Kees van Noortwijk

Re-usable retrieval concepts for the classification of legal documents

A substantial part of all written legal information is published in electronic form these days. Existing retrieval systems, however, are increasingly found to be inadequate. Conceptual retrieval, in this case based on Bayesian statistics, can be a powerful alternative. Working prototypes of two applications are described. The first one provides the user with the possibility to define, test and save retrieval concepts. Such concepts can be used to rank documents retrieved from a database. The second application reads the saved concepts and calculates the probability that a new document is relevant to the concept.

The Impact of Monitoring Technology on the Law

This article first provides an overview of technology for monitoring and surveillance. From this overview it will become clear that the use of this type of technology is growing fast. At the same time, questions arise regarding its permissibility, in the light of legal and constitutions rights, such as the right to privacy. These questions are addressed here in the context of wider social developments. A conclusion that is reached is that with the increasing importance and use of surveillance technology, ‘monitoring the surveillors’ will become essential as well.