ITA Dossiers

-> More than 1000 citizens in eleven European countries discussed consumption policy within a standardised setting.
-> Citizens demand environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically affordable products and services.
-> Their main opinion: policy-makers should take ambitious steps to foster sustainable and environmentally friendly consumption in Europe.

-> Global IT companies collect data to provide personalised advertising.
-> These business practices are contradicting European values and legislations.
-> The European data protection reform aims at forcing companies such as Google to respect European fundamental rights.
-> The implementation of this vision in form of political practices is characterised by friction and conflict.
-> In addition to the regulation of global search engines, Europe should focus on law enforcement and privacy-friendly technologies.
Author: Astrid Mager

-> Roughly one third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted within the Austrian food chain. Households could save up to € 300 per year.
-> Reducing food waste releases finite resources, diminishes environmental risks and avoids financial losses.
-> Avoidable causes include overproduction, improper packaging and storage, or misleading expiry date labelling.
-> What can be done? Promising options for action include reviewing food safety regulations, facilitating direct marketing channels and simplified expiry date labelling.

-> The world’s population is ageing rapidly: in 2050, there will be three times as many people over the age of eighty than today.
-> Consequently, the demand for care and social services will rise. Meanwhile, disposable resourceswill decrease: social and healthcare budgets are shrinking as is the number of skilled personnel.
-> Great hope is projected on technology to support solutions for these challenges. But how do we need to shape technology in order to really support the elderly and meet their needs?

-> In recent years, technological development has greatly enhanced the possibilities of data storage and analysis.
-> In Austria, collections of data for the purpose of calculating debt defaults are barely regulated.
-> People are categorised on the basis of statistical values and discriminated against because of this classification.
-> Errors occur time and again, and because of a lack of transparency their correction is difficult.

-> 250 Austrian households were able to gain experience with smart meters in a year-long field trial.
-> On average, these households reduced their electricity consumption by around five per cent.
-> Smart metering, however, only led to a reduction in energy consumption when combined with comprehensive information and visualization.
-> Based on the field trial, recommendations were derived for the design of future programmes on ‘saving energy at home’.

-> Effective climate protection needs the support of citizens and companies.
-> The research project e2democracy investigated the contribution of citizen panels to CO2 reduc- tion in seven European regions.
-> The participation format led to pro-climate sensi- tisation, behavioural changes and measurable CO2 reduction, but also showed some limits such as in reaching wider segments of society.

-> What should the city of the future look like? How do we want to live in 2050? What will we eat? Citizens, experts and stakeholders answer these kinds of questions with the aid of CIVISTI, a new participatory method.
-> Laypersons’ and experts’ knowledge and creativity are cross-linked to include a variety of views whilst shedding light on questions relevant to the future.
-> Results broaden the basis for robust decisions and support long-term planning.

-> Increased investment in measures for security improvements often has far-reaching societal impacts. -> The DESSI-system offers support in the decision making process concerning security invest- ments. -> A web-tool guides you through the process and visualizes the results. -> The participation of as many diverse stakehold- ers as possible supports the multi-dimensional analyses of different technical and organisational alternatives of security investments. -> Through its seven impact dimensions DESSI offers a holistic overview of the consequences of investment alternatives.

-> Drohnen sind unbemannte flugfähige Geräte, die durch einen Betreiber am Boden mit Sichtkontakt (Flugmodelle, und Drohnen der Klasse 1) oder ohne Sichtkontakt (Drohnen der Klasse 2) agieren können.
-> Ihre Einsatzgebiete sind sehr vielfältig und reichen vom individuellen, gewerblichen Einsatz bis zur militärischen Nutzung.
-> In Österreich sind Drohnen bereits seit einigen Jahren in Verwendung, etwa bei Sportveranstaltungen oder Katastrophenschutzübungen.
-> Seit dem 1.1.2014 ist der zivile Einsatz von Drohnen in Österreich nun auch grundsätzlich gesetzlich geregelt, detaillierte Regelungen sind in Ausarbeitung.
-> Der mögliche allgegenwärtige private und kommerzielle Einsatz stellt die Gesellschaft, aber auch Gesetzgeber vor weitreichende Herausforderungen: insbesondere den Schutz der Privatsphäre und Umweltaspekte.

-> Nowadays, social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook or Twitter are ubiquitous. They increasingly develop into platforms combining many services.
-> SNS endanger privacy to a large extent as the relationships, contents and interactions displayed there can be matched to individuals.
-> The right of informational self-determination – that is the right to decide oneself about the disclosure and usage of one’s personal data – can hardly be exercised in a world characterised by SNS. In addition, this is aggravated by providers’ terms of use and business models, which favour large-scale linking-up.
-> Not least the recently discovered surveillance scandals underline the pressing need to design SNS in a privacy-enhancing manner. Privacy-by-design is essential when it comes to re-establishing the trust of the users.

-> Smartphones know where we are, with whom we communicate, what interests us, and much more.
-> Enhancing customer profiles with geo-data is a lucrative business.
-> Generally, not much attention is being paid to constitutional rights such as the protection of privacy and informational self-determination.

-> Power grids are facing major challenges: the demand for electricity increases, demand management, however, is insufficient. A growing share of renewable energy should be incorporated into the system.
-> Load management (demand response) is part of the solution: because of smoothing of load peaks as well as real-time, local consumption of supplied renewable power, efficiency can be increased in the power grid.
-> Technologies for so-called demand-side load management are seen as key instruments for the electricity grids of the future.

-> In the past, politics faced problems with controversies over technologies such as nuclear energy or, later on, biotechnology.
-> Technology controversies usually do not follow the traditional political logic of ‘left’ and ‘right’. They often arise over the acceptability of risks or over ethical concerns raised by technological innovation.
-> Currently, controversies over new technologies take place not so much in the public but amongst expert panels and scientific communities. Nanotechnology or biomedicine are relevant examples.
-> To ‘democratise’ the way we deal with new technologies, politics should provide appropriate deliberation and public dialogue formats.

-> Today, the Internet is an important working environment for all scientists and researchers. They also increasingly use Web 2.0, mainly on an experimental basis. There are also research-specific services with special features for closed groups. By now, some of these platforms have more than a million members worldwide.
-> Web 2.0 has the potential to change science and research: the relationship with the public is redefined; written micro-communication is intensified; web activities affect the standing of the scientists.
-> Using Web 2.0 services intensively leads to par- tial loss of control over information input and a possible information overload for the individual.