[Air-L] CfP: Protecting privacy in a surveillance age - symposium sustainability, ethics and cyberspace at the EMCSR 2014 April 22-25, Vienna

[Stefan Strauß]

Apologies for cross-posting

Call for Abstracts (more details attached):/*
*/

/*Protecting privacy in a surveillance age -- utopia or sine qua non for
a sustainable informational ecosystem? */
Privacy is among the most contested issues in contemporary society, not
least amplified by the driving force of information and the convergence
between analogue and digital environments. This informational
transformation of socio-technical systems strains controllability of
personal information flows and provides extensive options for privacy
infringement and surveillance practices (e.g. drastically highlighted by
recent scandals on mass surveillance by security agencies on a global
scale); Continuing growth in the availability of personal information is
yet unbroken; and individuals encounter further decrease of control over
their information and thus their private sphere. Entailed to ongoing
socio-technical alterations are controversial views on the function of
privacy and its relation to other societal concepts such as security,
surveillance practices and transparency. While some technologists
propagate a "post-privacy" era linked to utopian visions of blooming
open societies free from harm enabled by free information flows, privacy
advocates underline the need for a revitalization of privacy.
Dichotomized views and perceived trade-offs on privacy vs.
security/surveillance often complicate the development of effective
privacy-enhancing concepts. Not least as they neglect the societal
function of privacy, the complexity of information and the related
control mechanisms in socio-technical systems.

This session aims to overcome dichotomous framings by reflecting on the
contemporary role of privacy and potential ways to improve the
effectiveness of sustainable privacy-enhancing concepts.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to

    * Dimensions and core functions of privacy in
      socio-technical/informational eco-systems
    * Current and emerging privacy challenges
    * Concepts and models towards a sustainable privacy concept
    * The (contradictory and complementary) role of transparency and its
      interplay with privacy
    * Privacy as a system, system (theoretical) views on concepts and
      mechanisms
    * Sustainability concepts and their potential adaption to privacy
    * Privacy-by-design mechanisms and their role as integral part of
      the informational ecosystem and/or subsystems

This session is part of the Symposium Sustainability, Ethics and
Cyberspace at the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research
(EMCSR) 2014 - Civilisation at the Crossroads - Response and
Responsibility of the Systems Sciences, Vienna, 22-25 April 2014.*
*
Please submit your extended abstracts (1-3 pages, 750-2000 words) by
*February 15.*

For further information and submission guidelines please visit:
http://emcsr.net/calls-2014/calls-for-papers-2014/sustainability-ethics-and-the-cyberspace/ 


Looking forward to your contributions!

Best regards,
Stefan Strauß

-- 
Stefan Strauß

Institute of Technology Assessment - 
Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung (ITA)
Austrian Academy of Sciences - 
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Strohgasse 45/5 1030 Vienna
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Tel.: ++43 1 515 81 - 6599
Fax: ++43 1 710 98 83

E-mail: stefan.strauss at oeaw.ac.at
Web: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/ita/strauss
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Institute.of.technology.assessment
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Technikfolgen
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Strauß, S. (2014 forthcoming): Towards a taxonomy of social and economic costs of surveillance. In: Wright, D.,Kreissl, R. (eds.): Surveillance in Europe. Routledge.
Strauß, S. and Nentwich, M., (2013): Social network sites, privacy and the blurring boundary between public and private spaces, Science and Public Policy (6), http://spp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/10/10/scipol.sct072.full
Strauß, S. (2013) Digital identities and the upcoming EU privacy reform -- a future-proof approach? LSE Media Policy Project Blog, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mediapolicyproject/2013/05/08/digital-identities-and-the-upcoming-eu-privacy-reform-a-future-proof-approach/