AUTHOR
Ryoko Asai

ABSTRACT

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of studies have been conducted on the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) on gender or gender roles. Some of them have focused on the relation between women and development of ICT, and have revealed the existence of gender disparities or gender inequalities in the information societies. Moreover it has been proposed that the use of ICT plays a big part empowering women in many countries, especially in developing ones. In fact, this proposition is now widely accepted by governments of many countries, as well as international organizations such as United Nations. It is clear that women have often been the subject of the studies related to gender and ICT. However, it is plausible to expect that development and deployment of ICT have effects on men as well as on women. The purpose of this study is to examine what effects ICT have on men in Japan from the viewpoint of gender. In order to attain the purpose, this study attempts to illustrate what significance ICT has to Japanese men who enjoy their life with another gender in cyber space in which gender role is alleged to be reinforced more than in the real world.

Nowadays, various types of communication in cyber space are available on the Net. These can be classified into two types on the whole: “transient communication” and “continuing communication”. The former is defined as a single-shot or a few times communication; once-and-for-all chatting on BBSs is a typical example. The latter is communication that keeps relatively long-term relationship with certain people: giving an example, communication evolved around on-line games and social networking services (SNS). In on-line games or SNS, its users continuously communicate with other users by using characters and emoticon as if they got into discretionary roles or pre-selected characters.

Japan has had a huge number of people who enroll and join in on-line games or SNS as its popularity has already been statistically proven. According to the use of on-line games or/and SNS, we could recognize very interesting phenomenon in the communication in cyber space.

In one of the major on-line game sites in Japan, over 90% of the players are male and 9% are female. But more than half of players pose as female characters in appearing on its sites, and this is contrary to the population structure. Namely, this circumstance indicates that many male users are more likely to appear and play as females in the site. Besides, men do not only pose as female characters but also comport themselves as women when they communicate with other players. In other words, they use the feminine form of expression, choose the subject of the conversation which women is more likely to talk about, and dress their own characters and/or avatars in women’s clothing.

In Japan, there has been the talk “Nekama” that was introduced in the online service period, i.e. pre-WWW period (sometimes this term has been considered as Otaku’s one).This term explains a certain type of men’s behavior in on-line communication. To put it another way, almost “Nekama” naturally go about their own daily life as person who have a male gender identity and most of them are heterosexual in the real world, on the other hand they represent themselves as females on the Net. The purposes of doing “Nekama” can be largely divided into two categories. One is to elicit a positive response from other males and openly rally them on their credulity on the Net, while the other is to feel rejoiced and a sense of release by acting as a female. Some of male players acting as female characters on the Net given above fit the latter description of “Nekama”.

As many studies in linguistic sociology have been pointed out, gender is considered as the important element to facilitate communication in the real world. Thus, gender has a great influence on the underlying conditions for communication. Then what significance does doing “Nekama” have in continuous communication on the Net? Because there are little indexes which are available for the users to discern the other users’ sex and gender in communicating each other in cyber space.

One “Nekama” person has told me, in an interview, that he disengages himself from masculinity enforced socially in the real world by acting as a female on the Net. In other words, ICT has a possibility for people to extricate from enforced gender identity in the real world through a process of expressing one’s another gender identity in cyber space. And also it can be seen as a means for resetting one’s own gender role in the real world because of its anonymousness and invisibility. Furthermore, it may open up a possibility of forging certain identity in line with certain discourse because it increases the importance of the expression by using some letters in the communication in which gender index does not function effectively. On the basis of recognition above, this study present the viewpoint that looks on ICT as a tool of giving free to gender identity containing diverse aspects, and also explore the significance of gender in cyber space.

AUTHOR
Isabel Alvarez and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the Personal Electronic Health Card (PEHC) from a local Portuguese perspective. The ethical and social issues surrounding PEHCs are discussed and global implications summarised.

At the same time that political and sociological conditions are causing a revolution in health care, advance technologies promise to introduce changes even more radical. More recently, pressures to better manage rising costs have generated an intense interest from governments in how the latest computing technologies can assist in cutting health expenses and improve the flow of medical information.

