8th Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conference

Rónán Kennedy organised and moderated a panel session on Using ICT for environmental regulation: Overlaps between privacy and environmental lawon behalf of National University of Ireland Galway at the 8th Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conference held in Brussels on 21-23 January 2015.

Environmental regulators are making increasing use of information and communications technology (ICT) for many aspects of their activities. This data is of value to regulators, citizens, and non-governmental organisations. ICT has an important role in surveillance and monitoring. The European Commission has assigned it a critical role in order to achieve energy efficiency since 2009. By providing real-time and highly granular information, these may enable cheaper, faster, and better environmental protection.  However, this use of technology also creates risks for the privacy of individuals. Whereas these concerns (massive databases, geo-located data, and constant surveillance) have been widely studied in many spheres of government activity, little or no attention has been devoted to this specific field. This panel explores the issues that result, with contributions from lawyers, information systems scholars, non-governmental agencies and environmental regulators. In particular, the panel discussed the current state of affairs in the use of ICTs for environmental regulation (e-regulation), the overlaps and conflicts in the protection of privacy and the protection of the environment, how this use of ICT conforms with the EU’s policy of Responsible Research and Innovation, and the role of ICTs in innovation policies, and in particular for energy efficiency (ICT4EE).