What has been established at a continental level in the European Convention on Human Rights, was discussed by scholars of KAAD on a global level.

It is already a well established tradition that KAAD holds one of its seminars annually program at the seat of the European Parliament. In February this year, the venue of the KAAD-European Seminar was once again Strasbourg. A group of 28 scholars from 23 countries convened to discuss about “Der gläserne Mensch und das Recht auf Datenschutz” (mass surveillance and the right of data privacy).

The detailed program is available here.

It became clear that there are strong links between the human rights to freedom and self-determination and the right to personal privacy, which is continuously threatened in the wake of the advancement of technological possibilities.

At the conference, Levent Ferik spoke on data protection in the European and the global perspective. He is a lawyer at the German Association for Data Protection and Data Security (GDD). The philosopher and technology ethicist Dr. Michael Nagenborg from the Tübingen Centre for Ethics in the Sciences looked at the issues of security ethics and the possibilities of surveillance technology. Prof. Dr. Eberhard Schockenhoff, Professor for moral theology at the University of Freiburg, spoke on ethical aspects of genetic diagnostics and predictive medicine. He also deliberated on the very current debate over Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), which is a controversial issue for the “Deutscher Ethikrat”, the ethics commission advising the German Government and Parliament. Prof. Schockenhoff is deputy chairman of this commission. As the final speaker Sven Braun of the association Entropia e.V. in Karlsruhe discussed with the participants about internet policy and privacy protection in the internet. This focus on the chances and problems concerning data usage in internet applications has been continuously present during the week in Strasbourg.

In the discussions between speakers and scholars, it became clear that the issues of data protection are especially relevant in the European technological societies. However, their relevance in developing countries is not to be underestimated – particularly with relation to semi-democratic societies or autocratic regimes. It has never been so easy to store and process data and create digital personality profiles. Control of the Internet and the monitoring of citizens is a phenomenon which is on the rise globally and has found telling examples in the recent events in Tunisia and other North African states in transition.

In addition to the seminar program, the KAAD European Seminar is constituted by an intensive exposure programme. The start of this was at the town of Kehl, situated at the bank of the Rhine River. Because of the closeness to Strasbourg, this town has had a very turbulent history and has of recent created the eastern part of a "garden of the two banks”: A garden with many symbols of reconciliation and unity. Parish Priest Thomas Braunstein guided the group to these symbols, culminating in the "Passerelle de deux Rives", an architecturally stunning pedestrian bridge across the Rhine.