syssec_red_book

21 Trust in the Information Society:A Report of the Advisory BoardRISEPTISVisualizing the future of the Information Society, the RISEPTIS reportis divided into 4 chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the report andgives a contextual overview of the main themes and issues addressedtherein. Chapter 2 describes the use of concepts such as trust, trustworthiness,identity and accountability and explains how these relate to the EU legalframework of personal data protection and privacy. Chapter 3 highlights twoimportant problems: a) the dangers of our digital shadow, and b) the weakestlinks in the data storage chain. Nine fictional scenarios demonstrate the risksassociated with these problems. Finally, Chapter 4 lists 6 recommendations.21.1 Problems IdentifiedThe report highlighted two important problems:The dangers of our digital shadow. People can belured to give away private information easily. Evenfor insignificant prizes, people do not hesitate to revealsensitive information about themselves. Moreover,the massive adaptation of social networkshas driven users to publish information about theirhabits and lifestyle on the web. They essentially create a digital profile, whichcan be effectively used by third parties. This digital profile can be correlatedand combined with information found in other places on the web. The resultmight be a superset of information, which the user is not aware of. Thissuperset indicates that in certain cases a third party can learn more about auser, just by collecting public information, than the particular user intends.There are two key points that should be stressed here:• Users are incapable of protecting themselves. Controlling and tuningprivacy settings is complex rather than trivial for the average user.