Privacy and Data Protection in the Digital Age
We have another highlight for you at re:publica Dublin this coming Thursday: hosted in cooperation with our partner, Goethe-Institut Ireland, and the NGO Digital Rights Ireland, the panel “Privacy and Data Protection in the Digital Age” addresses the role of digital technologies in undermining human rights.
The Internet has become a tool for the realization of a range of human rights, but digital technologies also play a role in undermining human rights, whether it is the right to be forgotten in Google searches or electronic surveillance.
How can human rights principles be applied in the digital context? And how should individuals be treated by states and by huge corporations?
The two talk guests and the moderator have quite an interesting background:
Dennis M. Jennings, an Irish physicist, academic and venture capitalist, is a true internet pioneer: In 1985 and 1986, he lead the establishment of the National Science Foundation Network – the network that became the Internet. There, developing a vision of an open network of networks, he was responsible for three critical decisions that shaped the subsequent development of the NSFN and the internet as we know it: that it would be a general-purpose research network, not limited to connection of the supercomputers; it would act as the backbone for connection of regional networks at each supercomputing site; and it would use the ARPANET's TCP/IP protocol which is still used today.
Daragh Murray is the Director of the Human Rights Centre Clinic at the University of Essex. His research focuses on issues relating to the law of armed conflict, international human rights law, and non-State actors. He is currently involved with the Human Rights, Big Data & Technology project at the University of Essex. Within this project his research focuses on the human rights implications of State and non-State surveillance practices, looking specifically at issues relating to privacy, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, and the importance of human rights protections to participatory democracy.
The talk will be moderated by Karlin Lillington, a journalist and columnist with the Irish Times. Karlin focuses on technology, and is an expert on the political, social, business and cultural aspects of information and communication technologies. Her investigations into data retention in Ireland formed the basis of Digital Rights Ireland's appeal to the European Court of Justice. This resulted in the ECJ’s landmark rejection of the European Data Retention Directive in 2014.
Sounds like this will be an exciting discussion! Join us this Thursday at re:publica Dublin!
The panel “Privacy and Data Protection in the Digital Age” is taking place at 11:30 a.m. at the Smock Alley Theatre.
Image credit: knous.ie