Mobile devices, cloud computing and global business partnerships enabled by the Internet and other network services have redrawn the map of the global flow of personal information.
Technology will continue to drive simple services built on these complex systems, pushing the balance between using and protecting personal data “to the breaking point,” according to Richard Purcell, President of The Privacy Projects (TPP), a non-profit research institute that launches today.
The Privacy Projects (www.theprivacyprojects.org) intends to fund academic research into “evidence-based” privacy to enhance policies, practices and tools necessary to meet the power of the new technologies. “We intend to support advances in the ways companies collect, store, use, share and manage customer information,” said Purcell. “We encourage the digital human represented by the data to be more respected and better protected.”
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The new group’s first research paper, written by UC Berkeley Professor Paul M. Schwartz, focuses on how six global corporations control cross-border data flows to meet customer needs while complying with multiple, local regulation. TPP will present the paper at the upcoming workshop of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. Additional research — four or five are planned each year, according to Purcell — will expand on the ways in which data policies, practices, and technology tools can evolve to meet the current needs of all players.
Read the entire press release here.