Apologies for cross-posting. Call for Papers for Philosophy and Technology’s special issue on ONLINE SECURITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS GUEST EDITOR Mariarosaria Taddeo INTRODUCTION Online insecurity is like a Hydra with many heads - from e-commerce and online banking scams to malware, from hacking to cyberwar. It requires Herculean efforts to slay the Hydra, but, unfortunately, fighting insecurity may easily cause serious ethical problems, since security measures can also undermine civil rights, such as individual liberty, privacy, and freedom of speech and expression, because such measures often rest on the collection, storage, access, or elaboration of individuals’ personal information. Clearly, any democratic government, fair society and responsible organisation need to identify an ethical balance between online security and civil rights, in order to implement the former successfully while respecting and furthering the latter. At the same time, it is also clear that the problem is growing and becoming increasingly pressing. Nowadays, when the US and several EU countries are debating which rights should be protected on the Internet and how extended online security measures should be, ethical guidelines for the management of cyber security are urgently sought. Following the organization of the international workshop on Online Security and Civil Rights: A Fine Ethical Balance (http://www.informationethics.net/CRCSworkshop/Home.html), to be held on October 26-27, 2012 at the University of Hertfordshire with the support of the University of Hertfordshire, the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics, and Google’s Public Policy Department, a special issue of Springer’s Philosophy & Technology is planned (http://www.springer.com/13347). TOPICS We solicit the submission of philosophically-oriented papers that investigate topics such as the balance between civil rights and cyber security; the rights that citizens of democratic countries should claim for themselves when using the Internet; and the need to establish new individual rights pertaining to the digital sphere. Areas of relevance include information and computer ethics, (philosophy of) law, political sciences, human rights, Internet studies, cyber security, philosophy of technology, and STS. More details cab be found at http://www.informationethics.net/CRCSworkshop/Special_Issue_PHET.html TIMETABLE January 1, 2013: Deadline papers submissions March 1, 2013: Deadline reviews papers May 1, 2013: Deadline revised papers 2013: Publication of the special issue SUBMISSION DETAILS To submit a paper for this special issue, authors should go to the journal’s Editorial Manager http://www.editorialmanager.com/phte/ The author (or a corresponding author for each submission in case of co- authored papers) must register into EM. The author must then select as article type: "SI on Online Security and Civil Rights” from the selection provided in the submission process. This is needed in order to assign the submissions to the Guest Editors. Submissions will then be assessed according to the following procedure: New Submission => Journal Editorial Office => Guest Editor(s) => Reviewers => Reviewers’ Recommendations => Guest Editor(s)’ Recommendation => Editor-in-Chief’s Final Decision => Author Notification of the Decision. The process will be reiterated in case of requests for revisions. For any further information please contact: Mariarosaria Taddeo, mariarosaria.taddeo@philosophyofinformation.net -- Dr. Mariarosaria Taddeo Visiting Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire Senior Research Associate - Information Ethics Group (IEG), University of Oxford Research Associate - Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford http://taddeo.philosophyofinformation.net/index.html