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Current research projects
PVN project (April 2009 -
December 2011)
In April 2009 I started work on the
Privacy
Value Networks research project at the
Oxford
Internet Institute.
Privacy Value
Networks is a major three-year
research project that will produce a strong empirical base for
developing concepts of privacy
across contexts and timeframes. Despite many studies
there is still a lack of clarity of what privacy is and what it
means to different stakeholders in different scenarios of use. The
cost and benefit of collecting and storing data about individuals
has not been properly examined, and
the value of
holding information
about
individuals for specific purposes is not understood.
The goal of the
Privacy Value Networks project is to
develop and apply new methodologies
for
the study of privacy and to help government and business to
understand the value of personal data, as well as
the
value and risks for other
stakeholders.
The project involves collaboration
between the Oxford Internet Institute, the University of Bath, UCL
and St. Andrew's University and is funded by EPSRC grant EP/G00260/1
with support from the ESRC and TSB.
You can read more about my research
on the PVN project
here.
SESERV project
(April 2011 - December 2011)
Besides my research on the PVN project I will
contribute to the European project
SESERV (Socio-Economic Services for
European Research Projects). The SESERV consortium aims to maximize
research impact by raising awareness of socio-economic trends in the
areas of incentives, accounting, Digital Europe, and risk management,
and by addressing possible policy priorities within the research
community.
The Internet has evolved from the
largely static Information super Highway of the 1990s to a critical
infrastructure supporting all aspects of life in the 21st century. The
European Commission is making significant investment in Future
Internet research with the aim of ensuring European competitiveness in
the face of globalization and emerging societal challenges. It is
critical to ensure that the investment in ICT research contributes
effectively to the European sustainability and welfare. The SESERV
Support Action provides an approach for coordinating selected areas in
socio-economics
of FP7 projects to offer access to both socio-economic and technical
experts in an integrated manner, while investigating the relationship
between Future Internet technology, society and the economy.
The SESERV Coordination Action fills
the gap between socio-economic priorities and the Future Internet
research community by offering selected socio-economic services to FP7
projects in Challenge 1. SESERV will provide access to socio-economic
experts investigating the relationship between Future Internet
technology, society, and the economy through white papers, workshops,
and research consultancy.
Past research projects
SOEIS project (April 1999 - January 2000)
In April
1999 I started to work parttime at the
University of Amsterdam on my first
European project called
SOEIS. The
abbreviation SOEIS stands for "Self-Organization of the European
Information Society".
FASME project (February 2000 - September 2001)
In February 2000 I started to work full-time on
a EU project called
FASME. The main objective of FASME
was to develop an application which facilitates
the administrative
services needed when citizens change the place where they live, e.g.
car registration services and driving licence. The technical platform
was a so-called JavaCard; a Smartcard based on the object-oriented
programming language Java. In order to base all technical developments
on the actual needs and demands of those people who will use the
JavaCard, the user needs were identified during workshops with users
and civil servants from different countries. At the same time, the
technical specifications of the application scenarios were defined and
generalised in order to obtain a framework for the modelling of
processes, access rights, and access needs.
At the University of Amsterdam we
were responsible for the more social aspects. We analysed the social,
institutional, political and legal issues related to the design and
the implementation of the FASME-system. We also analysed interests of
various groups involved in the use of the FASME-system and issues that
may influence the acceptance of the system by the larger public. The
emphasis was put on privacy issues, information ownership issues and
administrative and legal issues. As the FASME system was meant for use
in all European countries, the analysis included a description of the
differences between social, institutional, political and legal issues
in the countries involved. The Amsterdam Team consisted of Dr. Peter
van den Besselaar, Dr. Sally Wyatt, Anne-Marie Oostveen, Erica
Gasataya and Iam Hooijen.
TRUEVOTE project (October 2001 - October 2003)
From the 1st of October 2001
we started to work on another EU project called
. The TruE-Vote project
aimed at developing a secure and trusted voting
system, where "secure" concerned the technological aspects and "trusted"
the social ones. In this project we investigated the
technical feasibility and the social acceptability of introducing
electronic voting systems.
Improving citizenships and
e-democracy through networking technologies is part of the overall
goal of creating the Information Society which needs to be validated
through concrete initiatives. These 'experiments' (even though the
word is not probably the best as people are involved) have to consider
several issues including:
-
 giving
everybody access to the Information Society;
-
providing
people with a more convenient access to government information and
services;
-
closing
the communication gap between citizens and government institutions,
i.e., giving people a chance to directly dialogue with their
representatives, both at local and national level;
-
introducing
new voting systems.
These topics are to some
extent independent, but also mutually coupled. Moreover, it is
necessary to consider the strict interplay between the technological
and the cultural, socio-political aspects. A new technology for voting
may be accepted or rejected by citizens depending on the
socio-technical context in which it is proposed to them.
eTRUST project (April 2007 - May 2009)
In April 2007 I started a research project at the
Oxford
Internet Institute. I had been granted a Marie Curie
Intra-European Fellowship (funded by the European Commission under its
Sixth Framework Programme) to conduct my post-doctoral research on the
topic of 'E-democracy technologies and the problem of public trust'.
The aims of e-democracy are to
increase people's choices as to how they can participate, have their
voices heard and their views considered, and to restore their trust in
government - but does this governmental strategy really work? I
focused on the question 'Does e-democracy increase trust in government,
and, if so, under what conditions?'
The current search for technological
solutions to the problem of distrust in government seems to be
paradoxical because, to increase public trust and confidence,
governments will be relying on information and communication systems
that themselves require a high level of trust. Information technology
is poorly understood by many people, which may reduce their trust in
the technology, as well as in governments that use ICTs.
Socio-economic variations amongst citizens in terms of age, gender,
income, education, geographic location and other characteristics are
also expected to influence their level of trust in ICTs. A second
question was therefore examined: 'How does trust or distrust in
e-democracy technologies influence the use of these technologies and
tools?'
More information about my
previous projects can be found by following the 'project' links on the
right of this webpage.
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