Presentations

EU Training event on Ethics and Governance of ICT in Brussels - 26 and 27 April 2011
Having been approached by the European Commission, the EGAIS and ETICA project Coordinators will hold an EU training event with various EU project coordinators on the 26th and 27th of April 2011. More details on this will follow as events unfold.

ETICA Presentations to the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE)
The EGE has been tasked by the President of the European Commission to write an Opinion on the the ethical implications of ICT. Two members of the ETICA consortium were asked to present the findings and recommendations of the ETICA project and other relevant material to the EGE.

• Prof B. Stahl: Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications
• Prof P. Goujon: EGAIS / ETICA: Problems and Methods

DMU Current News - Article - 14/03/2011
A major EU-funded research project, led by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU), has been identifying the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) likely to emerge in the next 10 to 15 years

Presentations at the Workshop on Ethics and Governance of ICT/Security Technology
These were presentations made on the 18th of November 2010 which look at cross cutting areas of Ethics and Governance.

Bernd Stahl's Professorial Lecture at DMU

Bernd gave his Professorial lecture on 11th November 2010 which can be accessed in full by clicking on the link above. The lecture focussed on research that is being undertaken by ETICA. Before the start of the lecture Adrian Hopgood, Dean of the Faculty of Technology welcomed the audience. Bernd started by giving a history of technology and how technology is usually intended to achieve good. He then followed this by indicating that although technology is intended for good there are also some unintended consequences. This led to the introduction of ETICA and its work. He touched on the methodology used to identify emerging technologies as well as the ethical analysis of the identified technologies. At the end of the lecture, the audience were invited to ask questions which are listed below:

1. Ethical concerns have in the past been driven by religion and regulations, what impact can they have on emerging technologies?

BS: Religion will remain a moral intuition which will have little to no bearing on ethical issues of emerging technologies. Regulation tends to be based on ethical perceptions. For example, due to ethical perceptions, we have privacy laws.

2. Does technology make our social and cultural lives less and less of a difference, such that our lives seem alike?

BS: If we look at different cultures in the world, technology is adapted and used differently in different situations. Therefore there is little evidence to suggest that technology will lead to growing similarities.

3. Technology development/developers are driven by profit which can led to virtual embedding in humans. At what point does eugenics come in and can developers change/control human nature?

BS: Technology will continue to be developed to better human life. However, it is highly unlikely that the nature of humans or being human will change, although the future is really unknown.

4. As profit is the main driving force of technology development, it would appear that developers are not really interested in ethics.

BS: This is correct. Although there are different ways to convince the business sector of the importance of ethics such as possibly through governance structures. Hence the question, can there be a democratic governance of technology?

5. How far has ETICA explored the military of technology? An example is the drones. Does this type of technology blunt the ethics of this?

BS: Yes when in a war situation, contact with the enemy can lead to soldiers being less caring. ETICA has indeed looked at the military of technology especially in Robotics, which is one of the emerging technologies the project has identified.

Bernd Stahl's Interview on Current Trends in Nanotechnology, ICT, Privacy and Security

Bernd Stahl was recently interviewed on the above subject by Ineke Malsch who was conducting the interview in the framework of the ObservatoryNano project. The ObservatoryNano supports European policy makers through the provision of wide ranging scientific and economic analysis of nanoscience and nanotechnology developments, which is further supported by assessment of ethical and societal aspects, impacts on environment, health and safety, as well as developments in regulation and standardisation.
Bernd's full interview can be read from the following links: http://www.observatorynano.eu/project/document/3405/ and www.nanoforum.org


IFIP WCC 2010 Conference
Philip Goujon represented the ETICA project at the WCC 2010 Conference which was held from the 20th to the 23rd of September 2010 in Brisbane, Australia. He also presented a paper titled Ethical Governance for Emerging ICTs: Opening Cognitive Framing and Achieving Ethical Reflexivity.

ISSE 2010
Information Security solutions Europe is an independent, interdisciplinary security conference and exhibition which was held in Berlin from 5th and 7th of October 2010. ETICA was represented in the opening plenary which had 450 delegates by Roger Dean, one of ETICA's Advisory Board Members. ETICA literature was also distributed to the delegates

IIMA
Bernd Stahl attended and presented a paper at the International Information Management Association Conference which took place in Utrecht from the 17th to the 20th of October 2010

ICT the Next Decade
Bernd Stahl was invited to the ICT the next decade meeting in Manchester on the 20th and 21 of October 2010 where he represented ETICA.

Mindtrek Event
ETICA was presented by VTT at the Mindtrek event on the 7th and 8th of October 2010 in Tampere, Finland. There were over 600 participants from all over the world this year. ETICA flyers and the ETICA magazine were distributed at the booth. Discussions around new media and ethics were held with event participants. One lecture invitation was presented based on ETICA discussions.

Good Age Event in Finland
VTT represented ETICA at the Good Age exhibition event which was held on Tampere from the 30th of September to the 1st of October 2010. The above link is in Finnish. The exhibition focusses on services anf products for an aging population. There were over 10 000 visitors at the event. ETICA flyers and VTT's custoner magazine including an ETICA presentation were displayed and distributed at the VTT booth. There was a lot of interest generated especially discussions related to the ethics and service design for the aging and the elderly. One project proposal was introduced based on IHME and ETICA presentations.

ESOF Videos
The above link covers presentations by the respective ETICA WP leaders at the 2010 ESOF event which was held in Torino, Italy from the 2nd to the 7th of July 2010. for more on ESOF follow this link: http://www.esof2010.org/


The European e-Identity Management Conference
EEMA represented ETICA at the European e-identity conference which was held from 9-10 June 2010 in London. David Goodman, Chairman of EEMA welcomed the 200+ delegates to the 23rd annual conference hosted by Microsoft in central London. During his introduction to EEMA David described the various projects that EEMA was involved in, which included a detailed desrciption of the work, objectives and progress to date of ETICA.

ETICA at Tampere Innovation Experience 2010
ETICA was represented at the first Tampere Innovation Experience on 25th May 2010 by VTT. Around 450 visitors, including VIP guests and press got acquainted with future technologies and applications through demonstrations, talks and panels. The ETICA project was introduced to the event via a poster and distribution of leaflets. The poster drew a lot of interest which culminated in talks. The discussions were clustered in three groups: ethical issues that people have themselves experienced when designing/developing new technologies or applications, possible contribution for technological developmental projects in the near future by ETICA or ethical experts from other projects/groups and the structure and management of ETICA.

Research*EU: Science in Society Project Synopsis 2007-2008
Research*EU is a monthly magazine that covers various issues related to the EU. The latest magazine covers aspects within the Science in Society framework and outlines research activities and related projects. The ETICA project is given coverage on page 27 of the magazine. This is accessible by clicking here

ITAS ETICA news coverage
As part of the consortium the Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) showcases the ETICA project on the following links in:
Deutsch/German; English (More detail)

Information and communication technologies to ethical challenges
Deutsch/German; English

VTT
VTT's press release on ETICA on 27/08/2009 in Finnish and an English translation:
Finnish; English

ETICA coverage in Finnish webjournal and translated in english
Finnish; English