PEHCs are virtual in the sense that they provide a view of data, possibly configured differently at different locations, but united together into a common format for viewing and updating at the required time. In this way, members of health care teams dealing with a patient are able to access relevant elements of the information recorded by his/ her colleagues. They are thus able to obtain a very wide view of the circumstances of an individual’s present and past medical problems, and the health care given to solve them. PEHCs provide a user with virtual access to data possibly scattered around the world. A shared PEHC potentially offers meaningful access to all data for inspection by all authorised users. This can be modified by establishing access barriers which require specific authorisation clearance before protected data subsets can be viewed. This aligns with commonly accepted view that each Health Care Practitioner should only be allowed to access information on a “need-to-know” basis.

Health care providers and payers have long realised the benefits computer-based health cards could provide. In an information age, some of the world’s best medical doctors are still reliant upon paper-based information systems that fail to deliver crucial timely information during the consultation process.

The more we turn our lives over to computers, the more computers represent potentially harmful threats to our lives. There is no doubt that health care plays a critical role in human culture. PEHCs can facilitate the doctor-patient relationship through use of computerised notes which the doctor and patient share and contribute to. However, PEHCs can harm the relationship and undermine trust.

The policy of the Portuguese government has promoted the implementation of a national Personal Electronic Health Card, for each citizen, containing a longitudinal patient record covering the individual complete medical history for his/her whole life. Such strategy raises a number of ethical issues.

It is argued that the PEHC should form the basis for a collaborative environment in which medical doctors, and ultimately the patient, should be able to engage in an interactive electronic discussion. Moreover, by including patients and allowing them not only to access their data, but also to post reports and queries, patients can become better educated and more empowered to manage their own health.

Highly intensive monitoring, collecting and mining of health data at an international level would better support public policy decisions. Additional information derived from such international data mining could be used to more quickly discover and analyse associations between diseases, or to study disease distributions across geographic regions.

The Government states that this electronic card being personal is always in the patient’s possession and that the information therein contained would be only read and updated at the time of visiting a hospital or a private medical centre. In no other situation could it be used. However, it might be difficult for a current patient with a previous unrelated health condition to exercise the right to decide whether or not the medical doctor dealing with the current condition should access information other than what could be related with her present health status.

Although the Government currently guarantees that the use of the PEHC will be restricted, there is the danger that it may become a standard and be required in the common situations in Portugal. These include; when asking for credit at a Bank, where a medical check-up in an insurance company is compulsory, or when entering a new job and a health check-up is asked for, or where the majority of the companies require their employees to do an yearly health check-up concerning present health conditions.

In the past, similar situations have already occurred, with the unique tax number that each citizen has to have. It was initially supposed to be used only for taxing purposes but is now a de facto standard required everywhere in Portugal, by banks, employers, hospitals, telephone companies, electricity, gas and water utilities, and even for the simplest transactions like buying a monthly bus pass. Through this unique number all information can be crossed referenced and checked.

There is clearly a tension and trade-off between the need-to-know and the right to confidentiality which must be addressed. This is an issue which has been exacerbated by computer technologies. Violations of medical confidentiality may appear to be easier because of the efficiency of computerised systems. The damage to the patient whose confidentiality is violated may be proportionately greater because of the amount of data held within the PEHC. Electronic access to medical information requires careful scrutiny. A patient’s right to informed consent should prevail. A patient should have control over her/his data preventing casual distribution that might be harmful. Furthermore, the movement of PEHCs over the computer networks raises concern on the great risk of inaccuracy, falsification, duplication, manipulation and unauthorised distribution.

In general, PEHC use should ideally promote and must certainly not be in conflict with the fundamental medical ethical principles of beneficence (a duty to promote good and act in the best interest of the patient and the health of society), nonmaleficence (a duty to do no harm to patients) and respect for patient autonomy (a duty to protect and foster a patient’s free, uncoerced choices).

AUTHOR
Andrew A. Adams

ABSTRACT

As is well known, the UK has more CCTV cameras per head than any other country in the world. The majority of the cameras in operation are analogue cameras attached to a nearby visual display, although a significant minority are networked to larger local monitoring centres. A small number of wide networks with broad access exist. One of these is the national traffic flow system. In his 2005-6 Annual Report the UK’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner raised the question of the attachment of ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) systems being attached to this network and being used to routinely track the movement of vehicles. He raised the concern over whether this was consistent with human rights legislation, and also the security of the data being gathered.

