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Abstract:
The luxury of privacy as we have known it is, rather suddenly, no
longer possible. Those who have access to our private lives
include the government, private companies, a wide range of
information brokers and individuals. The recent rapid advances in
technology which have enabled the ability to know so much about
us include computationally enabled communications, chemical and
biological sensors, positioning, signal and image processing,
statistics, pattern extraction and recognition as well as
modeling and dynamical systems, all contribute and have
contributed to the extinction of privacy.
The illusion that it is still possible to possess privacy is
widespread, however. The goal of this panel discussion is to
illuminate a situation which is uncomfortable to many and to
consider the implications of this alteration in our social
environment in terms of policy, law, ethics and personal choice.
*This panel discussion is sponsored in part by the Templeton
Research Lectures at ASU --"Facing the Challenges of
Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology"
(www.asu.edu/transhumanism/)
Biographies. Rachel Levinson is
Director of the Government and Industry Liaison Office at the
Biodesign Institute. Prior to joining the Biodesign Institute,
she served in a number of research, policy and administrative
roles at NIH, and most recently was the Assistant Director for
Life Sciences in the Office of Science and Technology Policy
within the Executive Office of the President. There her portfolio
included risk management and security in management of select
agents, and participation in the development of a presidential
executive order banning the use of genetic information for
workplace and insurance discrimination. Jeremy Rowe
is Associate Director for
Strategic Initiatives and Special Partnerships in the School of
Computing and Informatics, Associate Director, Institute for
Computer, Information Sciences, and Engineering (InCISE) and
Co-Director, Partnership for Research in Spatial Modeling (PRISM). His research has included work on automated methods for handwriting analysis and OCR, curating 3D library collections, and intellectual property rights in the academic domain.
Dan Sarewitz is
Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. His
work focuses on understanding the connections between scientific
research and social benefit, and on developing methods and
policies to strengthen such connections. His most recent book is
Living with the
Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery
(co-edited with Alan Lightman
and Christina Desser; Island Press, 2003) Douglas
Sylvester publishes,
lectures, and teaches on issues of e-commerce, intellectual
property law and commercialization, international law,
international relations, legal history and privacy.
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Reading and Resources: Wall
Street Journal March 10, Google
Searches and Data Mining, Google
Watch, Mill Ave.
Camera, Seattle
Times March 31, No
Place to Hide. Intelius. Email
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