Principal, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, Canberra
Visiting Fellow, Department of Computer Science, Australian National University
Version of 28 July 1997
© Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 1997
This paper was submitted to the International Conference in Information Systems (ICIS) Dissertation Paper Competition
This document is at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/ICIS97.html
Applications of advanced information technology have substantial implications for society, and hence it is vital that they be subjected to thorough research. Despite this, the information systems (IS) discipline has paid very limited attention to normative aspects of information technology, and to matters of public policy.
The author contends that research into these topics can be undertaken in a sufficiently rigorous manner that they are proper subject-matter for IS researchers. Rather than mere 'social implications', however, it is proposed that a broader focus on 'economic, legal and social implications' is appropriate.
In order to test these contentions, research was undertaken in a field that involves a wide range of difficulties typical of policy-oriented research. These included limited access to sources of information; secrecy born of nervousness among practitioners about the legality and public acceptability of practices; strong feelings among the proponents and opponents of the particular applications of technology; and ongoing researcher involvement in public advocacy in the area.
Data surveillance is defined as the systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons. Because it was a new field, a significant proportion of the work that was undertaken was necessarily of the nature of theory formation. This was supplemented by field work, in both the United States and Australia, which tested the body of theory, and enabled it to be articulated. The research programme established a firm theoretical foundation for research in the area, provided insights into appropriate methods, and delivered both empirically-based descriptive and explanatory data, and evaluative information relevant to policy-decisions. It has provided a foundation on which more mature research work is able to build.
The work is important in its own right, but it also has broader significance for the IS discipline. It has demonstrated not only that policy issues are an appropriate area of focus for information systems researchers, but also that they are capable being approached in a sufficiently disciplined manner that they need no longer be shunned: difficult though objectivity is in such an area, an appropriate balance between relevance and rigour can be achieved. The dissertation has therefore provided a model that can be referred to by others undertaking research in policy-relevant topics.
Information Privacy and Data Surveillance
Implications of the Body of Work
The Works Comprising The Supplication
This dissertation was not prepared in the conventional manner, through a time-limited programme of research and study under the supervision of a panel of academics. It is a supplication on the basis of refereed publications, that together represent a cohesive body of work comparable to a doctoral thesis, and that were prepared while employed as an academic.
The thirteen publications are identified prior to the Reference List. This paper is a significantly revised version of the preliminary chapter that was submitted with the supplication. The purposes of that chapter were to provide an overview of the contribution as a whole, and to demonstrate the integrated nature of the works.
The electronic, digital computer was invented in about 1940, and was first used to support the processes of business and government in the early 1950s. The technology has made great strides, in terms of the capabilities both of the underlying equipment or 'hardware', and of the suites of programs, or 'software' that enable the hardware to be applied to specific purposes. The progressive marriage of computing with local and distant ('tele') communications, and, more slowly, with robotics, has seen the emergence of what is at present referred to as 'information technology' (I.T.).
The information systems (IS) discipline is concerned with information, and with its creation, management and use by individuals, especially in organisational contexts. It emerged because of the perceived need to understand and guide the application of information technology to human needs. Accordingly, the discipline is also concerned with the use of information technology artefacts, and hence with the analysis of user needs, the design of artefacts, their construction, and their progressive re-formation-in-use.
Many aspects of information technology have been well-researched. At the levels of hardware and systems software, the disciplines of computer science and engineering are now well-established. At the level of application software, however, and especially in the areas of the management of information technology, and of social policy regarding its impacts and implications, understanding is far less mature.
The information systems discipline emerged during the 1960s, particularly in schools of management (U.S.A.) and of commerce (U.K. and Australia), drawing variously on the existing disciplines of computer science, accounting, individual and organisational behaviour, operations research / management science, and operations management. The conventional institutional framework for a discipline, such as formal recognition within universities, undergraduate majors and degrees, specialist postgraduate and doctoral programs, specialist journals and specialist international conferences, was accumulated during the period 1965-1980.
Many areas within the information systems discipline have matured rapidly. For example, bodies of knowledge exist in relation to the development of new applications, the management of existing applications, the processing of raw data into useful information, and the provision of information to support decision-making by individuals and by groups.
