The way to better privacy and identity management in Europe

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19 August 2005 — Privacy and identity management are the central topics of PRIME. The project, in which IBM Research - Zurich has the technical leadership, has just released the initial version of its White Paper to launch a debate on these issues. The document focuses on groundbreaking solutions needed to protect the privacy of individuals against the risks emerging inm in the context of powerful technologies.

Peter Schaar, Chairman of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, comments on the White Paper: "In the Information Age, privacy is an issue of growing importance for each individual and for all Information Technology providers. New technologies require new ways of data protection. In its White Paper, the PRIME project not only describes urgent privacy problems, but also outlines solutions and sketches visions for a world where users are able to successfully protect their privacy. The PRIME project makes it easier to design future solutions in a privacy-friendly and economical way. Furthermore, these solutions should be easy to use in a practical way in order to gain high acceptance by users."

Information technologies are already bringing individuals and organizations continuous benefits, and promise to do so much more in the near future. These powerful new technologies, however, are increasingly permeating the private sphere, even opening it to inspection by others. An individual's right to privacy is thus increasingly at risk. To preserve such a basic and essential right, the individual's autonomy and control over personal information must be maintained. The discrepancy, however, between current practice and trends in information technologies is widening. This undermines trust in domains where trust is critical, such as healthcare, banking, and even the exercise of democracy. The goal of PRIME is to close this gap.

The PRIME White Paper outlines the issues arising from the disclosure of personal data and from an insufficient degree of control granted to individuals in the digital world. It establishes the vision of the PRIME consortium and elaborates proposals to support and enforce privacy law with a system that restores user's control. It suggests avenues to achieve that vision through necessary but reasonable investment.

The PRIME White Paper is strategic to the project's stakeholders, and is expected to influence the world-wide discussion on privacy and identity management. Moreover, it aims to create a broad consensus on the solutions and implementations required to protect privacy in the digital world. Hence, the PRIME consortium invites all those who are concerned by these issues to assess the views and proposals contained in this document and to provide feedback. People from specific sectors such as finance, health, services, telecommunications, government agencies, as well as regulators, specialists, experts, and all interested individuals are kindly requested to download the White Paper. All feedback is very much appreciated.

About the PRIME project

Privacy and Identity Management for Europe — or PRIME — is a four-year research collaboration involving 20 partners from industry and academia. The project receives research funding from the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme and the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science. IBM Research - Zurich is the technical leader of the project. It contributes to the development of data-protection mechanisms and privacy-enhancing authentication technologies that allow individuals to minimize the amount of personal data to be released.

The Working Party was established under Article 29 of Directive 95/46/EC. It is an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy.