Abstract
On the one hand, the potential of modern ICT could be exploited to take advantage of personal information to improve the performance and quality of government services. On the other hand, privacy and personal data need to be secured and protected in order to prevent misuse and fraud. What policies, protocols, and data management mechanisms are needed to balance individual privacy protection with effective and efficient use of that information by government?
Keywords
data privacy, identity management, efficiency of services
Description
Grounding the research on Cultural interoperability
The latest technologies - ubiquitous systems, ambient intelligence, avatars, interoperable and connected systems? are more and more present in our everyday life. These technologies can be seen as future technologies also in governmental service provision. Also, many past and current researches have already been focusing on use of biometrics, identity management, etc.
It is clear that future technologies will enable automatic data gathering on citizens and businesses, which could be further used also for intelligent judgment. In the 21st century, information will be a source of wealth, power and prestige). The amount of personal information available to government and business continues to increase tremendously. As technology enables automatic data gathering, it is expected that privacy issues are becoming more and more important in the future. Storage of personal data presents privacy risks in cases when these data can be accessed, either when the device is with the owner or not (it could be lost or stolen). Privacy protection in this case is closely linked to security, but security alone is not sufficient.
How to assure that privacy and personal data are secure and protected, and will not be misused? What are the potentials for data misuse of electronic identity? Ways of preventing them? How to ensure personal integrity? To what extend can the technology be used and encroach on citizen's individual data? How much privacy are citizens willing to loose in order to get sophisticated governmental services? How to avoid unwanted future scenarios e.g. implanted chips?
Ambient intelligence usage and its implications to privacy, identity was one of the main streams of EU research project SWAMI - Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence (FP6). The ascertainment can also be seen as good outline for further privacy related researches.
Privacy issues are also very important for establishing public-private service provision collaboration framework and mechanisms. Although they arise by using modern, intelligent technologies, it can be perceived that future researches should be focused on social, legal and economic aspects of privacy assurance. On the other hand, there is also a need for further researches focusing on development of secure protocols, applications, tools, security standards for fighting against cyber attacks and terrorist activities. Unless ordinary citizens feel safe and secure in their online information and service activities, e-government is not going to grow very rapidly.
Privacy topic is closely related to citizen´s trust to government. Getting permission for government to share citizen´s data is a questioin of trust. Very important is also privacy paradigm. Is privacy private property ? private property paradigm or is the privacy public resource? ? public resource paradigm.
Research question
- How to assure that privacy and personal data are secure and protected, and will not be misused?
- How to ensure personal integrity?
- How should governments go about getting their permission to use the data?
Link to the final eight scenarios
The future scenarios (cf. D2.1) forsee two opposite future environments in the aspect of data privacy:
- Some future scenarios forsee that people sacrifice privacy in order to support the government to provide security. All movements are recorded and there is no privacy anymore -
Good big brother issue(The ambient government of Europe). Also, according to scenarios, consumers of public services provided by private parties have no chance to protect their data because profit is more important with regard to economics than privacy protection (Incident Politics). Individual identities are seen as fully authenticated, but no privacy protection exists. It is expected that identity management and privacy concerns grow higher and citizens have, in general, a lack of trust in society, government and technology (The new eWorld order). - On the other hand, some future scenarios (cf.D21) forsee that privacy protection will make a comeback, and there is a period of relative stabilization in the world (scenario Individualized society. Furthermore, deployment of and penetration through ICT are seen only some of the reasons why advanced privacy enhanced systems and data protection means are widely positioned (scenario Ambient government).
As scenarios forsee two dimensions (extremes) for the future environment in relation of data privacy in governmental service provision, there is a need for focusing the attention on possible unwanted future scenarios, on preventing data misuse and establishing privacy protected environment.
Link to the gaps and gaps storyline
The identified high and very high relevant/important research gaps (cf. D3.1) in relation to data privacy in governmental service provision are: remote monitoring, automated monitoring and enforcement and embedded chips. As modern ICT and build in devices bring up a lot of opportunities for data gathering, its use and provision also in the eGovernment field, there is a need for constant improvements and adjustments of technical, legal, social aspects of privacy related issues. Furthermore, storylines (cf. D3.1) One European-wide Identification/authentication(issues: use ob biometrics, biometric login, use of biometrics) and Automatic monitoring and enforcement (issues: Control over information gathering and use, Monitoring for data collection and decision making) also address data privacy related issues, mechanism which have to be developed in order to ensure that information is not misused.
Link to the roadmapping workshops
Research gap Privacy has been assessed as high relevant/important at Vilnius and Koblenz roadmapping workshops. Also, privacy related research gaps: use of biometrics, remote monitoring have been stressed as very important/relevant at Ljubljana roadmapping workshop.
The workshop in Brussels also verified the high relevance/importance of this research theme. Participants intensively discussed the research questions mentioned above, e.g. Can IT knowledge be used for improving services, also data privacy?
