Termin Mi 1. Apr 00:00:00 CEST 2009

Researchers from Universities like the Oxford Internet Institute and K.U. Leuven meet industry, meet Data Protection Authorities, meet Stadndardizers from W3C and ISO, meet NGOs... all gathering for three days to discuss privacy challenges and develop privacy infrastructures.

PrivacyOS is a thematic network for privacy infrastructures funded by the European Commissions' ICT-PSP-Programme. Over a two year period of time participants meet on four Open Space conferences, often co-located with other relevant events, and exchange challenges and solutions.

The Open Space methodology applied in the conferences allows for an open agenda. Participants bring their talks and sessions along, which are the ordered and arranged at the conferences. For preparation a wiki is available.

The Independent Centre for Privacy Protection (German: Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz – ULD, which is also the office of the privacy commissioner of the State of Schleswig Holstein) is coordinating a thematic network for privacy protection infrastructure within the current European Commission’s ICT Policy Support Programme.

After evaluating the programme, ULD decided to propose the establishment of a set of conferences following the Open Space approach. All participants are invited to bring topics to the agenda. It leaves room for spontaneous creation of new workshops during the meeting which reflects the dynamics of the discussion among participants. Only a set of timeslots is predefined. The topics for each of the slots are introduced and moderated by participants. This approach ensures that all topics relevant to the participants are included and fields of common interest can be detected and worked on, while at the same time taking into account different perspectives across Europe and beyond. By choosing this innovate conferencing format, dynamic development and interaction between the participants is encouraged.

Over a two-year lifetime of the project four Open Space conferences will be held, possibly co-located with other events to extend the network further. The general objectives are to create a long-term collaboration in the thematic network and establish collective interfaces with other EU projects. Participants will exchange research and best practices, as well as develop strategies and joint projects following four core policy goals: Awareness-rising, enabling privacy on the Web, fostering privacy-friendly Identity Management, and stipulating research. The European Privacy Open Space (PrivacyOS) brings together industry, SMEs, Government, Academia and Civil Society to foster development and deployment of privacy infrastructures for Europe.

The Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) runs from the years 2007-2013 and is organised around three multi-year specific programmes. One of the Programmes is the Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP). ICT PSP aims at stimulating innovation and competitiveness through the wider uptake and the best use of ICT by citizens, governments and businesses and particular SMEs. The approach is based on leveraging innovation in response to growing societal demands. The implementation of the different objectives is taking place by creating Thematic Networks. Thematic networks address a common theme by bringing together relevant stakeholders, expertise and facilities with the objective of exploring new ways of implementing ICT-based solutions. The network instigates working groups, workshops and exchanges of good practices with the aim of creating the necessary conditions and consensus on action plans, standards and specifications in view to ensure the widest future replication and co-deployment of innovative solutions.

One of the actions the ICT PSP addresses is privacy protection infrastructures. The objective of this thematic network is to facilitate the emergence of an open Europe-wide trusted eServices market with dynamic compositions of services that reconciles different national privacy policies and offers user-oriented technical means to allow the user to define privacy profiles, and to monitor and control their enforcement and propagation. The EU intends to support one thematic network for the deployment and adoption of user-empowering privacy protection services across Europe. Coordination of ongoing activities and sharing of information and experience are a key component of the network. Results and outcomes will be reported in the public domain and widely disseminated through publications and conferences.

offers a method to run meetings of groups of any size. (“Technology” in this case means tool — a process; a method.) OST represents a self-organising process; participants construct the agenda and schedule during the meeting itself. Proponents claim that OST allows somewhat diverse people to address complex and possibly controversial topics.

Open Space Technology enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and achieve meaningful results quickly. It functions best where more traditional meeting formats fail: in situations involving conflict, complexity, diversity of thought or people, and short decision-times. People have used it in widely diverse situations, from designing aircraft doors at a large aircraft manufacturing company to engaging street kids in defining a sustainable jobs-program.

Berlin: Subconference: 2nd European Privacy Open Space