Overview

"This book offers an analysis of privacy impacts resulting from and reinforced by technology and discusses fundamental risks and challenges of protecting privacy in the digital age. Privacy is among the most endangered ""species"" in our networked society: personal information is processed for various purposes beyond our control. Ultimately, this affects the natural interplay between privacy, personal identity and identification. This book investigates that interplay from a systemic, socio-technical perspective by combining research from the social and computer sciences. It sheds light on the basic functions of privacy, their relation to identity, and how they alter with digital identification practices. The analysis reveals a general privacy control dilemma of (digital) identification shaped by several interrelated socio-political, economic and technical factors. Uncontrolled increases in the identification modalities inherent to digital technology reinforce this dilemma and benefit surveillance practices, thereby complicating the detection of privacy risks and the creation of appropriate safeguards. Easing this problem requires a novel approach to privacy impact assessment (PIA), and this book proposes an alternative PIA framework which, at its core, comprises a basic typology of (personally and technically) identifiable information. This approach contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of privacy impacts and thus, to the development of more effective protection standards. This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of critical security studies, surveillance studies, computer and information science, science and technology studies, and politics."

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9781138323537

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Reviews

'This latest volume in the Routledge New Security Studies series addresses the many facets of securing user privacy and individual identity in today's networks. Strauss (Austrian Academy of Sciences) leads readers through his critique of the current state of privacy in the digital age, then presents the means available for bringing the situation under control. The subtitle aptly draws attention to the author's focus on the impact of current digital technologies on privacy. The first three chapters establish the foundation for the later detailed discussion of treatment. Chapter 1 sets the overall tone of the volume: Introduction: Is Privacy Suffering from a Digital Disease? Chapter 2, A Systemic Perspective on Privacy and Identification, brings the main subject into view and leads to the sharper focus of Chapter 3: The Interplay Between Identity, Identification, and Privacy. The next four chapters explore specific digital identification practices, the privacy control dilemma, how to retain control, and how to establish a framework for privacy-control assessment. The final chapter addresses the problematic question of whether an effective treatment of privacy is even possible. Each chapter is independently annotated with notes and list of references. The index is expertly crafted. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.'--J. Beidler, University of Scranton, CHOICE

Author Information

Stefan Strauß is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria.

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