Mark Coeckelbergh (University of Twente, NL) FREEDOM, SECURITY, PRIVACY OR HOW TO LIVE WITH NEW INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

Transcription

1 Mark Coeckelbergh (University of Twente, NL) FREEDOM, SECURITY, PRIVACY OR HOW TO LIVE WITH NEW INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

2 overview ICTs: hopes and fears some discussions in ethics of ICTs liberty: problems with standard view how to live with ICTs acceptance and trust cyber space as social world application: cyber crime the cost of interdependence

3 1945

4 2011

5 introduction new information & communication technologies fears and threats a threat to liberty, security, privacy, human contact, friendship, democracy, hopes and promises a liberation, a way to broaden your world, and a tool to construct identity and realize yourself and your projects

6 hopes: examples connection to others surveillance and security a new public sphere? open all opinions

7 threats: examples cyber crime access to bank account, , etc. can be very powerful collection, processing, and distribution of personal data governments corporations ambient intelligence? ubiquity, invisibility, connectivity

8 examples of discussions on-line friendship connection but no real friendship objection has the internet really diminished possibilities for human friendship? internet and democracy more participation objections internet creates sphere of opinions, but no engagement and ethical commitment (Dreyfus) no real communicative action (Habermas) or public deliberations;opinions not discussion with rational arguments

9 LIBERTY?

10 liberty: standard view freedom from interference = negative liberty (Berlin) state corporations individuals and groups (cyber criminals) application to information technology especially problematic due to specific features of current cyber space (or rather: cyber society ): being connected to a network global lack of transparency

11 problems is freedom the only value? ethics is also about justice, solidarity, equality human flourishing may include some form of negative freedom but is not only about negative freedom freedom to do what? ethics is also about positive ideals of the good life > information technology and ethics of human flourishing (e.g. capability approach) freedom of the individual? ethics is also about society, individual in relation to others

12 problems problematic distinctions assumptions: private/public offline/online but today these distinctions blur, because of technology the private is made public (e.g. social networks) and public matters are often privatised onlife (Floridi) is this (always) problematic? changing values how important is privacy? is surveillance always and necessarily bad?

13 how to live with new information technologies if we extended ourselves, threat is not external as social beings we naturally live in public morality requires the (internalized) gaze of the other: we imagine what other would think some degree of surveillance is good we publish personal data then accept some surveillance + accept limits: accept some degree of vulnerability, insecurity, etc. think about how to build trust, on-line and off-line, in a global world www cannot be compared to global village if that means small community where we all know each other but still room for trust, not just Hobbesian state of nature

14 cyber space as social world society and culture, no Hobbesian state of nature, no condition of war In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Hobbes)

15 application: cyber crime a problem: threat to liberty but also to society since cyberspace is fusing with the offline world and since it is a social world, cyber crime is not just a threat to particular individuals but a threat to the social order itself, in which everything affects everything all the time counter-measures may create more liberty problems than they solve some degree of insecurity must be accepted, otherwise value of liberty itself is threatened by our counter-measures (the paradox of security)

16 Big Brother goes inside cyber terror: the price we pay for more interdependence? the world has become a computer, an electronic brain ( ) And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence. ( ) Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everythinig all the time. (McLuhan)

17 THANKS!