Conference on "Privacy Law, Technology Policy and the Internet"

Thursday 25-Friday 26 February 2010, Hyderabad, India

Sociology meets Technology Law in this first national conference to be organised in India on the theme of “Privacy Law, Technology Policy and the Internet”. It is only relatively recently that constitutional law in some countries has explicitly recognised the right of the individual to the free development of his or her personality. Part of this development has been attributed to an increased awareness caused by the appearance of new technologies and especially computers, digital devices and the Internet. This phenomenon of “Technology-driven law” is one which has gradually gathered pace over the past 40 years in Europe and the USA but its more recent arrival in India and other Asian states provides the main theme of this conference. The right of the individual to unhindered development of his or her personality on-line and off-line will be examined in the context of traditional Indian attitudes to private and family life.

The realities of rural and urban life in modern India are contrasted with the realities of the time spent by millions of Indians in Cyberspace. Amongst other aspects, it is expected that particular attention will also be paid to the position of women and under-privileged members of society in this context. 81 million Indians on-line represents just 7% Internet penetration for the nation overall but that already puts India at No. 4 in the world’s top 20 countries for Internet usage, India thus alone accounting for nearly 5% of all of the world’s Internet’s users. What values does India bring to Technology-driven law and policy and which values and legal principles is it importing wholesale? In this conference European, Indian and other responses to technology policy, personality rights and Privacy and data protection law are considered from various dimensions by sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, lawyers, business and IT specialists.

Web del evento