Call for Papers der Tagung Privacy and Accountability 2011: International Conference of the PATS Project, April 5-6, 2011, Technische Universität Berlin.
A universal feature of modern public life is the invasion of privacy that occurs every day and in a variety of forms. Invasive surveillance activities are carried out in the name of preventing terrorism and stopping fraud. Crime control has become synonymous with surveillance technologies, information technologies, and databases. The boundaries of public and private life have become blurred, and privacy has become compromised in the name of protecting the public.
At the same time, users of social networks and Web 2.0 services have begun to voluntarily give away their information – supposedly to other users, but eventually to companies and whoever is interested in the data freely available on the Web. Google’s and Facebook’s power are being discussed more and more in the media, opening up a discourse about companies’ and citizens’ handling of information. Accountability seems to be situated in ever more loci: states, cities, companies, citizens and users, and technology.