Comments made at the Colloquium Feb 2000

These are based on short summary notes made by one participants. I apologise in advance if I have mis-represented or mis-attributed any points. Please email me (nicholas.beale@sciteb.com) with any corrections. Last updated 8 March 2000

Paul Valler

Cookies (& other technologies) allow the construction of detailed electronic behaviour profiles for people. The identity of a person in cyberspace then becomes defined not just by factual information, but also by these profiles. There is a real risk that our human identity will be treated as the data shadow of our digital interactions. People are more than their behaviours and this issue therefore has spiritual as well as ethical implications about privacy. Voluntary codes of practice are unlikely to work in the "boundaryless" environment of the internet.

Brian White

Industry good sense is needed to stop the situation getting out of hand.

Ian Bruce

We need to realise that the Internet is a means to an end. Setting targets such as "x% of government business by the Internet" confuses means with ends.

Prof Simon Rogerson

There is a real risk that companies get to know so much about us that they are stealing our identity. One of the risks of the AOL/Time Warner merger is that the combination would have unprecedented information about their customers.

Jenny Searle

Whilst the Internet is certainly very important, we need to be realistic about what can and can not be achieved, and not to see the Internet world in exaggerated terms.

George Cranmer

Based on his experience in IT since 1953 he sees tremendous opportunities for the Internet, and on balance it is a very positive development for society.

Nicholas Beale

One of the most significant impacts of the Internet is that it will change the way we think about the world. The Industrial Revolution had encouraged people to imagine things in terms of machines, and encouraged a materialistic world-view. The Internet tends to encourage us to think in terms of Information entities, and to take an "informationalistic" view. Although this will certainly have benefits (not least in the reduction of materialism) it also makes the related problems of 'Cyber-exclusion' and theft of Data Shadows more serious. It is already true for some purposes that "if you aren't on the Internet, you don't exist".

Paul Morgan

We need more than good sense. People need to be pro-active or regulation will be driven by high-profile problems.

Simon Peyton-Jones

Maybe we need to accept that privacy (as we understood it in the 20^th century), is now a lost cause, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of information, and that we should focus our thinking instead on how the people left most vulnerable by this change can be protected.

Peter Walker

One useful step forward would be if the 'cookies' [information sent to browsers, which enable sites to track visitor behaviour] were comprehensible to the users - maybe they should have a right to read (or interpret) them. However we need to recall that there was very little privacy in a village, and if the Internet has made a global village a reality then there will be little privacy in this global village.

Lord Jenkin

This discussion is very interesting. But he is concerned that people in the 'e-world' seem to talk only to themselves. He has been Chairing the Science and Society Committee as part of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. Not one single item of evidence was presented to the Committee on the impact of the Internet on society - by contrast there was lots on GM foods. Similarly, he was on the council of the Institute of Business Ethics and was unaware of any activity in that area. (Nicholas Beale presented him a copy then and there of Cybernauts Awake!, but it was probably too late for the report). He is also on the council of the Foundation for Science & Technology and similarly no-one had suggested that this was an important issue.

Tricia Drakes

There was a general lack of understanding of the importance of these issues. It is vitally important that we enable the regulators to take sensible decisions and encourage self-regulation. The IT and Internet communities have got to be proactive about understanding the issues and addressing them responsibly.

Harold Thimbleby

We must be careful to keep a good sense of perspective. Gloves are good things because they keep us warm. Unfortunately, they also mask fingerprints for criminals, but this would not be a valid argument for banning gloves.

David Svendsen

The development of the Internet is a technical adventure and a great enabler and empowerer. We are in a period of transition, and need to have faith in the technology, but also need to have maturity in addressing the very real issues.

Elizabeth France

We need to see the huge effect that the Internet is having on our lives. If people don't realise this then they will not respond adequately. All of us have to take on a role of raising awareness of these sorts of issues.

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