Decoding IT Acronyms: Unraveling the langauage of Tech
IT and The Law – A healthy marriage prospect?
November 11, 2024
Author: Prof Dana vander Merwe
Once again, Welcome to the wonderful world of IT Law!
One factor that has proven to be a stumbling block to many of our readers, has been the use of “acronyms”, so beloved by the “techies” amongst us. According to Wikipedia an acronym is:
“A type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or sounds of words within that abbreviation”.
A particular research interest of mine has been the acronym “XML” and its closely related cousin “XBRL”. The former ha been formed from three words, namely “eXtensible Markup Language”. The latter is derived from four words (progress!), namely “eXtensible Business Reporting Language”. Both of these have been derived from their ancestor “Standard Generalised Markup Language” (SGML) together with a showy cousin, creating beautiful screen pictures, entitled “Hypertext Markup Language” (HTML). Existing space does not allow me to analyse these in depth here, but I invite interested readers to have a look at my articles on this topic. These are enumerated on the my list of publications elsewhere on the present set of web pages. It is of the greatest importance to get to know XBRL because this is one of the solutions to the many fears that the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has engendered.
How about a few more acronyms to test your technical know-how! South African legislators have run into determined opposition with two recent Bills, namely BELA and NHIA. I am sure my more technical readers immediately identified these as the “Basic Education Law Amendment Act (should it not then, perhaps be called BELAA?!) and the National Health Insurance Act. I am sure most of you are familiar with the POPI Act, 4 of 2013, namely the “Protection of Personal Information” Act. This protects an important right of every South African Citizen, namely the right to privacy. What about PROATIA or the “Promotion of Access to Information Act”, Act 2 of 2000. This is an important right of every citizen to find out exactly what personal information the government is storing about him or her.
Let me leave you with a nice puzzle – what does the magnificent acronym ROICAPOCRIA represent?!
Until next week,
Dana
