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technologies have been commented on. Peace movements such as Pax Christi
International focus more on human rights, mediation and reconciliation in conflicts.
Technological aspects are addressed in their advocacy work on disarmament and arms
control. Such peace movements tend to focus on military technologies including Weapons
of Mass Destruction, conventional weapons (cluster ammunition, small arms, etc.) and
sometimes non-lethal weapons. 32
The UK based NGO, Privacy International, has issued a map of leading surveillance
societies in the EU and around the world. According to it, Germany is the best of the
European countries, offering significant protection and safeguards for the privacy of its
citizens. Belgium, Austria and Greece offer adequate safeguards against abuse. Some
safeguards but weakened protection is offered by Portugal, France, Italy, Cyprus,
Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark,
Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lithuania and Sweden systematically fail to uphold safeguards.
The UK is one of five global, endemic surveillance societies, offering the worst protection
(Privacy International, 2006). Privacy International has included nanotechnology as a
potential future concern for privacy in its annual reports in 2004 and 2005 (PHR 2004,
PHR 2005).
5.5 Key societal and ethical issues
Key societal and ethical issues related to security technologies and to nanotechnologies
have been identified from several sources. These are discussed below.
The European Security Research Advisory Board (ESRAB) has developed a strategic
research agenda for European security research, including technical and non-technical
aspects (ESRAB, 2006). ESRAB highlights the need for regulating governance, including
national authorities and improving EU regulations on classified information. The
programme’s guiding principle is respect for privacy and civil liberties. This is of course a
requirement for all EU funded research. The research agenda aims to integrate research
and technology development with research into political, social and human sciences in
five areas:
• citizens and security;
• understanding organizational structures and cultures of public users;
• foresight scenarios and security as an evolving concept;
• economics of security;
• ethics and justice.
The programme furthermore includes innovation support measures. Not all political,
social and human research is relevant to nanotechnology applied to security. Most are
more closely related to the implications of security policy for civil rights, and are targeted
to policy issues. The recommended research topics ‘ethical aspects of security
technologies’ and a ‘review of existing codes of conduct, best practices, etc. as to the
ethical use of security technologies and to develop new ones where shortfalls exist’ are
relevant to security applications of nanotechnology (ESRAB, 2006, p 60).
As part of the review of codes of conduct etc proposed by ESRAB, there is a pressing
need to develop new European regulations for handling classified information in EU
funded projects. These new regulations should include “clarification on the dual use of
nano-derived technological devices for security purposes and full respect of human
dignity and integrity” (Morrison, 2007). Furthermore, the concept of ‘security technology’
should be limited as much as possible, to avoid unnecessary restrictions to academic and
trade freedom.
32 www.paxchristi.net
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