Abstract
In this chapter we endeavor to expose the singularity of profiling techniques, data mining or knowledge discovery in databases. Pursuant to this, we point at a number of caveats that are linked to the specifics of profiling. Those caveats pertain to issues related to dependence, privacy, data protection, fairness (non-discrimination), due process, auditability and transparency of the profilers and knowledge asymmetries. This chapter reiterates and builds further upon some of the findings of our research on profiling we presented in a volume we co-edited: Profiling the European Citizen. Cross-disciplinary Perspectives, which brought together leading experts in the domains of compute science, law and philosophy. We thank these authors, members of the ED funded consortium on the Future of Identity in the Information Society (FIDIS), for their joint effort to compose a handbook on a subject that is mostly discussed from singular disciplinary perspective.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ciborra, C. 2004. Digital technologies and the duality of risk. Paper 21, ESRC Centre of Analysis of Risk and Regulation. London School of Economics.
Citron, D.K. 2007. Technological due process. Washington University Law Review 85: 1249–1313. Also available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=1012360.
Collins, R.K.L., and D.M. Skover 1992. Paratexts. Stanford Law Review 44 (1): 509–52.
Custers, B. 2004. The power of knowledge. Ethical, legal, and technological aspects of data mining and group profiling in epidemiology. Nijmegen: Wolf Legal Publ.
Dinant, J.-M., C. Lazaro, Y. Poullet, N. Lefever, and A. Rouvroy. 2008. Application of convention 108 to the profiling mechanism. Council of Europe/Crid. (11 January 2008), 35.
Gandy, O. Jr. 2006. Data mining, surveillance and discrimination in the post-9/11 environment. In The new politics of surveillance and visibility, eds. K.D. Haggerty and R.V. Ericson, 373–84. Toronto: Univ. Toronto Press.
Gonzalez Fuster G., and S. Gutwirth 2008. Privacy 2.0? Revue du droit des Technologies de l’Information, Doctrine 32: 349–59.
Gutwirth, S. 2002. Privacy and the information age. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publ.
Gutwirth, S. 2009. Beyond identity? Identity in the information society, 1: 122–133.
Gutwirth, S, and P. De Hert 2008. Regulating profiling in a democratic constitutional state. In Profiling the european citizen. Cross-disciplinary perspectives, eds. M. Hildebrandt and S. Gutwirth, 271–302. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hildebrandt, M. 2008a. A vision of ambient law. In Regulating technologies, eds. R. Brownsword and K. Yeung, 175–91. Oxford: Hart.
Hildebrandt, M. 2008b. Ambient intelligence, criminal liability and democracy. Criminal Law and Philosophy 2: 163–80.
Hildebrandt, M 2009. Who is profiling who? Invisible visibility. In Reinventing data protection?, eds. S. Gutwirth, Y. Poullet, P. De Hert, C. de Terwangne, and S. Nouwt, 239–52. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hildebrandt, M., and B.-J. Koops 2007. A vision of ambient law. Brussels: FIDIS.
Hildebrandt, M. and S. Gutwirth (eds) 2008. Profiling the European citizen. Cross-disciplinary perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer Science. p.
Jiang, X. 2002. Safeguard privacy in ubiquitous computing with decentralized information spaces: Bridging the technical and the social. Privacy workshop September 29, 2002. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley. Also available online at http://guir.berkeley.edu/pubs/ubicomp2002/privacyworkshop/papers/jiang-privacyworkshop.pdf.
Karnow, C.E.A. 1996. Liability for distributed artificial intelligences. Berkely Technology Law Journal 11: 148–204.
Kephart, J.O., and D.M. Chess 2003. The vision of autonomic computing. Computer 36: 41–50.
Lessig, L. 1999. Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.
Lyon, D., ed. 2002. Surveillance as social sorting. Privacy, risk and digital discrimination. New York: Routledge.
Marx, G.T. 2001. Murky conceptual waters: The public and the private. Ethics and Information Technology 3: 157–69.
Nguyen, D.H., and E.D. Mynatt 2002. Privacy mirrors: Understanding and shaping socio-technical ubiquitous computing systems. Atlanta: Georgia Institute of Technology.
Nissenbaum, H. 2004. Privacy as contextual integrity. Washington Law Review 79: 101–40.
Prins, C. 2006. When personal data, behavior and virtual identities become a commodity: Would a property rights approach matter? SCRIPTSed 3 (4): 270–303.
Rouvroy, A. 2008. Privacy, data protection, and the unprecedented challenges of ambient intelligence. Studies in Law, Ethics and Technology 2 (1): 1–51.
Schreurs, W., M. Hildebrandt, E. Kindt, and M. Vanfleteren. 2008. Cogitas, ergo sum. The role of data protection law and non-discrimination law in group profiling in the private sector. In Profiling the european citizen. Cross-disciplinary perspectives, eds. M. Hildebrandt and S. Gutwirth. 241–70. Dordrecht: Springer.
Schwartz, P.M. 2000. Beyond lessig’s code for internet privacy: Cyberspace filters, privacy-control and fair information practices. Wisconsin Law Review. 2000: 743–88.
Solove, D.J. 2004. The digital person. Technology and privacy in the information age. New York: New York Univ. Press.
Steinbock, D.J. 2005. Data matching, data mining and due process. Georgia Law Review 40 (1): 1–84.
Van Den Berg, B. 2009. The situated self. Identity in a world of ambient intelligence. Rotterdam: Erasmus Univ. Rotterdam.
Vedder, A. 1999. KDD: The challenge to individualism. Ethics and Information Technology 1: 275–81.
Weitzner, D.J., H. Abelson et al. 2007. Information accountability. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Technical Report. Cambridge, MIT.
Zarsky, T.Z. 2002–2003. Mine your own business!: Making the case for the implications of the data mining or personal information in the Forum of Public Opinion. Yale Journal of Law & Technology 5 (4): 17–47.
Zarsky, T.Z. 2004. Desperately seeking solutions: Using implementation-based solutions for the troubles of information privacy in the Age of data mining and the internet society. Maine Law Review 56 (1): 14–59.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gutwirth, S., Hildebrandt, M. (2010). Some Caveats on Profiling. In: Gutwirth, S., Poullet, Y., De Hert, P. (eds) Data Protection in a Profiled World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8865-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8865-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8864-2
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8865-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawLaw and Criminology (R0)