/CSA-Q830-96” standard, into the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. A brief review of this experience is necessary to identify the contributions of standardization to legislation. Standardization plays a role, on the one hand, in the legislative process through its meta-regulatory and structuring functions. On the other hand, it plays a role in the design of the content of the law itself, with its semantic and normative functions.

Les législations canadiennes et européennes face aux biais discriminatoires de l’intelligence artificielle

Blanche Daban
The rise of artificial intelligence systems raises significant legal challenges, particularly in terms of algorithmic discrimination. This article examines the capacity of Canadian and European legislative frameworks to respond to these algorithmic biases. It highlights the limits of traditional classifications in anti-discrimination law, particularly the distinction between direct and indirect discrimination, which struggles to capture the complexity of automated decisions. The anti-discrimination corpus is also not the only one that can be invoked in the event of algorithmic bias : the brand new European regulation on artificial intelligence, detailed but rigid, or the Canadian bill on data and artificial intelligence, more flexible, mention these discriminatory biases. Despite these advances, only the application of these texts will tell whether these regulations will offer effective protection against algorithmic discrimination.

Diversité et systèmes d’intelligence artificielle en santé : quelques mobilisations du droit de la protection des renseignements personnels

Maelenn Corfmat
Training data of a healthcare AI system has the power to encapsulate the heterogeneity of our world, but at the same time reduces social, cultural, and human diversities to calculations of propensity to act. Without specific provisions to AI, turning to information protection law is an almost obvious solution to deal with these issues, given the amount of personal and health information involved. Some data protection law tools seem precisely capable of responding to these issues of fairness and diversity, such as the obligation for accurate, up-to-date, and complete information, the requirement for information on the main factors and parameters of a decision, and the obligation to carry out a privacy impact assessment. They are however not always sufficient.