From: OII Events [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 February 2006 17:00
To: oii-contacts
Subject: OII News [2006.02.07]: Privacy Under Pressure
Dear All
Please may we bring to your attention the following forthcoming event:
'Privacy Under Pressure'
Speaker: James Rule, Professor of Sociology, State University of New
York, Stony Brook
Date: 10 Feb 2006, 15:30 - 16:30
Location: Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS
Attendance: This event is open to the public, if you would like to attend
please email your name and affiliation to [log in to unmask]
Abstract:
It doesn't take a specialist to notice that any normal life in today's world
generates a steady stream of recorded information on one's self. We are all
constantly emanating data, from occasions ranging from credit card
transactions to airline screenings to supermarket visits. We can also hardly
miss the fact that such data, once created, take on a life of their own, as
they are stored, transmitted, massaged, sold, and used as bases for
determining how we will be treated.
Creating and managing these sophisticated uses of personal information are
resourceful bureaucracies, both state agencies and corporations. The
resulting systems of decision-making orchestrate allocation of the widest
array of things, from credit, insurance and social welfare benefits to the
pursuit of criminals and terrorists.
The evident loss of control over one's "own" data to state and private
organizations has for a generation provoked anxieties over the fate of
privacy and autonomy. As a result, nearly all of the world's prosperous
democracies have created institutions and policies officially aimed at
"privacy protection". Yet the steady accretion and use of personal data have
not much abated.
My remarks will review the social processes underlying these developments
and point to questions that, I hope, hold interest beyond our specialties.
Is it reasonable to seek meaningful limits on institutions' accumulation and
use of data on ourselves? And if so, what principle or strategy could one
put forward to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable uses of
personal data?
Biography:
James B. Rule has devoted a substantial portion of his career to the study
of privacy and surveillance. He is a Professor of Sociology at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook. See:
http://www.sunysb.edu/sociology/faculty/Rule/rule.htm
For further information on all OII events, please refer to our website at
www.oii.ox.ac.uk
Kind regards
The Events Team
Oxford Internet Institute
1 St Giles
University of Oxford
Oxford
OX1 3JS
Tel: +44 (0)1865 287209
Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211
www.oii.ox.ac.uk
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