Projects |

Projects, initiatives, articles by network members.

Upcoming network meetings and initiatives:

Privacy as Innovation sessions at Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2013 and 2014:

“Privacy and Innovation I: Rethinking Privacy as an Area of Opportunity”, IGF 2013

“Privacy as Innovation II”, IGF 2014 (video of the session)

Projects and work by network participants:

ToS and Human Rights

This Project aims to address two different but related problems. First, the limited transparency and accountability of the practices followed by online platforms with regard to the protection of privacy and freedom of expression of their users, and to their respect of the principle of “due process” (implying the right of individuals to be notified and heard before any potentially adverse decision that concerns them). Second, the complex terminology used in platforms’ Terms of Service (ToS), which define the policies on the above-mentioned rights. The Project aims to bridge the information gap between online platforms and Internet users, and to empower users though informed decision-making by explaining the potential consequences of choosing one platform or another for their online activities.

Link: ToS and Human Rights

PrivacyPerfect

Due to ever stringent privacy legislation, companies need to keep track of all personal data processing activities. PrivacyPerfect is a tool creating transparent overviews of all data processing in a company or organisation, thus improving transparency to customers. furthering compliance, and reporting to data processing authorities. PrivacyPerfect supports data protection officers and other professionals in case of customers requiring inspection of their personal data, checking whether data processing is compliant with relevant European and national legislation and even in reporting the scope of data leaks to the relevant authorities. PrivacyPerfect is based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Link: www.privacyperfect.com

DataEthics.eu

DataEthics.eu is a politically independent ThinkDoTank based in Denmark with a European (and global) outreach. It works to promote data ethical products and services and provide knowledge, collaboration and consultation on data ethics for businesses, educational institutions, organisations, individuals and decision-makers from a technical, organisational, legal as well as social perspective. The mission is constructive and action oriented in nature and supports knowledge exchange and creation and cooperation on a sustainable and data ethical future with individual consumer control at the centre. DataEthics.eu coordinates the Global Privacy as Innovation Network.

Link: www.dataethics.eu/en

Book: The Data Ethical Company

Pernille Tranberg and Gry Hasselbalch are currently writing a book about the Data Ethical Company. The latest trend in digital media business development is “privacy”. In the aftermath of revelations of mass surveillance, hacks of personal data and an increasing sensation of lack of control among consumers, a company’s privacy awareness and data ethics is pivotal. Not as an necessary evil, but as a new commercial market, an essential CSR focus, a longterm strategy and as the foundation for creative and innovative business processes. Consumers are demanding it and the fastest moving companies are responding by explicitly addressing issues of data ethics and privacy. The fastest growing new companies have built entire businesses on personal data control. The trendsetters are turning towards the online environments that offer exactly that. And just around the corner awaits an European regulatory reform with an eye on exactly that. This is a transformative shift in the way consumers, regulators and business developers perceive our digitalized data’s function in the world and every day life. We describe the data ethical “privacy paradigm shift” as a social movement, a cultural transition and technological development that increasingly puts the consumer and their individual right to privacy at the centre.

Arab IGF 2014: Rethinking the way we think about privacy

A session at the Arab IGF 2014 addressing the goal to look at privacy from different perspectives, including various stakeholders: governments, private companies, civil society, and users.

Link: Reshaping the way we think about Privacy

Research at Simon Fraser University

Ted Palys, Professor, School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. His current research is focusing on the way that different groups manage information on the internet in the surveillance economy of this post-Snowden era. He focuses particularly on (a) how academic researchers can benefit from digital technologies while still ensuring the confidentiality of their information; (b) how political and environmental activists and others who want to change society manage information when they are perceived as threatening by status quo interests; and (c) how young adults manage their identities and share information now that many examples of the costs of doing so – losing jobs, failing security checks, losing insurability – have been trumpeted in the media.

Film making: Cyber conflict thriller and privacy talk interviews

Lovisa Inserra is a filmmaker with Governess Films. She is currently developing a TV thriller about cyber conflict with Zentropa Sweden. In the process of researching she has taken UNICRI’s Cyber threat masterclass as well as frequenting conferences to try to learn more and hopefully create a plot for the thriller grounded in reality. She is doing the “Privacy Talks“ interviews for the Privacy as Innovation Network.

Articles from participants in the network:

“Privacy as Innovation” (Aral Balkan)

“Privacy is the latest business model in its own right” and “Recap of Privacy as Innovation session at Internet Governance Forum 2014” (Gry Hasselbalch)

“Privacy as Innovation: prerequisites for successful privacy innovation” (Bart Willem Schermer)

“Let users control their data and you are tomorrows’ winner” (Pernille Tranberg)

“A Digital Declaration” (Shoshan Zuboff)