The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in force since 2018, has introduc... more The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in force since 2018, has introduced design-based approaches to data protection and the governance of privacy. In this article we describe the emergence of the professional field of privacy engineering to enact this shift in digital governance. We argue that privacy engineering forms part of a broader techno-regulatory imaginary through which (fundamental) rights protections become increasingly future-oriented and anticipatory. The techno-regulatory imaginary is described in terms of three distinct privacy articulations, implemented in technologies, organizations, and standardizations. We pose two interrelated questions: What happens to rights as they become implemented and enacted in new sites, through new instruments and professional practices? And, focusing on shifts to the nature of boundary work, we ask: What forms of legitimation can be discerned as privacy engineering is mobilized for the making of future digital ...
This paper provides recommendations for the European Union (EU) to complement the requirement for... more This paper provides recommendations for the European Union (EU) to complement the requirement for data protection impact assessment (DPIA), as set forth in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with a view of achieving a more robust protection of personal data. In April 2016 the EU concluded the core part of the reform of its legal framework for personal data protection. The Union is currently preparing implementing measures and guidelines to give full effect to the new legal provisions before their applicability from May 2018. This reform introduces, among other ‘novelties’, a legal requirement to conduct a DPIA. However, this requirement bears a few weak points. In order to remedy that by informing this on-going policy-making process, the present policy brief attempts to draft a best practice for a generic type of impact assessment, i.e. recommended for different areas (section II). Section III makes an early evaluation of how this best practice relates to the specific im...
The Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation is promoting an approach referre... more The Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation is promoting an approach referred to as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Mandates to implement and mainstream RRI are already evident, whereby interdisciplinarity and integration are treated as pre-given in accounts of what the RRI approach is in practice. In this paper, our point of departure is to ask what to expect realistically when experts and professionals are brought together across disciplines, institutions and national borders in practical attempts to achieve interdisciplinarity and integration of approach to innovation. We revisit Woolgar's and Ashmore's treatise on social epistemology in their development of the reflexive thesis in the late 1980s, and we revisit the turn to practice in STS in the early 2000s. We present our analysis of commitment to matters of practical sensitivity and reflexivity in reference to the philosophical influences and study objectives of the reflexive thesis and ...
This document reports on the events of the networking/embedding event, organised by the Epinet WP... more This document reports on the events of the networking/embedding event, organised by the Epinet WP3 team in Brussels Nov 2013. It summarises observations and key findings. The aim of the event was to involve the expertise of professionals from a range public and private agencies involved in the development of wearable sensor technologies and ICT innovation policy. We learn from their input of new-emerging roles for wearable sensors, how they are situated in visions of the future of healthcare and self care, of changing lifestyles and occupations. We learn of complications in clinical practice and in medical devices regulation. We learn of expectations, of what personalisation can stand for, of conceptions of behaviour and of well-being more generally. Finally, we observe a distinct disconnect between top-down policy developments on the future delivery of personalised healthcare to European citizens and grass-roots developments in self care and in the self-management of medical condit...
The purpose of this Working Paper for WP4 is to map the state-of-art of assessments of societal i... more The purpose of this Working Paper for WP4 is to map the state-of-art of assessments of societal impacts of more autonomous robots. This includes to “assess the assessments” and begin the process of identifying relevant actors / epistemic networks and a small set (1-3) of targeted policy questions to develop the case study. The creation of (more) autonomous robots may be seen, on the one hand, as an important instantiation of converging technologies. On the other hand, more autonomy for robots seems to be as old as (modern) robotics, and so should not be taken for granted, even though there is little doubt that robotics development is rapidly advancing. This case study will engage with the efforts of one large consortium of European researchers (75+ partners) formed around a proposal for a FET flagship status. In case of funding this group will be joined with partners from industry, education and public services. It is organised around strategic planning of how to create the next gen...
This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year lon... more This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year long case study on wearable sensors. The key objective was to assess state-of-the-art developments in this domain of innovation, using evaluation and analytic methods that correspond with the expertise and experience available on our study team and among our associates in industry and innovation, medicine, policy, grass roots activism, STS and ELS study traditions. Our aim is to provide guidelines for good governance of wearable sensors, in light of their potential roles in medical settings as well as their currency as consumer electronics for quasi-medical purposes. We provide recommendations for ongoing innovation in this field, considering the necessity of mutual recognition and reflexive knowledge exchange among innovators and industrial actors, medical expertise, scholarly and technical assessments, patient organisations and grass roots activism, policy developers and regulators.
This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year lon... more This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year long case study on wearable sensors. The key objective was to assess state-of-the-art developments in this domain of innovation, using evaluation and analytic methods that correspond with the expertise and experience available on our study team and among our associates in industry and innovation, medicine, policy, grass roots activism, STS and ELS study traditions. Our aim is to provide guidelines for good governance of wearable sensors, in light of their potential roles in medical settings as well as their currency as consumer electronics for quasi-medical purposes. We provide recommendations for ongoing innovation in this field, considering the necessity of mutual recognition and reflexive knowledge exchange among innovators and industrial actors, medical expertise, scholarly and technical assessments, patient organisations and grass roots activism, policy developers and regulators.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in force since 2018, has introduc... more The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in force since 2018, has introduced design-based approaches to data protection and the governance of privacy. In this article we describe the emergence of the professional field of privacy engineering to enact this shift in digital governance. We argue that privacy engineering forms part of a broader techno-regulatory imaginary through which (fundamental) rights protections become increasingly future-oriented and anticipatory. The techno-regulatory imaginary is described in terms of three distinct privacy articulations, implemented in technologies, organizations, and standardizations. We pose two interrelated questions: What happens to rights as they become implemented and enacted in new sites, through new instruments and professional practices? And, focusing on shifts to the nature of boundary work, we ask: What forms of legitimation can be discerned as privacy engineering is mobilized for the making of future digital ...
