Research articles on PRIVACY & SECURITY

A review of the recent economic literature aimed at empirically assessing internet users’ valuation of their personal data, suggesting possible limitations and pitfalls in the experiments, and drawing policy-oriented remarks focused on data portability.

Drawing on the example of the US surveillance operation PRISM and its impact on European citizens’ right to privacy, the author discusses what an authoritative human rights-based response could look like.

If you do not see a policeman outside of your door, you are looking out of the wrong window. Read this scholarly essay as an analogy of privacy violations.

Civil disobedience is a familiar and well established phenomenon in Western societies. Currently, this concept of political action is challenged by new practices evolving on and around the internet. This paper focusses on the question of whether several forms of digital civil disobedience are legitimate.

Currently dominant cloud services raise challenges in terms of security, privacy and user autonomy. Decentralisation, advocated by civil society, may overcome some of the drawbacks.

European countries' welfare increasingly depends on the services of the information society. This comes along with a price tag: continued increase of the cyber threat spectrum. Despite the need for coordinated efforts in cyber security, Europe lacks of common understanding.

The American aversion to big government is matched by the German aversion to big data. How to best reconcile the two privacy cultures, is the subject of this analysis.

There are significant dangers in surveilling online communications unless the mechanisms and policies of surveillance are subject to strict and legally enforceable standards of transparency, oversight, and control.

When it comes to information technology Sweden is considered to be at the forefront both in terms of technological innovation, as well as in progressive policy-making, regulation and internet freedom. It seems that from a policy perspective Sweden is an interesting example, as it is both perceived as free and neutral, while at the same time pursuing a tough and much contested policy approach. The following ‘snapshot’ seeks to give a brief, yet nuanced picture of the Swedish policy landscape.

Liberal democracies are increasingly considering internet filtering as a means to assert state control over online information exchanges. A variety of filtering techniques have been implemented in Western states to prevent access to certain content deemed harmful. This development poses a series of democratic and ethical questions, particularly when states introduce regulation mandating ISPs to block online content. A first version of this article was previously published at the FOCI'12 conference.