Introduction

摘要

Information and communication technologies move fast; faster than society, faster than governments, faster than the law. Connectivity is already impressive, but the near future brings about the interconnection of everything, via the Internet of Things. It also brings fundamental changes to our computing paradigm, with cloud computing gaining momentum and being expected to become the prevalent computing paradigm in the years to come. Increasingly more data are being collected, about almost everything one can imagine; and they remain there, in cyberspace, forever, sometimes even resisting efforts to delete them. These data are so attractive that a new science, going by the name 'big data' has already emerged. All these developments constitute in most cases an improvement in our everyday lives, but sometimes infringe our rights as citizens. The challenge, therefore, is to safeguard citizen rights in the face of a new era, landmarked by new computing paradigms.