CFP: Amsterdam Privacy Conference (APC 2012)

The 2012 Amsterdam Privacy Conference (APC 2012) brings together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and professionals in the field of privacy to share insights, exchange ideas and formulate, discuss and answer the challenging privacy questions that lie ahead of us.

APC 2012 intends to be a lively forum to discuss privacy issues, held in the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam. APC 2012 is organised by the Amsterdam Platform for Privacy Research (APPR), a network of researchers of the University of Amsterdam, with active participants from diverse fields including philosophy, law, economics, computer science, medicine, and social and media sciences.

The conference will take place on 7 to 10 October 2012 at the intimate venue of Felix Meritis in the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We will include plenary sessions, parallel sessions, and panel discussions with invited speakers, as well as presentations from respondents to this call for papers. The goal of the conference is to bring together people from academia, policy makers, journalists, and practitioners to promote active discussion on timely topics, to foster an active debate on privacy issues between participants from various backgrounds and perspectives.

Keynote speakers will include renowned scholars and leading practitioners, such as Alessandro Acquisti (Carnegie Mellon University), Peter Hustinx (EDPS), Helen Nissenbaum (New York University), Sandra Petronio (Indiana University), Priscilla Regan (George Mason University), and many more.

Topics of interest

The scope of the conference includes, but is not restricted to the following topics:

Value, meaning and principles of privacy – The value of privacy is subject to continuous debate and concerns aspects including the universality, subjectivity and contextuality of privacy. Philosophical, psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives on this topic are welcome, as are those from other disciplines.

Privacy and security – Privacy is challenged by a continuous stream of security and public safety measures. Surveillance, data retention, wire-tapping, anti-terrorism activities, regulation of immigration and border control, and the privatisation of security are only a few of the many topics that are relevant.

Privacy and the information society – Democratic societies depend on making information public, a process which has undergone significant changes as a result of the Internet. Privacy is challenged by the media, cultural heritage and personal records; government transparency, e-government, re-use of public sector information, social networks, and their monetisation, digital identities, access to knowledge and profiling, are amongst the topics we hope to see addressed.

Privacy and healthcare – In the field of medicine and healthcare, the subject's right to privacy is of fundamental importance. Some of the relevant privacy issues in this field are the security of health information, electronic health information exchange, personal health records, biobanking, and total genome analysis.

Privacy and technology – Privacy may be protected in different ways and by different means. Privacy enhancing technologies, policy enforcement (e.g. sticky policies), implementations and implications of privacy by design, trust issues, system security, and the impact and interoperability of international legal frameworks on technological decisions are topics which are relevant.

Privacy and governance - Privacy governance is important to ensure that privacy is weighted against other (stakeholder) interests; governance includes both private and public sector. Privacy impact assessments, stakeholder and public interest analyses, assessments of current legal and regulatory schemes and the role of civil society are only a few of the many topics that are relevant.

Commercial value of privacy – Personal data are important drivers behind (new) business models serving the interests and needs of industry and consumers. The exploitation of personal data has become a business in itself. This track seeks to further analyse the business models, the dynamics involved, and the contribution to welfare.

Call for papers

We invite you to submit your research paper to APC 2012. The conference aims to be a multidisciplinary conference and is particularly interested in papers that illustrate a multidisciplinary approach, but it is also open to more specialised papers on a relevant topic from any scientific discipline. Accepted papers will be included in the electronic conference proceedings. In addition, selected papers will be put forward for publication in refereed journals after a double review.

General call for panels, workshops, and speakers

APC reserves space for contributions, panels or workshops on specific topics. If you have a specific topic you would like to see represented or discussed at the conference, please contact the organisers via the email address below.

Important dates

1 February 2012 - Panel, workshop, or speaker proposals (no more than 1000 words).

15 February 2012 - Submission of paper abstract (no more than 500 words).

15 March 2012 - Notification of acceptance.

15 June 2012 - Submission of full paper (no more than 5.000 words).

If a workshop or panel includes paper presentations, please send the proposal for the workshop or panel together with all paper abstracts at the 15th of February.

Paper abstracts, proposals for panals, workshops and speakers, and full papers should be sent to [email protected], preferably in Word, using Times New Roman (12). For further information and questions, please contact Bart van der Sloot at [email protected].