As cheap digital cameras are rolled out to augment or replace existing analogue installations, as network access to camera installations becomes widespread, and as automated processing gains capabilities, how should the deployment and use of such systems be regulated? Until 2005 all “identifiable” images of a particular individual were regarded under UK law as “personal data” as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998. Following the case of Durant vs FSA, the advice on when a video sequence constitutes “personal data” changed radically. As the capabilities for tracking individuals’ movements through widespread camera networks increases, the question of how to regulate the use, misuse and abuse of CCTV installations becomes ever more pressing.

Is a CCTV act needed, and if so what should its provisions be? In this paper we will propose appropriate regulatory apparatus and principles to regulate the deployment of CCTV systems and the use of automated processing systems attached to networks of cameras. Issues addressed include:

Defining the nature of video sequences as “Personal Data”. At what resolution and orientation do individuals become recognisable within the field of surveillance, is it possible to track movement between camera viewpoints, and if PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) cameras are in use then how are their viewpoints controlled?

Acknowledging the link between “identity”, “identification” and “surveillance”. Identification can be within a sequence or surveillance area (this figure seen here is the same as this figure seen here) or tied in to external identifiers including both databases and human identification.

Setting limits on who may deploy video surveillance equipment in public and semi-public spaces. Surveillance activity should be “notifiable” along the same lines as processing of personal data. Notification of systems beyond one or two cameras in a corner shop should be notifiable to the Surveillance Commissioners and appropriate principles of surveillance should be published and enforced, similar to the Data Protection Principles.

Setting statutory requirements for notification of CCTV monitoring, recording and automated processing of images, to those thus surveilled. Rights to prevent abuse of surveillance depend on awareness of surveillance. The routine recording and processing of video data and its possible insecure transmission and storage are all issues which require public acknowledgement and scrutiny if we are to avoid widespread abuse which cannot easily be solved “after the fact”.

Setting “necessity and proportionality” principles in law for the routine automated processing of video surveillance. The attachment of ANPR to traffic flow monitoring was undertaken in a systematic manner by UK police forces without any public consultation and without higher level social/political authorisation. How much recording/processing of data is necessary and proportionate to the benefits society gains from such surveillance, and who benefits and who loses in the process?

Requiring appropriate security for the primary video feed and stored sequence data to prevent unauthorised processing. Fiction presents CCTV networks as very easy to crack into with a modicum of expertise. As automated processing becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, the “value” of video feeds becomes greater and thus the security of such systems requires more attention.

Defining “best practice” in the training and supervision of those with access to sequences. As shown by the Sefton CCTV operators case and by ethnographic studies by Norris and Gould (et al), misuse of public CCTV cameras for voyeuristic purposes and otherwise does happen. The Data protection Act requires Data Controllers to ensure that those with access to data should be properly trained not only in how to access such data but what the limits are on whether they should access particular information. Similar measures should apply to CCTV surveillance operators.

Defining “best practice” in the deployment of PETs (Privacy Enhancing Technologies). PETs exist and are being improved alongside other forms of automated CCTV processing. For example, it is possible to block some areas of view from the video feed out of a camera entirely or to encrypt certain portions of the feed to that only authorised access can be achieved. Alongside necessity and proportionality rules for deploying surveillance capabilities, appropriate use of such PETs should be mandated.

AUTHOR
Jose V. Camacho, Roderica R. Camacho and Basilisa V. Camacho

ABSTRACT

The world today can be characterized on how information and knowledge can be accessed and fully utilized in order to achieve rapid economic and social development. Many economies have come to realize that investment in developing intellectual capital is the key to global competitiveness and an essential ingredient for economic efficiency and social equity. As World Bank in its 1999 World Development Report argues “(F)or countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labor. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.”

The world today can be characterized on how information and knowledge can be accessed and fully utilized in order to achieve rapid economic and social development. Many economies have come to realize that investment in developing intellectual capital is the key to global competitiveness and an essential ingredient for economic efficiency and social equity. As World Bank in its 1999 World Development Report argues “(F)or countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labor. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.”

