Smile! You've just been digitally identified

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Abstract

Except for maybe a few camera’s, regular retailers have the mere ability to track you around their store and observe your interests in their merchandise. Unlike a regular store, with a regular entrance and a regular clerk observing your movements, online stores and agencies have a far reaching ability to track your movements and gather information about you and your persona.

“So what?� You may ask. You might appreciate the fact that amazon.com is able to tailor her advertising to your specific preferences, and point you towards products for which you were not quite aware of your desire before. However, the battle for your eyeballs has just shifted in their advantage. The question is how pleased you still are when amazon.com decides to sell some of your ‘identity’ to, let’s say, your insurance company, who – upon learning that you have purchased a book about skydiving, for which by the way your payment was five days overdue – notifies you of a increase in your health insurance premium.

Of course this is never going to happen in practice, because why should we distrust such large corporations like amazon.com to keep such close track of your information. Of course they can’t do this legally. Right?

Well, maybe the corporation is not amazon.com (at least not as sloppy), but TimeWarner, and it’s not shopping movements, but social security numbers. Or maybe it’s the Bank of America and credit card numbers? Is our digitally stored data really as secure as we hope it to be?

As our movements shift toward the digital interconnected world, so does the ability of ‘others’ to track, collect and aggregate data about us increase. Who is to say what happens to that data, and how do we track the trackers? What security risks are involved? What are – if any – our legal rights in this matter? Are there other ways to protect ourselves and, more importantly, our identities?

This paper will set forth what possible risks are involved in digitized identity data. It will examine at what points data may be gathered, and what possible means there are to secure oneself on the net. Furthermore it will elaborate on the legal means of regulation that have been adopted by the Netherlands and Europe, and how these are put into practice.

Speakers

• Alexander van der Wolk

Schedule

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