W3C Workshop on Privacy for Advanced Web APIs

W3C and PrimeLife are convening a W3C Workshop on Privacy for Advanced Web APIs on 12-13 July. This is long overdue!

The Background to the Call for Participation in the Workshop puts it this way:

"As the Web advances toward becoming an application development platform that addresses needs previously met by native applications, work proceeds on APIs to access information that was previously not available to Web developers. The broad availability of possibly sensitive data collected through location sensors and other facilities in a Web browser is just one example of the broad new privacy challenges that the Web faces today."

Privacy by Design? Privacy Enhancing Technologies? Are they all one and the same as the direction of this workshop, different, or overlapping?

If you have anything to say, then please respond to the Call for Participation and submit a Position Paper.

The Call for Participation notes that topics for position papers may include, but are not limited to:

• novel approaches and architectures toward privacy on the Web that W3C should pursue;
• implementation experience with current generation device APIs;
• deployment experience of current generation device APIs from a Web Application implementer’s and provider’s perspective;
• implementation and deployment experience with current generation device APIs from a public policy and privacy perspective;
• policy considerations for the future development of the Web platform in general, and advanced APIs in particular;
• user experience and service design issues and approaches related to security and privacy technologies for the Web;
• social or regulatory issues relating to privacy as they potentially impact any of the above.

The workshop is expected to attract a broad set of stakeholders, including implementers from the mobile and desktop space, policy and privacy experts, and developers and operators of Web applications that make use of advanced APIs.

For more details about the initiative and the Call for Participation, go to http://www.w3.org/2010/api-privacy-ws/ and start writing!

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Malcolm Crompton is Managing Director of Information Integrity Solutions (IIS), a globally connected company that works with public sector and private sector organisations to help them build customer trust through respect for the customer and their personal information.  He was also foundation President of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, Australia New Zealand, www.iappANZ.org.