There remain, however, many aspects of the discipline that are as yet highly immature. Concern has been expressed that the discipline continues to rely on theories extracted from reference disciplines, and has been tardy in developing its own coherent body of foundation theory (Weber 1987). A great many of the theories that are available are of assistance in describing particular domains, but their explanatory power is weak, and their predictive power is very limited indeed. There are also significant difficulties in selecting and applying research methods (Galliers 1992). The problems arising as a result of the discipline's youth are compounded by the highly unstable nature of the domain of study, which includes fast-changing technologies that are being influenced by, and are influencing, fast-changing organisational and behavioural patterns.
The sub-discipline of information management has existed since the emergence of the information systems discipline as a whole 25-30 years ago. It focuses on matters of concern to managers and executives, primarily within individual organisations. It also involves inter-organisational considerations.
Beyond supporting the description, explanation and prediction of relevant phenomena, the information systems discipline needs to provide normative support to decision-makers within the individual organisations that seek to exploit information and information technology. Moreover, advanced technologies are having increasingly significant impacts on and implications for organisations, industry segments and sectors, and economies; and individuals, groups and societies. There is therefore a vital public policy dimension to the discipline.
The author is committed to the proposition that information technology's impacts are so great that detached observation is an inadequate stance for IS researchers to adopt. Rather, it is imperative that information systems researchers engage themselves in their subject-matter, and extend themselves beyond mere description and explanation, and even beyond the prediction of the outcomes of artefact design and interventions in organisations and society. This is undoubtedly difficult, and presents serious methodological challenges; but that is merely a further development of a long-standing debate within the discipline about the appropriate balance between the relevance of research and the rigour with which it is undertaken (Keen 1980).
Only a tiny proportion of the IS literature addresses the implications of information technology, and the primary collections of papers in the area (Dunlop & Kling 1991, Kling 1996) are noteworthy for their lack of papers from IS academics.
One Editor of MIS Quarterly expressed regret at his "inability to stimulate a flow of articles and manuscripts relating to the broader societal issues of the Information Age" (MacFarlan 1986, 1988). In response to that Editorial, this author wrote an 'Issues and Opinions' piece on 'Economics, Legal and Social Implications of Information Technology' (Author, 1988b).
That paper assessed ways in which members of the I.T. disciplines address implications of I.T. It differentiated 'the adversarial approach', 'the independent-roles approach', 'the dual-specialist approach', and 'the authoritative renegade approach'. It also identified the 'avoidance' option, whereby reliance is placed on people external to the disciplines to perform that kind of research.
The analysis concluded that "external criticism would ... be poorly aimed and ineffective unless at least some I.T. specialists collaborated with critics of their disciplines. ... [It would be far more effective if] all researchers and professionals [were to] regard the implications of their work as part and parcel of their research in and application of I.T. Consideration of implications needs to be integrated, not segregated" (p.518).
It continued that "... I am not arguing against care, precision, external standards, and controls, above all in the design of research and in the bodies of papers. What I am attacking is the pretence of pristine purpose. The introductions to our papers should recognise the full-blooded relevance of the topic, and our implications sections and our conclusions should shed the veil of scientific disinterestedness and admit to motivations and to concerns. ... We do not need to compromise the precise, careful, scientific manner in which we undertake and report on our research. But we must stop sanitising our introductory remarks, and instead draw attention to the real importance of the topic we are dealing with. And the closing sections of our papers must not be confined to 'implications for further research', but must also directly address 'implications for people'".
Importantly, a pointer was provided as to how this could be achieved: "... [B]y broadening the topic from mere 'social implications' to 'economic, legal and social implications', we may be able to overcome our reticence about thinking, talking and writing on the consequences of our work, and to integrate the consideration of implications with applications" (p.519).
The situation has changed little since Warren MacFarlan's call-to-arms. During the period since then, there have been almost 10 complete Volumes (37 Issues) of MIS Quarterly. Of the 242 papers published in these Issues, only 7 (2.9%) directly addressed broad 'economic, legal and social implications' topics (Couger 1989, Mykytyn et a. 1990, Straub & Collins 1990, Oz 1992, Culnan 1993, Smith et al. 1996 and Ytterstad et al. 1996).