As one examines their educational system, these highly industrialized and knowledge-based economies have dramatically restructured their learning systems and reoriented their educational paradigm starting from the basic to the advance levels of their educational ladder. The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) has become paramount feature of their educational curricula, school activities and programs. For instance, in OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)- member countries, curricular reforms were initiated “driven by a perceived need to reorient schooling from rote learning, shallow but wide coverage, and individualistic learning processes to higher level skills, problem solving, in depth study, and collaborative learning” (OECD 2001). The OECD book “Learning to Change: ICT in Schools” (2001) describes the “pervasive use of ICT in schools to be motivating.” It elaborates the economic, social and pedagogical justification or rationale for ICT integration in the classroom. Another notable effort in integrating ICT in the basic learning process can be seen in Alberta, Canada. In the Alberta ICT program, technology is incorporated as “a ‘way of doing things’ – the processes, tools and techniques that alter human activity.” The program gives a wider view on the “nature of technology, how to use and apply a variety of technologies, and the impact on self and society” (www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12). The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in Ireland also provides many success stories as it illustrates various educational programs such as the “Schools IT 2000” aimed at maximizing the benefits of ICT use among learners and teachers (www.ncte.ie)

The Philippine government has also been committed to modernize the Philippine educational system, in particular, on basic education, in its effort to make each and every student at par with other students in the developed economies. This is because in today’s knowledge economy and society, the capability to utilize and produce information and to transform it into knowledge and vast array of goods and services is very essential to economic growth and social development. Along with this effort are the continuous curricular changes and reorientation, teacher training and massive investment in school facilities and infrastructure, one of which is geared towards the vision of equipping each public school with the modern computer and other information and communication (ICT)-related gadgets and instructional materials.

It is lamentable to note that in spite of the many curricular reforms to improve the Philippine educational system, its performance indicators are dismal and disappointing. Recent data show that in the 2004 National Achievement Test given by the Department of Education, close to 98 percent of those who took the examination failed to get the passing score of 75 percent. In the High School Readiness Test conducted last year, only 64 percent got a grade of 75 percent or higher. What is more worrisome is the result that half of those who took the examination, around 500 thousand, did not manage to get a score of 30 percent. These appalling performance indicates that fewer and fewer number of Filipino elementary students have the mastery and competency for elementary and secondary education.

The country’s Department of Education (DepEd) ha initiated in 1996 the Computerization Program with the goal of preparing the Filipino students for employment by teaching them to master the new forms of technology being used in the workplace. Philippine education experts have long realized that public schools do not just want to teach students how to use technological tools, computers and other high tech learning gadgets. They would also like to harness and enhance the power of technology towards developing the entire teaching-learning process, specifically in its bid to make each and every public school student empowered in this highly globalized and integrated world economy.

However, integrating ICTs into the learning-teaching equation is not that simple and easy as it sounds, and certainly there are broader prerequisites of achieving classroom technological advancement. This paper explores the policy imperatives and investment requirements of enabling the Philippine educational system with ICT as it pursues the twin goals of modernization and relevance. It illustrates the various forms of innovation, pedagogical strategies and approaches and curricular initiatives to constantly steer the educational system towards excellence and global standards.

AUTHOR
Chris Zielinski

ABSTRACT

Is there an access right to information? While this issue was always an underlying and generally unspoken assumption in debate on information for the developing world, now with the tightening global legal infrastructure, the developing countries need to address this issue formally, rather than essentially evading it by turning blind eyes and generally being lax in enforcement of their copyright regimes, where they existed at all.

In copyright discussions, we are prone to treating information as a monolith. “Information” – or “content” or “knowledge” or “wisdom” ? – seems to comprise everything from soap operas to scientific communications, from details held by governments about individuals to public information, from advertising to commercial and trade secrets. In fact it makes a great deal of difference when embarking on discussions about intellectual property regimes and rights to split this monolithic approach into smaller chunks, if not right down to conceptual pebbles. This introduces a level of complexity that we have shied away from to date, although this may be an inevitable by-product of a world which has focused its most intelligent efforts on increasing the information density of all its exchanges – social, technological and economic. Evolution seems to be about increasing information density, and legislation has to begin to follow this path as well.

This paper will build on the present author’s work over the last ten years on the issue of identifying whether there is such a thing as an access right to “essential” information – the unhindered right to access such information without any legal, technological, financial, geographical or other barriers.

