Ken North: EU privacy laws are thought-leading

In a recent interview just published on our web site, Ken North (from the LinkedData Planet conference faculty) suggested that EU privacy laws can be a guiding light in the process of modelling privacy regulations for the web of data:

Many members of the emergent Linked Data and Open Data developer communities are Europeans who are familiar with EU privacy laws. We need them to serve as thought leaders on ethical issues related to publishing open data, although we’ll still need global awareness of privacy issues. We also need an international agreement that provides a process for resolving disputes about the accuracy or removal of private and confidential data.

I’m currently having a mild case of tunnel vision regarding privacy issues, partly also because I attended the PRISE conference here in Vienna last week. It was the concluding conference for the PRISE project, the aim of which was to provide “criteria and guidelines for privacy enhancing security research and for the application of the developed security solutions. As a supporting activity under the PASR programme the project will assist the European Union in shaping forthcoming security research programmes in accordance with its fundamental values.” PRISE developed a framework to ensure that privacy policies are already considered in the design of research projects, and not simply taken care of as an ‘add-on’ shortly before the release of a prototype or publictaion of a research project. In other words: Research on privacy friendly research – I approve!

So if there’s anybody in the Linked Data and Open Data community eager on getting in touch with people familiar with the technological side of EU privacy laws: PRISE was coordinated by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, more specifically by Johann Cas at the Institute for Technology Assessment. I am also happy to put you in touch if need be! Also, don’t forget to read the full interview with Ken North.