Regulation and Innovation: Catalysts or Antagonists?

As digital technologies evolve at a rapid pace, the interplay between regulatory frameworks and technological innovation has become a defining challenge for privacy and identity management. Regulation seeks to protect individuals’ rights, ensure accountability, and establish norms for data use, while innovation drives new capabilities in areas such as identity verification, AI-assisted services, and decentralized systems. Papers examining whether regulation and innovation act as mutual enablers - steering technology toward ethical and human-centric outcomes - or as opposing forces that constrain progress and limit competitive potential are encouraged. On the other hand, regulation can drive innovation by posing requirements to be translated into concrete technological development. Standards play an important role in this process, however their governance framework has recently come under criticism for potentially being captured by key industry players. By exploring case studies, policy approaches, legal frameworks, and emerging technologies, the summer school will shed light on how regulation and innovation interact, and how this interaction impacts future developments in law, social sciences, and computer science.

The 21st IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and insights from the multiple disciplines that deal with privacy, data protection, and identity management. We invite papers that present relevant research in computer science, the law, the social sciences, or other relevant fields for presentation at the summer school and possible inclusion in the proceedings that will be published by Springer.

About the Summer School

The IFIP Summer School on Privacy and Identity Management aims to create a platform for spreading awareness and facilitating interactions and knowledge exchanges around old and new issues by taking a holistic approach to society and technology. We support interdisciplinary research exchange and foster discussions through keynote lectures, tutorials, and workshops. Participants will benefit from presenting their research and receiving meaningful feedback. The IFIP Summer School culminates in the publication of selected papers by the participants as an edited volume published by Springer.

We welcome contributions addressing these issues from any of the following perspectives (and especially the interdisciplinary combination of more than one): sociological, legal, technical, ethical, political, surveillance, intersectional, anthropological, economic, historical, media & communication, regulatory, philosophical, critical, disabilities, and psychological studies in the areas of privacy, data protection, and identity management.

The IFIP Summer School encourages not only interdisciplinarity but also broader diversity. It particularly welcomes submissions on how to foster gender and cultural balance in privacy and identity research and policy, and notably, tutorials and workshops about how to raise awareness in these matters.

Topics of Interest

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Technical and Organisational Measures, Methods, and Tools for Privacy and Data Protection that address:
    • Transparency and information provision to data subjects
    • Intervenability and control over personal data
    • Unlinkability and anonymization, including, e.g., EU Digital Identity Wallet
    • Confidentiality in generative AI tools
    • Accuracy in AI-generated personal data
    • Integrity of generative models
    • Explainability of AI models
    • Purpose limitation in data processing
    • Evaluation and performance assessment
    • Trustworthiness and Privacy by Design
  • Law, Regulation and Governance:
    • Data Protection and/or privacy implications of recent political, legal and technological developments
    • European and other legislation on data and data governance (Data Act, Data Governance Act, Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, eIDAS II, Artificial Intelligence Act etc.) and the planned simplification thereof (Digital Omnibus Proposal)
    • The interaction of data protection with liability regulation (product liability reform) and/or AI (AI Act)
    • Governance institutions and policy processes, and regulatory bodies at different levels (e.g., national. regional, global)
    • Data justice, data fairness and equality
    • Digital human rights and accountability in technology and data practices
    • Certification and standardisation and the interplay of standards and legislation
    • Automated compliance and regulatory technology
  • Effects and Impacts (negative or positive):
    • Discriminatory effects of technology
    • Technology-enabled social profiling and social exclusion
    • Digital divides, digital dividends, data sovereignty
    • Communities, societies, cultures, and technological mediation
    • Data practices, AI, and the Global South
  • Socio-Technical Perspectives:
    • Awareness, attitudes, skills, and behavior of citizens and public and private organizations
    • Approaches for diversity, non-discrimination and democratic enhancement
    • Surveillance, surveillance pressures, chilling effects
    • Critical perspectives on data practices
    • Welfare, solidarity, and care
    • Data economy and ecosystems, new business models
    • Trade-offs, tensions and conflicts between participation in digital cultures and privacy aspects
    • Historical development of data practices
    • Training, awareness, and empowerment of end-users, focusing on educating and equipping them to recognize and address privacy issues in AI effectively

Submission and Review Process

Abstracts will undergo a lightweight review process before being invited for a presentation at the conference. Full versions of the submissions, incorporating also feedback received during the summer school, will then be comprehensively reviewed after the conference.

Submissions must be made via the Easychair conference management system.

Details on the review process and the submission link can be found here.

Why should I submit?

Accepted papers will receive thorough discussions during the school and will allow students to publish their papers in the IFIP AICT series by Springer.

All individual members of IFIP member societies (over 40 national IT societies plus ACM and others) plus all members of IFIP Technical Committees and Working Groups are entitled to a discount of at least 10% on all registration fees.

A course certificate for 1,5 ECTS can be granted to students who attend the Summer School and write a short essay on how their research is relevant to or can be inspired by the Summer School sessions. A course certificate for 3 ECTS can be granted to students who attend the Summer School, submit and present an abstract for a research article, and demonstrate that they have addressed the feedback from the Summer School in an extended version or rebuttal.

We encourage submissions from students from emerging economies: applying for support from the IFIP Digital Equity Fund is possible to ease student travel.

Call for Workshops and Tutorials Proposals

A workshop is an interactive session scheduled for one or two hours and focuses on involving students in discussion. In it, participants jointly work on a topic or project related to the Summer School theme. Workshop activities are summarized in short papers that recapitulate the outcome and the kinds of discussion raised in the Summer School for inclusion in the proceedings. Proposals for workshops should contain a 2-page statement presenting the topic and summarising the planned activity and the expected contributions from the audience members, e.g., responding to a questionnaire or conducting a small experiment. Proposers should indicate whether any special equipment is needed for the workshop, such as audio-visual systems or computational equipment and support.

Tutorials are one or two-hour-long presentations. They should deal with topics that interest the interdisciplinary audience in the Summer School. Tutorials should provide knowledge on theoretical, empirical, methodological, practical, or other aspects relevant to the Summer School. Tutorial Proposals should contain a 2-page summary and state the level and background required for audience members to follow the tutorial.

Workshop and tutorial proposals need to be in English language, and must be submitted electronically; for details see here.