The RFID PIA – developed by industry, agreed by regulators

This chapter discusses the privacy impact assessment (PIA) framework endorsed by the European Commission on February 11th, 2011. This PIA, the first to receive the Commission's endorsement, was developed to deal with privacy challenges associated with the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, a key building block of the Internet of Things. The goal of this chapter is to present the methodology and key constructs of the RFID PIA Framework in more detail than was possible in the official text. RFID operators can use this article as a support document when they conduct PIAs and need to interpret the PIA Framework. The chapter begins with a history of why and how the PIA Framework for RFID came about. It then proceeds with a description of the endorsed PIA process for RFID applications and explains in detail how this process is supposed to function. It provides examples discussed during the development of the PIA Framework. These examples reflect the rationale behind and evolution of the text's methods and definitions. The chapter also provides insight into the stakeholder debates and compromises that have important implications for PIAs in general.Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operation

Jury Theorems

We give a review and critique of jury theorems from a social-epistemology perspective, covering Condorcet’s (1785) classic theorem and several later refinements and departures. We assess the plausibility of the conclusions and premises featuring in jury theorems and evaluate the potential of such theorems to serve as formal arguments for the ‘wisdom of crowds’. In particular, we argue (i) that there is a fundamental tension between voters’ independence and voters’ competence, hence between the two premises of most jury theorems; (ii) that the (asymptotic) conclusion that ‘huge groups are infallible’, reached by many jury theorems, is an artifact of unjustified premises; and (iii) that the (nonasymptotic) conclusion that ‘larger groups are more reliable’, also reached by many jury theorems, is not an artifact and should be regarded as the more adequate formal rendition of the ‘wisdom of crowds’

Human Values as the Basis for Sustainable Information System Design

Information systems (IS) play an increasing role for individual well-being [3], for the environment [4], and for society at large [5]. Considering sustainability in IS development is therefore becoming paramount. However, companies today associate sustainability with extra cost and burden on their operations. As a result, many view sustainability more as a demand and a challenge rather than an opportunity. In this article, we argue that companies should rethink this attitude, as both sustainability and a business model can be understood as deeply rooted in human values

Buying low, flying high: carbon offsets and partial compliance

Many companies offer their customers voluntary carbon 'offset' certificates to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions. Voluntary offset certificates are cheap because the demand for them is low, allowing consumers to compensate for their emissions without significant sacrifices. Regarding the distribution of emission reduction responsibilities I argue that excess emissions are permissible if they are offset properly. However, if individuals buy offsets only because they are cheap, they fail to be robustly motivated to choose a permissible course of action. This suspected lack of robust motivation raises both pragmatic questions about the functioning of offsetting schemes and moral questions about the worth of such unstable motives. The analysis provided here also has wider implications for the normative analysis of partial compliance and 'many hands' problems, especially for those cases where compliance levels and costs interact

Book review: reduction of surprise: some thoughts on Dowding's conception of explanation

Keith Dowding’s book is a tour de force through some important debates in the philosophy of the social sciences. In this short comment I focus on the role of explanation and how (if at all) causation is or should be related to explanation in political science. By appealing to the difference between predictive and explanatory power, I critically engage with Dowding’s proposal that explanation is the reduction of surprise. This leads me to a brief detour to the philosophy of models before I return to the issue of causation, especially the difference between causation as dependence and causation as production and how this distinction can inform methodological debates in political science

Modelling policies for urban sustainability

The objective of the EU research project PROPOLIS (Planning and Research of Policies for Land Use and Transport for Increasing Urban Sustainability) is to assess urban strategies and to demonstrate their long-term effect in European cities. To reach this goal, a comprehensive framework of methodologies including integrated land use, transport and environmental modelling as well as indicator, evaluation and presentation systems have been developed. Sustainable development is viewed as comprising the environmental, socio-cultural and economic dimension. About thirty key indicators have been defined to measure the three dimensions of sustainability, such as air pollution, consumption of natural resources, quality of open space, population exposure to air pollution and noise, equity and opportunities and economic benefits from transport and land use. Indicator values are derived from state-of-the-art urban land use and transport models. A number of additional modules, including a justice evaluation module, an economic evaluation module and a GIS-based raster module, have been developed and integrated to provide further indicator values. Both multicriteria and cost-benefit analysis methods are used to consistently evaluate the impact of the policies. The environmental and social dimensions of sustainability are measured using multicriteria analysis for the evaluation of the indicators, whereas cost-benefit analysis is used for the economic dimension. The modelling and evaluation system is currently being implemented in seven European urban agglomerations: Bilbao (Spain), Brussels (Belgium), Dortmund (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Inverness (Scotland), Naples (Italy) and Vicenza (Italy). A large number of policies will be tested with the modelling and evaluation system in the seven urban regions. Policies to be investigated are land use policies, transport infrastructure policies, transport regulation and pricing policies and combinations of these. Besides a common policy set for all seven urban regions, city-specific local policies will be assessed as well. The first part of the paper will introduce the methodology and the modelling system developed. The second part will present first results of the policy testing and evaluation. The paper will conclude with initial conclusions on successful strategies to enhance the long-term sustainability of urban regions.

Sektorale Roadmap Raumplanung: Handlungspfade und Handlungsempfehlungen auf dem Weg zu einer klimaangepassten und resilienten Metropolregion Bremen-Oldenburg im Nordwesten

Die Roadmap für das Handlungsfeld Raumplanung gibt Empfehlungen und zeigt Handlungsoptionen auf, die zu einer klimaangepassten und resilienten Entwicklung der Raumplanung in der Metropolregion Bremen-Oldenburg beitragen. Zunächst werden die klimawandelbedingten Anforderungen an die Raumplanung aufgezeigt. Anschließend werden die Ausgangsbedingungen für eine erfolgreiche Anpassung an die Folgen des Klimawandels dargestellt, indem entsprechende Potenziale und Defizite des bestehenden Planungssystems beschrieben werden. Ausgehend von der „Vision 2050“ für das Handlungsfeld Raumplanung werden schließlich kurzfristige Handlungsempfehlungen für den Zeithorizont 2020 und mittel- bis langfristige Handlungspfade für den Zeitraum 2020 bis 2050 benannt und erläutert

IEEE P7000? The First Global Standard Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns in System Design

This keynote will give an introduction to IEEE P7000, the first standard IEEE is ever going to publish on ethical issues in system design. As co-chair of IEEE P7000 I am going to inform the audience about what this standard will be all about. In a nutshell: engineers, technologists and other project stakeholders need a methodology for identifying, analyzing and reconciling ethical concerns of end users at the beginning of systems and software life cycles. The purpose of IEEE P7000 is to enable the pragmatic application of this type of Value-Based System Design methodology which demonstrates that conceptual analysis of values and an extensive feasibility analysis can help to refine ethical system requirements in systems and software life cycles. It will provide engineers and technologists with an implementable process aligning innovation management processes, IS system design approaches and software engineering methods to minimize ethical risk for their organizations, stakeholders and end users. In the course of the keynote I will also show how relevant values and system design ideas can be gained from using utilitarianism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics

Why populists do well on social media

A link between populism and social media is often suspected. This paper spells out a set of possible mechanisms underpinning this link: that social media changes the communication structure of the public sphere, making it harder for citizens to obtain evidence that refutes populist assumptions. By developing a model of the public sphere, four core functions of the public sphere are identified: exposing citizens to diverse information, promoting equality of deliberative opportunity, creating deliberative transparency, and producing common knowledge. A well-working public sphere allows citizens to learn that there are genuine disagreements among citizens that are held in good faith. Social media makes it harder to gain this insight, opening the door for populist ideology