Keynote Speaker
 

Abstract

Surveillance technologies are en vogue—related privacy issues are discussed controversial. Social and political developments after 9/11 as well as the increasing diffusion of Web 2.0 applications and rising widespread technological possibilities in general are playing a central role.

Privacy is not a new topic: As early as in the ancient world philosophers had been engaged with individual versus common welfare as an area of conflict. Since the end of the 19th century the privacy-debate has been broadly picked-up again and progressively gains more and more in importance.

Technological progress holds sustainable potential for a ‘new quality’ of privacy. Private enterprises, public and semi-public institutions are recently acting as data producers on the one hand and data collectors on the other hand. Data are being more and more cross-linked and as a by-product data relating to persons evolve (e.g. personal information data based on online monitoring, movement tracking of employees, personal medical data, data regarding shopping behavior etc.). New data qualities arise through a combination of different data sets developed on different legal but also illegal data sources. The first conclusion we can draw from this is: Data itself, its protection or threat and information security developed into an essential economic factor.

As we all know there exist several perspectives and disciplines dealing with privacy. Generally speaking, privacy can be summarized as a restriction of diffusion.—In the nineteen-sixties Westin as one of the most famous privacy protagonists has defined privacy as “the claim of individual, groups or institutions to determine when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.” However, Westin was not the first putting a focus on this issue: Already, in 1890 the legal specialists Warren and Brandeis published “The Right to Privacy” and focused on privacy as one of the important human rights in the 19th century. But this ‘right to be alone-concept’ has been widely criticized to be too vague (Schoeman 1984; Allen 1988; Solove 2002). But there can be mentioned further concepts of privacy already broadly discussed such as ‘limited access to the self’, ‘privacy as secrecy’, ‘control of personal information’, ‘personality’, ‘privacy as intimacy’ and ‘privacy as cluster concept’ (Kemp & Moore 2007).—In General, informational privacy has been called one of the most important “ethical issues of the information age” (e.g. Mason 1986; Smith 1994), and personal information privacy can be defined as “the ability of the individual to personally control information about one-self.” (Smith 1994).

In a first step this keynote speech will deliver an insight into actual relevant surveillance technologies (i.e. human chip implants for security reasons, biometric technologies) and in a second step will discuss privacy-related issues. Therefore, a general overview of the legal background of privacy from a European point of view (EU Directive 95/45/EC of 1995, national data protection laws) and the theoretical framework of privacy will be given. Finally, research results of ongoing empirical studies (qualitative and quantitative) will be pointed out. These results are focusing on one’s self-estimations, e.g. due to ‘felt’ privacy protection, knowledge about data protection, data protection in different domains (private, medical, job-related, financial, related to governmental organizations and political attitude) at present and within ten years, and attitudes concerning actual upcoming surveillance-related technologies (e.g. regarding human chip implants). Target groups of these empirical studies are managers/professionals (mainly working in IT-related companies) and scientists in German-speaking countries.
 

Bio

Dr. Ulrike Hugl

Studies: economics and social sciences, University of Innsbruck (further studies: pedagogics; law);
Industry affiliations (several years): in the fields of personnel development, organization and marketing;
University affiliations: Institute of Public Sector Management (University of Innsbruck); project coordinator of an entire university reform project (for the Senate of the University of Innsbruck); project coordinator and lecturer at the University of St. Gallen (Institute for Information Management);
Honours: “Michael-Lehmann-Award for a highly qualitative and innovative work”; „Nestlé Award for Business Administration (Austria)”;
Ongoing: Lecturer and researcher at the Innsbruck School of Management (University of Innsbruck);
Research/project experiences: upcoming (ubiquitous) technologies and related privacy/security issues; technology implementation processes; e-learning (concepts and implementation);
Miscellaneous: membership of several international research associations; scientific committee member of diverse international conferences; lecturer at several universities; reviewer of scientific journals.
 

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