[FYI] Striking a Balance between Cyber-Crime Prevention and Privacy

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.jrc.es/pages/iptsreport/vol57/english/ICT1E576.htm  

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Striking a Balance between Cyber-Crime Prevention and Privacy  

Many law enforcement authorities are concerned about the use 
criminals could make of communications and data security mechanisms, 
but attempts to weaken the level of protection available to citizens 
in the name of crime detection could well be counter-productive.  

Andreas Pfitzmann, Dresden University of Technology, and 
Marit Köhntopp, Independent Centre for Privacy Protection   

Issue: A balance between cyber-crime prevention and the desire to 
ensure privacy is urgently needs to be struck. However, it is unclear 
to what extent this is possible using either the ICTs (Information 
and Communications Technology) available today or likely to become 
available in the near future.  

Relevance: Privacy is a concern both for individuals and for 
democratic society as a whole. If people feel they are being spied 
upon, they will tend not to express themselves freely or act 
according to their own interests. As well as privacy, security is 
also a basic need for human beings. In a world where cyber-crime is 
becoming more prominent and its effects are increasingly serious, it 
is important to look for ways that prevent cyber-crime as far as 
possible without undermining the concept of privacy and security.  

[...]  

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