- Trust in Identity Structure
- DomJur: Online Domain Name Caselaw Database
- Layla - the Layman's Legal Assistant
- VIDI: Law, Technology and changing power balances
- The use of biometrics as a privacy enhancing instrument
- Identity management in government-citizen relationships
- FIDIS - the Future of IDentity in the Information Society
- GEOGOV
- PRIME - Privacy & Identity Management for Europe
- Breaking barriers to eGovernment
- Impact of Converging Technologies on Future Security Applications
- De toekomst van de telefoontap
- eLearning project: Legal information on the internet
- Ethical aspects of ultrafast communication
- Het gebruik van het sofinummer door private en semi-publieke partijen: feitelijke trends in gebruik en normering
- Privacy and the dynamics of network technologies in the healthcare sector
- De Screening Society
- SARO - Globalization and the legitimacy of power of non governmental organizations
- Personal characteristics in DNA forensics: the right not to know and other choices in legislation
- Issue of Online Personalization in Commercial, and Public Services

Trust in Identity Structure

Mid-July saw the start of TILT's new Alliantie Vitaal Bestuur project on, Trust in Online Identity Infrastructures. The research team will be headed by project leader Ronald Leenes who, in collaboration with colleagues, Simone van der Hof and Thijs Bosters, will carry research into the rule of trust.

Contact: Simone van der Hof Ronald Leenes
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DomJur: Online Domain Name Caselaw Database

The Domjur.nl website provides an online case law database on internet domain names: decisions by Dutch courts and WIPO awards concerning .nl domain names. The website also publishes literature and commentaries. The purpose of the DomJur project is to further the knowledge about the legal aspects of domain names.

Contact: Maurice Schellekens
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Layla - the Layman's Legal Assistant

The Layman's Legal Assistant (Layla) is the name of an Online Dispute Resolution system which is being developed for consumer law as part of the NWO ToKeN 2000 project. Layla will assist consumers in business-consumer conflicts by diagnosing, advising and mediating. As of spring 2006 a Ph.D. student, a scientific programmer and a postgraduate will be assigned to this project.

Contact: Ronald Leenes
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VIDI: Law, Technology and changing power balances

This 5-year VIDI project which is subsidized by the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) within the renewal impulse investigates the legal protection of "weak parties"‚­ in view of the possible shifts which occur within unequal power relationships, particularly in the context where technology plays a large role. The relationships between government-citizen, government-suspect, business-consumer and employer-employee are scrutinized.

Contact: Bert-Jaap Koops
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The use of biometrics as a privacy enhancing instrument

A research group consisting of Dr Paul de Hert, Dr Ronald Leenes and Drs Annemarie Sprokkereef will first make an inventory of biometric applications used in public and semi-public settings in the Netherlands. This will include an analysis of the current legal framework for the use of biometrics and a comparison with legislation in other EU countries.The central research question is how can the Dutch government learn from other legal and organisational approaches concerning the use of biometrics in order to maximise the use of the privacy enhancing potential of this technology? The present Information on the use of biometrics in the Netherlands is incomplete and often anecdotal.The research will therefore also be based on data collection through detailed case studies and fieldwork carried out at different locations. The project started in November 2007 and will run until mid-2008.

Contact: Paul de Hert
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Identity management in government-citizen relationships

Advances in ICTs increasingly offer governments new ways of collecting, managing, and deploying information on the identity of citizens. These new electronic means of personal identification and identity management are becoming essential vehicles for the efficient and effective delivery of e-government, as government often needs to be able to authenticate citizens in e-government service provision. Besides efficient and effective service provision these systems offer customer convenience, citizen mobility and empowerment, and the enhancement of public safety, security and general law enforcement. As they do so, new conceptual domains of identification and identity are gathering operational meaning. Moreover, personal information of citizens is increasingly being collected, managed and used within institutional e-government arrangements ranging from single government agencies to more complex multi-agency or even multi-institutional settings (eg institutional settings that include governmental, commercial and non-profit organisations), thereby raising new questions about the risks involved in the protection and good management of personal data. As a result of these complexities, together with the increase of available e-government services, reliable and trusted digital identifiers become more and more necessary. This need for reliability is all the more the case as new forms of identity misuse, fraud or even theft manifest themselves in electronic service environments. This research project will explore different ICT-applications within e-government relationships through which personal information is collected, managed and used.

Contact: Simone van der Hof Corien Prins
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FIDIS - the Future of IDentity in the Information Society

The Future of Identity in the Information Society (FIDIS) is an EU network of excellence project which is aimed at investigating the multidisciplinary of identity management in the European information society. TILT's participation concentrates on ID fraud, anonymity, profiling and personalisation.

Contact: Bert-Jaap Koops
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GEOGOV

Fundamental and applied research into the legal, political, administrative and democratic possibilities, barriers, implications and preconditions for the use of geographic and other spatial information in relations between government and citizens, in order to deal with social problems.

Contact: Paul de Hert
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PRIME - Privacy & Identity Management for Europe

Privacy and Identity Management for Europe (PRIME) is an integrated project (in other words it entails the participation of science in business) addressing the role of the architecture for privacy enhanced identity management in Europe. TILT is carrying out the social scientific research aspects of this project which concern the demands this kind of architecture must meet.

Contact: Ronald Leenes
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Breaking barriers to eGovernment

The European Commission is funding a three year project to investigate the legal, organisational, technological and other barriers to expanding effective e-Government services using the Internet. The study will identify and explore key issues that can constrain e-Government growth, drawing on real-life case studies. This rich data source will be analysed to define possible initiatives at a European level to overcome such obstacles, including best practice recommendations.

