The Law & Economics of cyber-security and privacy

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid spread of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has taken the social experience to a new stage, where distance and identity become less and less measurable by the eye contact. Among the new social forms of expression, crime once more found a way to reinvent itself, refining its means, conducts, harm; hence, cybersecurity mainstreams the global debate around Internet Governance, ranging from combating malwares to deterring immoral (and/or illegal) conducts (generally named cybercrimes). In order to persecute cybercrime, various stakeholders have been proposing a myriad of technical and legal solutions, such as international cooperation platforms (e.g. International Telecommunication Unions Global Cybersecurity Agenda) and multilateral agreements (e.g. Council of Europes Budapest Convention on Cybercrime), all aiming to keep the virtual environment safer. This research project focuses on the relation of two issues present in most of these initiatives: the tradeoff between security and privacy. Specifically it intents to examine privacy implications to one specific proposition of surveillance advocates: data retention as a means for deterring cybercrime.