The incidence of 'implications' topics in other leading journals within the discipline is similarly sparse. A very small number of specialist journals focus on the area, in particular The Information Society, Information Technology & People, and Information Infrastructure Policy.
The situation in cognate disciplines is little better. Indeed, there is evidence that bias against implications topics has existed at editorial level. The papers in this supplication that appeared as Author 1994b, 1995a and 1995b, were initially a single monograph. Following a 2-year refereeing-and-amendment process, this had gained the support of Computing Surveys's Associate Editor; but it fell foul of the incoming Editor, who at first procrastinated, and eventually rejected the paper, on the grounds not of its quality, but of its topic (computer matching). In another instance, a paper by this author on the implications for information technologists of Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics fiction encountered a rocky path with Communications of the ACM referees. Their successive recommendations for major revisions were tantamount to rejection, with a request for a new paper taking a different approach entirely. IEEE Computer accepted the paper in its original form, with enthusiasm, and used it to launch a new section called 'Computing Milieux' (Author, 1993-94). It appears, however, to have been the only paper ever published under that heading.
The research programme that was the subject of this doctoral supplication represents a test of the author's contention that policy matters can be satisfactorily addressed within the IS discipline. It set out to study a matter of considerable public importance, to directly confront the difficulties of research into policy matters, but to sustain research quality. The metric whereby the quality of the research was assessed was the submission of papers arising from the research to journals of high quality. Finally, the collection was subjected to a further round of evaluation by a high-calibre panel of examiners.
The publications that make up this supplication for a doctorate by published work, report on research undertaken in a particular area that, despite its policy significance, and its increasing importance to individual organisations, had been almost entirely ignored during the information systems discipline's first few decades.
Commencing in the 1960s, there has been considerable public concern about individual privacy (e.g. Gross 1963, Brenton 1964, Packard 1964, Long 1967, Westin 1967, Cowen 1969, Rosenberg 1969, Thompson 1970, Warner & Stone 1970, Miller 1972, Rule 1973, Smith 1974-). Statutory protections were enacted in most advanced western nations between 1970 and 1985. They were quickly codified, in order to address the risk of international economic activities being constrained by inconsistencies among privacy-protective regimes (OECD 1980).
Privacy is a cluster of interests of the individual, which in many circumstances tend to conflict with the interests of other individuals, organisations, and society as a whole. Aspects of privacy which it is valuable to distinguish are:
With the close coupling that has occurred between computing and communications during the last 15 years, the last two aspects have become closely linked, and are commonly referred to as 'information privacy'.
Intrinsic to the study of privacy is the recognition that privacy is one interest among many, and that this interest needs to be balanced against other interests, not only those of other individuals, but also those of groups and of society as a whole. A precept on which the research has been based is that judgements about the particular balances that are appropriate need to be made by democratic processes, within particular jurisdictions, at particular points in time; that is to say that there are no 'grand solutions' to privacy issues. Rather, there are issues, and dimensions of issues, and stakeholders with interests. It is important that information about all of these be surfaced, and the possibility of rational discourse created.
The study of 'interests', and of public policy measures to protect interests, is proper subject-matter for disciplines other than information systems, in particular sociology, political science and law. An important contribution of this body of work has been to shift the focus from individuals' interests, to the technologies, and the applications of those technologies which threaten those interests. The use of these technologies is referred to in this work as 'data surveillance'. This body of work is concerned with the implications of data surveillance technology for information privacy.
It is vital that the discipline of information systems performs intermediary functions between the scientific and technological disciplines that are generating and applying the technologies, and the social and policy disciplines that are seeking to understand and regulate them. This work has accordingly involved a detailed examination of the techniques and practices of surveillance, the definition of new terms to describe the new ways in which people are being subjected to observation, the expression of this body of theory and practice in terms accessible to specialists in other disciplines as well as in computer science and information systems, and contributions to policy debates.
There is a moderate literature relating to privacy in the literatures of other disciplines, including sociology (Westin 1967 and 1971, Westin & Baker 1972, Rule 1973 and 1983, and Rule et al. 1980) and law (particularly Morison 1973). Of especial intellectual importance is the notion of society as 'prison' (Foucault 1975, by analogy with the 'panopticon' of Bentham 1791).