Contact: Colette Cuijpers
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Impact of Converging Technologies on Future Security Applications

This study on converging technologies is a forward looking study intended for practitioners and policy makers in the field of security, legislation, crime prevention, and law enforcement. We use three selected cases where converging technologies may fit in: monitoring and immediate action, forensic research and profiling and identification. This study takes the technological developments as its starting point. Four converging technologies are distinguished: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive technologies. We estimated what the developments in the field of converging technologies would be, translated them to the application domain mentioned and then set out to assess the trends in the social and normative impact of those developments.

Contact: Anton Vedder
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De toekomst van de telefoontap

Het aftappen van telecommunicatie is een belangrijke opsporingsmethode. Recente ontwikkelingen in de ICT zetten de uitvoerbaarheid van de telefoontap echter onder druk.. Hoewel het beleidsuitgangspunt van de overheid luidt :" Alle telecomunicatinetwerken en -diensten moeten vanaf de introductie aftapbaar zijn", is het maar de vraag of de werkelijkheid zich zo makkelijk laat regelen. Is volledige aftapbaarheid technisch wel mogelijk? En wegen de kosten om dat te bereiken wel op tegen de baten? Volledig aftapbaarheid heeft nog een andere dimensie. In een tijdperk waarin de communicatiepatronen veranderen, geven burgers misschien meer van hun persoonlijke levenssfeer bloot dan voorheen. Het is niet evident dat in een informatiemaatschappij de balans tussen aftappen en privacy hetzelfde uitvalt als in de traditionele maatschappij. Bovengenoemde aspecten leiden tot de volgende probleemstelling: is het uitgangspunt dat alle telecommunicatie aftapbaar moet zijn realistisch en wenselijk gegeven de ontwikkelingen in de ICT?

Contact: Bert-Jaap Koops
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eLearning project: Legal information on the internet

E-learning project that aims to develop digital learning material for courses that teach students to formulate search question, perform searches in legal databases and evaluate the gathered data. The material developed will be used by several Dutch universities and hogescholen (universities for professional education).

Contact: Els de Groot
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Ethical aspects of ultrafast communication

This project was a joint activity of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society, (formerly the Center for Informatization, Law and Public Administration) of the Faculty of Law of Tilburg University (UvT) and the department of Practical Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Utrecht (UU). It was connected to the technology research program "Towards Ultrafast Communication" that aims to provide ultra-fast communication hubs by developing a prototype optical chip with a processing speed of at least 1 Terahertz. The project tried to analyze and broaden our understanding of the ethical questions arising in relation to the research program, i.e., questions concerning the accessibility and the quality of the information that is communicated through the ultrafast network, the privacy of people communicating through the ultrafast network, and the exclusivity of the ultrafast network as an instrument for information and communication. The project, furthermore, proposed and critically discussed alternative answers to these questions. Finally, by combining these activities with methodological studies, the project was expected to result in a set of general guidelines for the assessment of the moral and social aspects of research projects.

Contact: Anton Vedder
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Het gebruik van het sofinummer door private en semi-publieke partijen: feitelijke trends in gebruik en normering

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Contact: Anton Vedder
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Privacy and the dynamics of network technologies in the healthcare sector

This project aims to provide a discussion of approaches to data protection that are currently available and in use, and to offer an in-depth study of socio-technical complexities regarding privacy in telemedicine. The analysis will result in an assessment of different mechanisms for protecting privacy with a view to healthcare organisations? data processing needs.

Contact: Sjaak Nouwt
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De Screening Society

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Contact: Anton Vedder
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SARO - Globalization and the legitimacy of power of non governmental organizations

The research programme "Globalization and the legitimacy of power of non governmental organizations" addressed the theme of the legitimacy of the involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGO's) in global governance and policy. Internationally operating NGO's are increasingly concerned with international governance and policy-making. However, notwithstanding the global extent of their impact, a somewhat more than rudimentary system of checks and balances of NGO involvement has hitherto not been developed. The Tilburg-Maastricht research programme on NGO legitimacy that started in 2004 and concluded early 2007 tried to provide materials to fill this gap. The programme focused on the reasons for which NGO's can and cannot be considered to legitimately display power and legitimately affect the lives of many people, and to be legitimate participants in international governance. It tries to deliver defensible principles and a fitting vocabulary for the discussion and the assessment of legitimacy claims for the involvement of NGO's.

Contact: Anton Vedder
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Personal characteristics in DNA forensics: the right not to know and other choices in legislation

In May 2003, a law was passed in the Netherlands allowing the use of DNA material found at a crime scene to trace an unknown suspect through deriving externally visible personal characteristics from the DNA, such as race and gender. The Dutch act is based on a number of fundamental choices: it is restricted to external characteristics, it excludes investigation of genetic information about hereditary diseases or complaints, or behaviour, and characteristics have to be exhaustively specified in or through statutory law. The research aims at providing an international inventory of comparable (proposed) legislation or regulation in other countries and to evaluate the Dutch law in this comparative perspective. The main question is whether choices have been made or are being made abroad on these issues. The research will include an analysis of how other countries deal with genetic information as to hereditary diseases in relation to the suspects right not to know and what arguments play a role therein.

Contact: Bert-Jaap Koops
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Issue of Online Personalization in Commercial, and Public Services

Characteristics of socially accepted network technologies, such as the Internet, support new possibilities to tailor commercial and public services to the individual needs and desires of customers. Prospects to businesses and public organisations in applying this so-called personalisation in online service (and information) delivery are advantages like improvement of the quality of service delivery, enforcement of rights (e.g. copyright), getting to know customers, cost reduction, improved customer relations, channelling of information overload to customers, better achievement of organisational goals (e.g. profit, policy effectiveness), and an improved use of organisational means. Consequently, an important research question for many organisations today is in what way(-s) and under which conditions personalisation in online service delivery can be organised.

Contact: Corien Prins
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