This paper provides recommendations for the European Union (EU) to complement the requirement for... more This paper provides recommendations for the European Union (EU) to complement the requirement for data protection impact assessment (DPIA), as set forth in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with a view of achieving a more robust protection of personal data. In April 2016 the EU concluded the core part of the reform of its legal framework for personal data protection. The Union is currently preparing implementing measures and guidelines to give full effect to the new legal provisions before their applicability from May 2018. This reform introduces, among other ‘novelties’, a legal requirement to conduct a DPIA. However, this requirement bears a few weak points. In order to remedy that by informing this on-going policy-making process, the present policy brief attempts to draft a best practice for a generic type of impact assessment, i.e. recommended for different areas (section II). Section III makes an early evaluation of how this best practice relates to the specific im...
The Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation is promoting an approach referre... more The Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation is promoting an approach referred to as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Mandates to implement and mainstream RRI are already evident, whereby interdisciplinarity and integration are treated as pre-given in accounts of what the RRI approach is in practice. In this paper, our point of departure is to ask what to expect realistically when experts and professionals are brought together across disciplines, institutions and national borders in practical attempts to achieve interdisciplinarity and integration of approach to innovation. We revisit Woolgar's and Ashmore's treatise on social epistemology in their development of the reflexive thesis in the late 1980s, and we revisit the turn to practice in STS in the early 2000s. We present our analysis of commitment to matters of practical sensitivity and reflexivity in reference to the philosophical influences and study objectives of the reflexive thesis and ...
This document reports on the events of the networking/embedding event, organised by the Epinet WP... more This document reports on the events of the networking/embedding event, organised by the Epinet WP3 team in Brussels Nov 2013. It summarises observations and key findings. The aim of the event was to involve the expertise of professionals from a range public and private agencies involved in the development of wearable sensor technologies and ICT innovation policy. We learn from their input of new-emerging roles for wearable sensors, how they are situated in visions of the future of healthcare and self care, of changing lifestyles and occupations. We learn of complications in clinical practice and in medical devices regulation. We learn of expectations, of what personalisation can stand for, of conceptions of behaviour and of well-being more generally. Finally, we observe a distinct disconnect between top-down policy developments on the future delivery of personalised healthcare to European citizens and grass-roots developments in self care and in the self-management of medical condit...
The purpose of this Working Paper for WP4 is to map the state-of-art of assessments of societal i... more The purpose of this Working Paper for WP4 is to map the state-of-art of assessments of societal impacts of more autonomous robots. This includes to “assess the assessments” and begin the process of identifying relevant actors / epistemic networks and a small set (1-3) of targeted policy questions to develop the case study. The creation of (more) autonomous robots may be seen, on the one hand, as an important instantiation of converging technologies. On the other hand, more autonomy for robots seems to be as old as (modern) robotics, and so should not be taken for granted, even though there is little doubt that robotics development is rapidly advancing. This case study will engage with the efforts of one large consortium of European researchers (75+ partners) formed around a proposal for a FET flagship status. In case of funding this group will be joined with partners from industry, education and public services. It is organised around strategic planning of how to create the next gen...
This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year lon... more This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year long case study on wearable sensors. The key objective was to assess state-of-the-art developments in this domain of innovation, using evaluation and analytic methods that correspond with the expertise and experience available on our study team and among our associates in industry and innovation, medicine, policy, grass roots activism, STS and ELS study traditions. Our aim is to provide guidelines for good governance of wearable sensors, in light of their potential roles in medical settings as well as their currency as consumer electronics for quasi-medical purposes. We provide recommendations for ongoing innovation in this field, considering the necessity of mutual recognition and reflexive knowledge exchange among innovators and industrial actors, medical expertise, scholarly and technical assessments, patient organisations and grass roots activism, policy developers and regulators.
This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year lon... more This document provides a set of policy recommendations, based on the findings of a three-year long case study on wearable sensors. The key objective was to assess state-of-the-art developments in this domain of innovation, using evaluation and analytic methods that correspond with the expertise and experience available on our study team and among our associates in industry and innovation, medicine, policy, grass roots activism, STS and ELS study traditions. Our aim is to provide guidelines for good governance of wearable sensors, in light of their potential roles in medical settings as well as their currency as consumer electronics for quasi-medical purposes. We provide recommendations for ongoing innovation in this field, considering the necessity of mutual recognition and reflexive knowledge exchange among innovators and industrial actors, medical expertise, scholarly and technical assessments, patient organisations and grass roots activism, policy developers and regulators.
Uploads
Papers by Niels van Dijk