Among less academic works are to be found some of significance, including Packard (1964), Smith (1974-) and Burnham (1983). A number of government agencies, law reform bodies and parliamentary committees had made important contributions to the understanding of information privacy (including HEW 1973, FACFI 1976, NSWPC 1976-, PPSC 1977, Lindop 1978, OTA 1981 and ALRC 1983). A number of other important publications appeared during the course of development of this body of work (in particular, Marx & Reichman 1984, Marx 1985, Roszak 1986, OTA 1986, Flaherty 1989, PCA 1989-, GAO 1990, Bennett 1992 and Davies 1992).
In information systems and its cognate disciplines, on the other hand, there are still few references. Even fewer were available during the period in which the research programme was conducted (1984-1994). For example, an exhaustive search of the archives of MIS Quarterly identifies only two papers that have directly addressed privacy questions (Culnan 1993 and Smith et al. 1996). Within the information systems discipline, the key pre-existing works were Laudon (1974) and Kling (1978).
As a result of the paucity of established theory, a great deal of the contribution of the research was theory formation, and a significant proportion of the work undertaken was of the nature of scholarship, i.e. the careful and disciplined examination, evaluation and synthesis of a wide range of secondary sources.
On the basis of reference theories, particularly in relation to information privacy, a body of theory was progressively formed relating to data surveillance. A number of aspects of this were subjected to empirical testing in both Australia and the United States, through structured interviews with practitioners, and case study research drawing on multiple sources of data to achieve triangulation on the object of study. On the basis of this work, the body of theory was articulated and refined.
As discussed in several of the papers, considerable difficulties were experienced in conducting empirical research into data surveillance practices, to some extent in the United States, but especially in Australia. The Commonwealth agencies that developed the 'Australia Card' proposal in the period 1985-87 withheld key information from public purview. During the period 1987-92, agencies declined to provide any meaningful information about their use of computer matching, and utilised various exemption clauses under the Freedom of Information Act 1978 to avoid providing documents. Even secondary data, arising for example from the Privacy Commissioner's investigations, are frequently not publicly available. Computer matching has gradually become more readily researchable; but other techniques, such as profiling, continue to be applied out of the public gaze.
The work reported on in this collection is therefore based on much less, and much less 'hard', information than would have been desirable. On the other hand, the importance of the topic is such that research needed to be undertaken, and works needed to be published, on the basis of careful consideration of such limited data as was available.
The research was informed by lengthy and deep experience in the domain. This was gleaned through involvement in privacy issues over a lengthy period, variously as advocate for the information systems profession, government research officer, consultant to law reform commissions and privacy protection agencies, public-interest advocate, and consultant to government agencies and corporations.
Personal experience provides valuable background to research; but it creates the risk that the researcher will bring pre-conceptions to the work, and, worse still, 'missionary zeal', and the likelihood of the research outcomes confirming the researcher's expectations. Great care was therefore invested in establishing a research mind-set, and segregating this from advocacy and consultancy activities. The many consultancy reports and unrefereed publications prepared in parallel with the formal research informed that research, but were kept separate from it, and from the refereed papers arising from it.
The substantive contributions of the research programme were multi-partite. The following overview is keyed to the list of papers that follows. Although all papers were published in journals relevant to the information systems research community, only three of the papers were published in what are conventionally viewed as information systems journals. A further three were published in computer science journals, one in the proceedings of the world congress of computer scientists, four in information technology law journals, and two in technology policy journals.
The foundation paper, Author (1988a), reviews surveillance practices, and shows how information technology is resulting in the replacement of expensive physical and electronically enhanced monitoring of individuals and groups by highly automated, and therefore much cheaper, systematic observation of data about people. This new form of monitoring, whose descriptor I abbreviate to 'dataveillance', is potentially highly privacy-invasive. The paper imposes a degree of organisation on the field of knowledge that had never previously existed, and has been used not only by myself, but also by other researchers and teachers in their subsequent work.
A second paper, Author (1994a), further develops a vital aspect of the argument, namely the nature of human identification as it is applied within information systems. Remarkably, there are very few works in any academic literature that address this question. Based on the theory presented in the paper, implications are identified for managers and executives within organisations, and for public policy.
