Table Of ContentLaw, Governance and Technology Series 52
Salvatore Sapienza
Big Data,
Algorithms
and Food
Safety
A Legal and Ethical Approach to Data
Ownership and Data Governance
Law, Governance and Technology Series
Volume 52
SeriesEditors
PompeuCasanovas,UAB,InstituteofLawandTechnologyUAB,Barcelona,
Spain
GiovanniSartor,UniversityofBolognaandEuropeanUniversityInstituteof
Florence,Florence,Italy
The Law, Governance and Technology Series is intended to attract manuscripts
arising from an interdisciplinary approach in law, artificial intelligence and infor-
mation technologies. The idea is to bridge the gap between research in IT law
and IT-applications for lawyers developing a unifying techno-legal perspective.
The series will welcome proposals that have a fairly specific focus on problems
or projects that will lead to innovative research charting the course for new
interdisciplinary developments in law, legal theory, and law and society research
as well as in computer technologies, artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences.
In broad strokes, manuscripts for this series may be mainly located in the fields
of the Internet law (data protection, intellectual property, Internet rights, etc.),
Computationalmodelsofthelegalcontentsandlegalreasoning,LegalInformation
Retrieval, Electronic Data Discovery, Collaborative Tools (e.g. Online Dispute
Resolution platforms), Metadata and XML Technologies (for Semantic Web Ser-
vices),TechnologiesinCourtroomsandJudicialOffices(E-Court),Technologiesfor
Governmentsand Administrations (E-Government),Legal Multimedia, and Legal
ElectronicInstitutions(Multi-AgentSystemsandArtificialSocieties).
Salvatore Sapienza
Big Data, Algorithms
and Food Safety
A Legal and Ethical Approach to Data
Ownership and Data Governance
SalvatoreSapienza
Bologna,Italy
ISSN2352-1902 ISSN2352-1910 (electronic)
Law,GovernanceandTechnologySeries
ISBN978-3-031-09366-1 ISBN978-3-031-09367-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09367-8
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二千年後の君へ
To You,in 2000Years
Acknowledgements
Humans cannot create anything out of nothingness. This book is no exception. It
concludesajourneyandopensanewchapterinmyacademiclife.Icouldnothave
done it without the support of many individuals within the academic community
andoutside.Iamgreatlyindebtedtomyscientificsupervisorandmentor,Professor
MonicaPalmirani,foradviceatthedifferentstagesofmyresearch.Sheofferedme
her cross-disciplinary background to make me focus on the many “souls” of this
book.
TheLaw,Science&TechnologyLAST-JDboardprofessorsofferedmeprecious
adviceduringmyPhD.Amongthem,ProfessorAntonVedderandProfessorMarc
Cole (also PhD supervisor) provided useful comments in the drafting of the core
parts of this book. Reviewers devoted time to read this book, and for that, I am
thankfultothem,inparticularfortheirinsightfulcomments.MycolleaguesGiorgia
Bincoletto,ChantalBomprezzi,FedericoGalli andValentinaLeonesupportedme
with frequent exchange of opinions during our doctorate and sincere friendship
also beyondwhat was requiredof them as co-workers(especiallyabroad).Noemi
Conditi, Rachele Carli, Pietro Dunn and Paola Salomone, the newcomers in my
PhD programme, made my doc-to-post-doc transition smooth and lovely. The
last round of PhD students, Marco Billi, Gabriele Suffia, Malwina Wojcik and
Yasaman Yousefi, are currently contributing to enhance my views with their new
and fresh perspectives. Finally, not strictly related to the LAST-JD, yet linked
to the CIRSFID—ALMA-AI research centre at the University of Bologna, I am
thankful to Alessandra Foschi, Dino Girardi Jacopo Patrignagni, Vittoria Pistone
and Michela Rossi for having provided the perfect working environment. My
informatics colleagues—Leticia Decker de Sousa, Davide Liga and Francesco
Sovrano—contributed to improve my knowledge on technical topics. Outside of
theLAST-JDcircle,otherpeoplecontributedtoshapemyresearchpersonalitywith
constructivesuggestions.ThegroupmadebyStefanoQuintarelli,FrancescoCorea,
FabioFossaandAndreaLoreggiachallengedmymostmonolithicviewsbymeans
oftheirheterogeneousexpertise.
Finally, family and friends. Even though they can read English, my guess is
that they would like to read some thoughts in our common language. Ringrazio
vii
viii Acknowledgements
moltissimo i miei genitorie il resto della mia famiglia per il supporto ricevuto in
questianni.Sesonoarrivatoaquestomiotraguardoèanchegrazieallaserenitàche
hanno saputo garantire. Tra i miei preziosi amici ringrazio 353431541224344543
volteAndrea(X2),Sergio,Angelo,Gabriele,Giovanni,Giorgio(X2),Carlo,Ferdi,
AgneseeChiara.InordinesparsoringrazioancheGiulia,Edoardo,Mattia,Alberto,
Gianluca,Maddalena,Carlo,Vittorio,etuttelealtrepersonechehodimenticatoma
chemeriterebberoapienotitolodiesserequi.
