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2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

1. Introduction—Have We Opened Pandora’s Box?

Author : Dirk Helbing

Published in: Thinking Ahead - Essays on Big Data, Digital Revolution, and Participatory Market Society

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The first of the contributions in this booklet dates back to March 2008, when Markus Christen, James Breiding and myself became concerned about the stability of the financial system that we felt urged to write a newspaper article to alert the public (see the English translation in Chap. 4). Unfortunately, at that time, the public was not ready to listen. Newspaper editors found our analysis too complex. We responded that a financial crisis would be impossible to prevent, if newspapers failed to explain the complexity of problems like this to their audience. Just a few months later, Lehmann Brothers collapsed, which gave rise to a large-scale crisis. It made me think about the root causes of economic problems and of global crises in general (see Chaps. 4, 5, and 7). But my collaborators and I saw not only the financial crisis coming. We also voiced the surveillance problem early on and the political vulnerability of European gas supply. We studied conflict in Israel, the spreading of diseases, and new response strategies to earthquakes and other disasters. Shortly after, all of this turned out to be highly relevant, almost visionary…

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next chapter Lost Robustness

Just imagine the mass surveillance data would get in control of extreme political parties, and they would use these to terrorize the people. Germany has had a Nazi and a Stasi regime, and knows, how terrible this can end.

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17.

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18.

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19.

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20.

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21.

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22.

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23.

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24.

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42.

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44.

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45.

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46.

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47.

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48.

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49.

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50.

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51.

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53.

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54.

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55.

Mit dem Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung wären eine Gesellschaftsordnung und eine diese ermöglichende Rechtsordnung nicht vereinbar, in der Bürger nicht mehr wissen können, wer was wann und bei welcher Gelegenheit über sie weiß. Wer unsicher ist, ob abweichende Verhaltensweisen jederzeit notiert und als Information dauerhaft gespeichert, verwendet oder weitergegeben werden, wird versuchen, nicht durch solche Verhaltensweisen aufzufallen. […] Dies würde nicht nur die individuellen Entfaltungschancen des Einzelnen beeinträchtigen, sondern auch das Gemeinwohl, weil Selbstbestimmung eine elementare Funktionsbedingung eines auf Handlungsfähigkeit und Mitwirkungsfähigkeit seiner Bürger begründeten freiheitlichen demokratischen Gemeinwesens ist. Hieraus folgt: Freie Entfaltung der Persönlichkeit setzt unter den modernen Bedingungen der Datenverarbeitung den Schutz des Einzelnen gegen unbegrenzte Erhebung, Speicherung, Verwendung und Weitergabe seiner persönlichen Daten voraus. Dieser Schutz ist daher von dem Grundrecht des Art. 2 Abs. 1 in Verbindung mit Art. 1 Abs. 1 GG umfasst. Das Grundrecht gewährleistet insoweit die Befugnis des Einzelnen, grundsätzlich selbst über die Preisgabe und Verwendung seiner persönlichen Daten zu bestimmen. See also Alexander Rossnagel (August 28, 2013) “Big Data und das Konzept der Datenschutzgesetze”, http://www.privacy-security.ch/2013/Download/Default.htm

56.

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57.

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58.

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59.

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60.

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61.

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62.

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63.

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64.

D. Helbing, The world after Big Data: Building the self-regulating society (August 14, 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Q_-Pk-btY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Lphxknozc

Title: Introduction—Have We Opened Pandora’s Box?
Author: Dirk Helbing
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Thinking Ahead - Essays on Big Data, Digital Revolution, and Participatory Market Society
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15077-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-15078-9

Copyright Year: 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15078-9_1

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