One particular technique had been identified in the foundation paper as being of especial importance. 'Computer matching' did not arise from academic research, but was developed pragmatically, in both the United States and Australia during the second half of the 1970s.
A project was undertaken between 1987 and 1992 to examine the technique, and its use, implications and regulation, particularly within government. There was a very limited literature. Field work was undertaken in both the United States and Australia. The purposes were to describe and understand the phenomenon, to apply dataveillance theory, and to draw implications. Initially, considerable difficulties were encountered in gathering information, but (for reasons explained in the papers) it became progressively more feasible to subject the technique to scrutiny.
The first in this sub-set of papers (Author 1994b) provides a detailed description of the technique. It established that there were considerable difficulties involved in appropriately applying matching, and that the risks were borne by the individuals whose data was matched, rather than by the organisations conducting the matching.
The second paper in the series (Author 1995a) examines the mechanisms that prevent unjustifiably privacy-invasive matching from being undertaken, and ensure that suitable protections are incorporated into such programs as do proceed. It includes a detailed examination of the use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to justify matching programs, and a review of the extent to which CBA has functioned as an effective control over misuse and abuse of computer matching in the United States and Australia. Its conclusion is that there are serious inadequacies in the controls over computer matching.
The final paper (Author 1995b) takes as its starting points the theory of dataveillance established in earlier papers, the threatening nature of computer matching, and the absence of effective controls. It proposes a set of general and specific regulatory measures which it is argued is necessary if society is to bring government matching programs under control. It assesses the regulatory regimes of the United States and Australia against the proposals, and finds them seriously wanting.
Profiling is a dataveillance technique that was outlined in the foundation paper, and that has become increasingly popular. Author (1993) provides a technical description of profiling. It was based on limited 'hard' empirical evidence, because most profiling is undertaken surreptitiously. The paper identifies substantial dangers that are inherent in the technique. It lays the foundation for more careful empirical work, but this may not be possible until parliamentary and governmental action is taken to open up the practice to public scrutiny.
An early paper (Co-Author & Author 1984) reported on an examination of a very specific matter, the scope for a new form of database technology to render impractical an established privacy-protective mechanism, the so-called 'subject access principle'. The work represented a case study of the way in which developments in information technology undermine privacy protection laws. It provides a basis for understanding the impact of other developments, such as data matching and profiling, and of current challenges such as 'reverse access' to telephone directories, monitoring of energy usage, textual analysis, and the discovery of individual characteristics through the analysis of seemingly anonymous, statistical collections.
The theory developed in earlier papers was then applied in a particular, emergent context: that of the information infrastructure in general and the Internet in particular. Author (1994c) introduced a new concept, the 'digital persona', as a tool in the analysis of behaviour on the net. It then applied the tool, together with data surveillance theory, to describe, explain and predict patterns of monitoring of the 'real-life' behaviour of individuals and groups through their net behaviour.
During the period 1985-87, the Australian Government developed a proposal to implement a central database of the Australian population, whose purpose, expressed in terms of the theory developed in this body of work, was the facilitation of dataveillance of all residents of that country. Analysis of the proposal was conducted. In parallel with the research work, this author disseminated information about the proposal through intermediate-quality and popular publication channels, and participated fully and actively in the lively public debates. Author (1987) provides a carefully documented description and analysis of the proposal, a distillation of the issues, and a political history of the proposal's development and ultimate fate.
Although the Australia Card proposal was withdrawn in the face of dramatically negative public opinion, the momentum that dataveillance applications of information technology had attained within the Commonwealth public sector was scarcely affected. Author (1992) documents a number of developments during the following few years. It is primarily a political history, expressed within the context set by the theory of dataveillance.
The (then emergent) theory was used to examine proposals for Australian law to protect information privacy. Two closely related papers were addressed to different audiences: Author (1985) and Co-Author & Author (1986). The law that was subsequently passed, the Privacy Act 1988, was subjected to in-depth analysis on the basis of the author's dataveillance theory, in two lengthy papers. These were distributed among a small community of interested researchers and government agencies, but were not formally published.
