PRACTIS · Privacy - Appraising Challenges to Technologies and Ethics

The vision that motivates PRACTIS is of a society that is aware of the evolving challenges to privacy posed by emerging technologies and is equipped to respond to them. PRACTIS will assess the potential impacts on privacy from emerging technologies and new scientific knowledge. It will propose ethical frameworks and legal procedures for coping with potential risks to privacy. It will explore novel policy options for addressing individuals’ changing privacy needs in the light of new technologies, as well as exploring new ethical frameworks in law and implementing guidelines for new technology or product development. Specifically, long-range horizon scanning focused on technologies that might impact on privacy will be conducted. Technologies such as nano, bio, info and cognition (NBIC) will be explored and new threats to privacy will be evaluated. In addition, trends in changing perceptions of privacy will be surveyed (including among high school students). These empirical studies will provide the basis for future scenarios of the privacy-technology interface which in turn will lead to the formulation of new ethical frameworks and legal considerations. Research methods will include interviews, expert surveys, focus groups, and brainstorming. PRACTIS will generate deeper knowledge and higher awareness among scholars and relevant stakeholders regarding the early identification of changes in privacy perceptions due to new technologies. An innovative idea to be explored in PRACTIS is the embedding of privacy issues in the development process of new technologies. By bringing leading experts in technology foresight and assessment together with specialists in ethical and legal aspects of privacy, PRACTIS offers a unique combination of disciplines that will produce new knowledge on the relationship between technology, privacy and ethics. Implications of the findings will be derived for policymakers, scholars, standardisation bodies and other stakeholders.