Everything that is said about access rights to information is either treated in the context of exceptions (e.g., use of texts for private study or citation, home or academic taping of video for time-shifting purposes, etc.) or sweepingly in statements along the lines of “copyright is good/bad because?” Neither of these is adequate to real-life complexity. Debates around these issues rapidly head down simplistic and absolutist paths: “Information wants to be free”, “copyright should be abolished”, “exceptions should be abolished,” “encrypt everything,” – these are all repeated or applied, but none of them make much sense taken across the board.

In fact, there are different types of information with different access rights. One can readily find examples of information to which nobody should be able to claim a moral right to access – commercial and trade secrets, for example, almost by definition, even though this may well include criminal and morally suspect information. The debate around powerful encryption can be read as the government seeking to assert an access right to information which the owner wishes to keep secret.

As has been noted, this debate is generally conducted in absolute terms – either for or against ownership rights. This paper has no bias towards either end of this spectrum – or rather, it has a bias towards both ends. It asserts that different ethical positions apply to different types of information – and that the legal system does not distinguish between the two.

Is there an access right to most entertainment content? While we may want to have unhindered access to music, novels and films, there does not appear to be a good argument that the human race has a legal or moral right to be entertained. Going to the other extreme, there are clearly categories of information to which there either already is, or to which a strong case can be made for, an access right. Freedom of Information acts in many countries identify the citizen’s right of access to government information. Other legal instruments spell out the rights of access to confidential information held about the citizen by public or public-licensed bodies (including the legal and medical professions, religious groups and the like). It could be argued that this way of putting the argument masks a bias towards ownership. The question “Do people have a right to be entertained?” obviously begs a different answer than “To what extent is a limited monopoly for entertainment providing support for science and the useful arts?” The author acknowledges that at present the entertainment and scientific information world are merged under a single copyright framework, so that to accept the ownership of entertainment information is tantamount to accepting the ownership of essential information (defined below). This position will be made explicit and challenged. In fact, as the paper will argue, there are currently opportunities to split the fields in relation to new digital legislation.

One step short of this emerging legal environment (although not without precedent in law) is what the present author has been calling “essential information”, borrowing the concept from “essential drugs”: information that is essential to human survival. It comprises the things we need to know to survive, to be healthy, to plant the right seeds, to feed our families correctly. It includes information related to the basic minimum needs of humanity, information tools for trade and economic development, information essential to the development of backbone industries, basic science and survival services in health, education, welfare, agriculture and labour. A strong argument can be made for such information to be treated differently from, say, trade secrets or entertainment information.

To conclude, there are a number of provisions for an access right to essential information in the international legal environment – from rather vague statements in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to the relatively minor exceptions allowed in international and national copyright legislation, to an explicit and large loophole provided by the Paris Act of 1971 (revised 1978) to the Berne Convention, which provides developing countries with the right to translate “educational materials”, by statutory licence if necessary. All of this needs to be brought together and updated for the electronic age, and the present paper aims to provide a contribution to the upcoming debate.

AUTHOR
Sheldon Richmond

ABSTRACT

Why has the computer revolution failed to give more “power” to the worker as predicted by most futurists? Why is there a new power elite of computer professionals? In the early days of implementing computer technology-desktop PCs and Networks-into the corporate world, the leaders of this implementation preached for “open systems”, flat organizations, and the decentralization of responsibility and power. They argued that this was a new “paradigm” and those who resisted the “paradigm-shift” were stuck in the old paradigm and so favoured the status quo either because they feared change or totally misunderstood the new paradigm . However, what has actually happened over the last twenty years or so is that organizations introduced new technocratic hierarchies and locked down computer systems in the corporate environment in order to prevent workers from learning through trial and error how to use computers systems as opposed to being used by computer systems. Why? The answer is quite obvious: computer systems are the means of production in contemporary knowledge economies. Hence, those who know how to control computer systems thereby gain control of the means of production. In order to prevent workers from actually understanding computers and so gaining control of the means of production, they are prevented from “tampering” with their computers at work, and their jobs become extensions of computer operations. Furthermore, their minds become part of the techno-system of machine procedures, which inhibit independent, critical and creative thought, let alone the asking of questions.

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