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-... 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 ----------------------------------------------- Tel.: ++43 1 515 81 - 6599 Fax: ++43 1 710 98 83 E-mail: stefan.strauss@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 ----------------------------------------------- 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-...