Formal Methods as a Link between Software Code and Legal Rules

Auteur : Daniel Le Metayer (Licit - Inria)

Titre : Formal Methods as a Link between Software Code and Legal Rules

Abstract :

The rapid evolution of the technological landscape and the impact of
information technologies on our everyday life raise new challenges
which cannot be tackled by a purely technological approach. Generally
speaking, legal and technical means should complement each other to
reduce risks for citizens and consumers : on one side, laws (or
contracts) can provide assurances which are out of reach of technical
means (or cope with situations where technical means would be
defeated); on the other side, technology can help enforce legal and
contractual commitments. This synergy should not be taken for granted
however, and if legal issues are not considered from the outset,
technological decisions made during the design phase may very well
hamper or make impossible the enforcement of legal rights. But the
consideration of legal constraints in the design phase is a challenge
in itself, not least because of the gap between the legal and
technical communities and the difficulties to establish a common
understanding of the concepts at hand. In this talk, we advocate the
use of formal methods to reduce this gap, taking examples in areas
such as privacy, liability and compliance.