Short BIO

Caspar Bowden is an independent advocate for information self-determination rights, and public understanding of privacy research in computer science. He is a specialist in data protection policy, EU and US surveillance law, PET research, identity management, and information ethics and philosophy. For nine years he was Chief Privacy Adviser for Microsoft Europe, and four years director of the think-tank the Foundation for Information Policy Research (www.fipr.org). He was an expert adviser to the UK Parliament on privacy and surveillance legislation, and co-organized six public conferences on encryption, data retention, and interception policy. He has previous careers in financial engineering and risk management, applied cryptography, software engineering in systems programming and 3D games, including work with Goldman Sachs, Microsoft Consulting Services, Island Games, Acorn, Research Machines, and IBM. He is a fellow of the British Computer Society, a member of the advisory bodies of several civil society associations.

CPDP Conferences

Member of the scientific committee.

CPDP Conference 2011 presentation

PROFILING AND TRANSPARENCY IN PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS: THE SEARCH FOR PROPORTIONALITY

One of the most challenging issues of the information society is the accelerating accumulation of data trails in transactional and communication systems which may be used to profile the behaviour of individuals for commercial and law enforcement purposes. The legal constraints on the collection and use of such data vary considerably across different privacy regimes, but in the EU are ultimately governed by the interpretation of the concepts of proportionality and necessity in human rights and Data Protection law. There are also empirical questions about whether data-mining techniques to extract economic value from profile data also may be applicable to public security and law enforcement scenarios. The social, technical, political, economic and legal implications of such technologies need to be addressed urgently, particularly in the context of the future agendas of ubiquitous (or pervasive) computing and law enforcement public security programs premised on the availability and utility of such data.

Moderated by Caspar BOWDEN (Chief Privacy Adviser, Microsoft Europe Middle-East and Africa)