Title: Detection and surveillance technologies: privacy-related requirements and protection schemes

Authors: Vasilios Zorkadis

Addresses: Hellenic Data Protection Authority and Hellenic Open University, Athens, Greece

Abstract: Detection, identification, authentication and surveillance technologies are increasingly deployed and at the same time further researched, aiming at countering terrorism and crime, protecting people and goods, and managing working procedures and activities. Although, such technologies may also be applied to secure personal data processing, their wide use raises serious concerns. For instance, when they are used for public security reasons, they led to the creation, collection, storage, communication, interconnection and analysis of huge amounts of personal data, even globally. In this paper, after reviewing relevant developments, mentioning key enabling technologies, discussing relevant risks and mentioning social, ethical, legal and political related aspects, we focus on technological issues, namely privacy-related requirements and protection schemes and techniques, which may respond to human rights and liberties related concerns. Basic building elements of protection measures range from more conventional, such as cryptography, access control and auditing to new ones based on information hiding and privacy-preserving data mining techniques. Also, the active involvement of oversight authorities in data protection schemes may significantly increase their effectiveness.

Keywords: detection technologies; surveillance society; human rights; human liberties; privacy protection; privacy-preserving technologies; oversight protection authorities; authentication; electronic security; cryptography; access control; information hiding; data mining; data protection; personal data.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2007.016870

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2007 Vol.1 No.2, pp.218 - 231

Published online: 26 Jan 2008 *

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