Issues of Security and Informational Privacy in Relation to an Environmental Scanning System for Fighting Organized Crime

Abstract

This paper clarifies privacy challenges related to the EU project, ePOOLICE, which aims at developing a particular kind of open source information filtering system, namely a so-called environmental scanning system, for fighting organized crime by improving law enforcement agencies opportunities for strategic proactive planning in response to emerging organized crime threats. The environmental scanning is carried out on public online data streams, focusing on modus operandi and crime trends, not on individuals. Hence, ethical and technical issues - related to societal security and potential privacy infringements in public online contexts - are being discussed in order to safeguard privacy all through the system design process. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.