In diesem grundlagenorientierten Projekt wurden neue Bedrohungen und die zukünftigen Fundamente für den Schutz der Privatsphäre analysiert. Besonderes Augenmerk wurde neueren Entwicklungen in der internationalen Privacy-Debatte geschenkt. Dazu zählen soziale Phänomene wie etwa das des „social sorting“ – der sozialen Differenzierung aufgrund zugeschriebener Merkmale aus virtuellen Profilen –, ebenso wie technische Entwicklungen, welche die Visionen des „Ubiquitous Computing“ zunehmend zur Realität werden lassen. Dabei wird die grundsätzliche Frage aufgeworfen, wie und ob sich das Grundrecht auf Privatsphäre in eine informatisierten, globalen Umwelt nachhaltig bewahren lässt. Zu diesem Zweck sollten sowohl moderne Konzepte des technischen Datenschutzes unter dem Stichwort „Privacy by design“ als auch neuere Ansätze von (Selbst-) Regulierungsmechanismen analysiert und in ihrer Einführung beobachtet werden.
The emerging paradigm of ubiquitous computing promises unprecedented levels of support of human activities by information technologies working invisibly in the background and provid-ing their services in an unobtrusive and effortless manner. At the same time, these systems will bring about so far inconceivable levels of surveillance, collection of personal data, their merging and continuous transfer and processing, creating unprecedented threats to privacy and data protection. As a consequence ubiquitous computing is also challenging central human values that are affiliated to privacy, embracing items like individual autonomy, democracy or societal sustainability. The inherent threats to privacy have been recognised from the very beginning of the develop-ment of this vision and numerous attempts have been undertaken to reconcile the obviously conflicting objectives of ubiquitous computing and the principles of current data protection. The core of contemporary data protection is based on a general limitation of the generation, processing and use of personally identifiable data, supplemented by sets of rules which define exceptions from the general prohibition and regulate these specific cases. A major stream of efforts to preserve privacy under the new technological regime focused on the integration of privacy protection principles into ubiquitous computing technologies; in more recent times, the suitability of current regulatory framework for the emerging new paradigm of information technologies moved closer to the centre of attention. Both directions, the development of pri-vacy enhancing, ubiquitous computing technologies and adaptations of legislation to accom-modate the enormous threats for privacy possess certain mitigating potentials, but are either insufficient or incompatible with the core objectives of the new technical paradigm. Measures that are sufficient to confront the vision of ubiquitous computing with more than an illusion of privacy will probably also require changes in the paradigm of current data protection principles and a reshaping of the vision towards societal sustainability.
12/2008 - 11/2011