Contents
1 Food,BigData,ArtificialIntelligence ..................................... 1
1.1 EmergingTrendsinFoodTechnology ................................ 1
1.1.1 BigData,theFoodIndustryandtheUNSustainable
DevelopmentGoals ............................................ 3
1.1.2 SensorsandTraceabilityinAgriculture4.0 .................. 7
1.1.3 TheinsilicoAgeofFoodSafetyRiskAssessment:
FromFoodTasterstoMachineLearning ..................... 9
1.2 HardTrade-OffsinDataOwnershipandDataGovernance:
MappingtheDebate .................................................... 12
1.2.1 PropertyRights,ConfidentialityandTransparency .......... 15
1.2.2 InformationPrivacy,FoodConsumptionandData
Transmissions .................................................. 16
1.2.3 BigDataandCompetitionintheFoodIndustry .............. 18
1.3 NovelTrendsinFood-RelatedDataProcessing ...................... 19
1.3.1 ’DataEthics’and‘SoftEthics’ ................................ 20
1.3.2 TheUntappedRelevanceofFoodConsumption
Information ..................................................... 22
1.3.3 Big Data, AI, the Role of Principles in the
ForthcomingRegulation ....................................... 23
1.4 ChapterSynopsis ....................................................... 25
References .................................................................... 25
2 DataOwnershipinFood-RelatedInformation........................... 33
2.1 TraditionalandEmergingApproachestoDataOwnership .......... 33
2.1.1 OwnershipModelsandData .................................. 34
2.1.2 ConfidentialityandDigitalCommons ........................ 38
2.1.3 Transparency,Truthfulness,Trust ............................. 40
2.2 RegulatoryandPolicyTrendsinOpennessandTransparency ....... 42
2.2.1 TheAarhusConventionandtheRighttoAccess
EnvironmentalInformation .................................... 44
ix
x Contents
2.2.2 TransparencyofFoodSafetyInformationintheEU
Followingthe2021Reform(Reg.2019/1381) ............... 45
2.2.3 RecentCaseLawoftheEuropeanCourtofJustice:
AShortCommentary .......................................... 59
2.3 A NewParadigmofData Ownershipin Food-Related
Information ............................................................. 70
2.3.1 OpenQuestionsinFoodSafetyDataOwnership ............. 74
2.3.2 Towards a New Concept of Environmental
Information ..................................................... 76
2.3.3 Trust-OrientedApproachestoDataOwnership .............. 78
2.3.4 DynamicOwnershipandSharedBenefits .................... 82
2.4 ChapterSynopsis ....................................................... 84
References .................................................................... 85
3 FoodConsumptionDataProtection ....................................... 89
3.1 FoodConsumption,SurveysandMobileApplications ............... 89
3.1.1 FoodSafetyDietaryIntakeSurveys ........................... 89
3.1.2 FoodDiaries,DataMash-Up,MixedDatasets ............... 93
3.1.3 FoodConsumptionData,DerivedandInferred
Information ..................................................... 97
3.2 Dietary InformationProcessing and Data Protection
BetweenLawandEthics ............................................... 98
3.2.1 Quasi-PersonalandQuasi-SensitiveData .................... 100
3.2.2 FoodConsumptionandLimitationsintheNotion
ofPersonalData ................................................ 104
3.2.3 GroupPrivacyandDietaryPreferences ....................... 106
3.3 “YouAreWhatYouEat”:FoodandPersonalIdentity ............... 108
3.3.1 TheDataficationofFoodPreferences ........................ 111
3.3.2 FromFoodPreferencestoPersonalIdentity .................. 112
3.3.3 TheNextStepsinDietaryIntakeDataProtection ............ 116
3.4 ChapterSynopsis ....................................................... 118
References .................................................................... 119
4 CurrentTrends,MachineLearning,andFoodSafetyData
Governance................................................................... 123
4.1 DataandAlgorithmicTransparency ................................... 123
4.1.1 TheShiftfromDeterministictoStochasticAnalysis ........ 124
4.1.2 PossibleBiasesinFoodConsumptionDataAnalysis ....... 127
4.1.3 OpeningtheBlackBox:TheKnowabilityApproach ........ 134
4.2 AccountabilityandRedressofProbabilisticModels ................. 137
4.2.1 FairnessinRiskAssessment ................................... 137
4.2.2 Responsibility,Accountability,Liability ...................... 141
4.2.3 MachineLearningandthePrecautionaryPrinciple .......... 145
4.3 TheEUDataGovernanceActanditsImpactonFoodData
Governance ............................................................. 147
