Symposium on privacy in the digital age

A symposium on Information Privacy, Security and Forensics in the Digital Age will be held at the National Library of Wales on Thursday 6th September, jointly hosted by Aberystwyth University and the National Library of Wales.
There has been unprecedented activity in this area in the second decade of this millennium, with the UN ruling that internet access is a basic human right, the deliberations of the Leveson Enquiry regarding press standards and surveillance culture, and EU e-privacy and data protection reform, to name a few.
Discussion on the public and private spheres in the digital age has aroused much critical commentary and has led to the revising of the meaning of public and private in the realm of information.
Developments in on-line communication and commerce have popularised this debate and the question of what information is, or should be, public and private, is one which reflects the complexity and interconnectivity of personal and public personas.
The organiser of the symposium is Kirsten Ferguson-Boucher, programme advisor for the MScEcon in Information Governance and Assurance at Aberystwyth University but she also heads up the UK arm of the Centre of Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, University of Washington.
Ms Ferguson Boucher said: "Privacy, and specifically information privacy has become a much debated topic in the digital age. With rapid advances in technology and activity in online arenas, our ability to ensure that these information privacy rights are being protected is increasingly challenged. It calls for an understanding of what the technologies are capable of and what the legal frameworks offer.
“This event will also provide the opportunity to explore how individuals' behaviour is changing and what impact this might have on the general user as well as organisations and governments," she added.
One of the speakers, Dr Barbara Endicott-Popovsky of the University of Washington, Seattle will explore Privacy and Cybercrime. Dr Endicott-Popovsky is Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity and was made Honorary Fellow of the University’s Department of Information Studies this year.
Her presentation explores what individuals must do to stay safe online in light of the overwhelming growth of cybercrime. Experts in the field of cybersecurity and information assurance may seem overly paranoid about online threats, but they see the relentless efforts, day in and day out, of those who are harvesting valuable information from our online systems. We will explore the realities of online crime and describe what individuals can do to remain safe.
Other themes for the day include:
•Privacy, social media and the public diary
•Heritage collections as public/private spaces
•Social justice and information rights
•Legal issues surrounding the patrolling of public and private boundaries
•Cloud Forensics and big data
The full conference programme is available online at -
http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/dis/research/privacy-security-forensics-symposium/.