Naam Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society

November Ambient Intelligence: Challenges for Regulatory Perspectives Prof. Corien Prins Center for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) Tilburg University Enschede, 27 November 2007

November What Challenges do we face? Privacy protection: what data do I ‘transmit’, who receives these data, who uses them and for what purposes? Identity and dimensions of identity: ambient intelligence results in categories, (stereo) types of people Autonomy and freedom: can we still say “NO” (isn’t it all in the public interest?) Ownership: who owns all this data? Our world and our intelligent surroundings as one big database.

November From Psysical Products to Immaterial Data Ambient intelligence –it is all about personal data, information and knowledge Personal data, information and knowledge –it is all about power and money Power and Money –in the end our challenge is balancing interests Balancing interests –What instruments can best be used?

November However: Various developments testify to the growing influence of property thinking in the human rights domain: –property in personality (name, appearance, voice, etc.); –property in human body parts –Property in personal data. Data about individuals nowadays have become a key commercial asset (e.g. data in biobanks; Google/YouTube Developments in intellectual property Extend property interests to personal data of individuals (why not grant individuals same rights in their name as companies/why not recognise the property right of companies); Individuals must be able to negotiate and bargain over the use of their data and they need something in return (return benefits)

November However: Property rights perspective does not fit the human rights perspective (human right is a right of non- interference, not a right of positive entitlement); More than just a commodity (dignity, social value of privacy): ambient intelligence also requires us to think about autonomy. Privacy is linked to constituting and maintaining a person’s personal integrity. Thus, it is a non- commodifiable right Ambient intelligence is often also about groups of people, not just individual data.

November Personal Data? Or is it all about Identities? Individual data versus combined data (linking databases); Data are not just data (not one uniform category) Ambient intelligence; RFID, personalized services require use to focus not so much on the individual data, but on the effects of the use of present-day technologies and the use of combined data; Thus: focus on identities (types of persons; types of citizens/types of consumers/types of healthy/unhealthy people, type of ethnic origin, etc.).

November Shifting in Our Attention Shift our attention from individual sets of personal data toward the statistical models, profiles and the algorithms with which individuals are assigned to a certain group or ‘identity’; Data protection mechanisms must be structured along lines of control and visibility. Data protection mechanisms must be structured along lines of transparency and trust … and maybe other benefits??

November Ambient Intelligence: What We Need We need to know and understand how social and economic identities are constructed, influenced and used; We need instruments to know and to control how our ‘lives’ are ‘created’ and influenced; We need other ‘personal data’ protection standards Our identity is more that an administrative identity (ipse identity – idem identity) We do need instruments to protect our autonomy and individual identity.