Like other technologies, computing and telecommunications are capable of being applied to the benefit of humanity as a whole, or of particular interest groups within society. Use of information technology by the politically powerful as a means of exercising control over the thoughts and actions of members of the public, is a matter of especial concern to those living in democracies.
Author (1994d) represented a response to a paper authored by a senior government executive of a country which had previously been dominated by the U.S.S.R., and which has no tradition of democracy as it is known in 'western' countries. The paper's importance is that it lifts the application of the theory of dataveillance from the individual and social levels to the political level, and directly confronts the challenges of cultural differences.
This paper has a significant polemical overtone to it, however, and must be regarded as merely a first, tentative step towards the building of a bridge from the theory of dataveillance, developed, as it has been, largely from within the information systems discipline, to broader theories arising in anthropology, sociology and political science.
The first concern of the body of work was to establish a theory of dataveillance, in part by identifying what little already existed, and in part by drawing from appropriate reference disciplines, but to a considerable extent by original contribution. The second concern was to exploit that body of theory as a means of describing and explaining, and to a limited extent predicting, the practice of dataveillance.
Rather than dealing only with theory and practice, however, this research programme extended into policy. It is widely claimed that information technology is becoming pervasive, and is giving rise to an 'information economy' and an 'information society'. If this is the case, then its impacts will be substantial, and must be managed; and research performed within the IS discipline should represent an important contribution to that endeavour.
The research work was important, in that it established a body of theory, and demonstrated the theory's efficacy in studying a range of techniques. It continues to inform the small amount of research undertaken in the area. It requires extension to cope with additional dataveillance technologies and techniques that are emerging, such as biometrics, digital signatures, chip-cards, geo-positioning systems and intelligent transportation systems. It also requires closer integration with theories from cognate disciplines, and (like most other aspects of information systems theory) must be matured into a form applicable in a multiplicity of cultural settings.
But the significance of the work goes beyond its contribution to the specific area of dataveillance. It set out to demonstrate that policy matters were not only important, but also capable of being addressed in a sufficiently rigorous manner that they should not be 'off-limits' to information systems researchers. The appearance of publications arising from the research in quality refereed journals, and their acceptance in the form of a supplication for a doctorate on the basis of published works, show that this aim was achieved.
An immature discipline may well need to contrive distance from its subject-matter, in order to ensure the appearance and reality of dispassionate observation, measurement and analysis. Hence, during a discipline's formative years, research into matters that are the subject of active policy-formation may need to be avoided, and the focus restricted to descriptive studies. As a discipline matures, however, it needs to strive for greater explanatory and predictive power in its models, and for layers of theory on which to base new research.
Information systems has passed through its immature phases. It is now characterised by diversity in the domains of study, in the research methods applied to them, and in the ontological precepts underpinning them. The research reported on in this paper demonstrates that this maturity is sufficient that the discipline can now move beyond descriptive, explanatory and predictive modes, and, in a careful, disciplined, but confident manner, address normative issues as well.
It is emphatically not proposed that the scientific ideals of independence and repeatability should be abandoned. It is, however, contended that information systems researchers are irretrievably involved in the process of engineering organisations and society, and cannot meaningfully sustain the pretext that they are entirely uninterested in, and unaffected by, the processes around them.
1. Author (1988a) 'Information Technology and Dataveillance' Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 31,5 (May 1988) 498-512, Re-published in C. Dunlop and R. Kling (Eds.), 'Controversies in Computing', Academic Press, 1991
2. Author (1994a) 'Human Identification in Information Systems: Management Challenges and Public Policy Issues' Information Technology & People 7,4 (December 1994) 6-37
3. Author (1994b) 'Dataveillance by Governments: The Technique of Computer Matching' Information Technology & People, 7,2 (June 1994) 46-85, Abstract
4. Author (1995a) 'Computer Matching by Government Agencies: The Failure of Cost/Benefit Analysis as a Control Mechanism' Information Infrastructure & Policy 4,1 (March 1995) 29-65
5. Author (1995b) 'A Normative Regulatory Framework for Computer Matching' Journal of Computer & Information Law XIII, 4 (June 1995) 585-633, Abstract
6. Author (1993) 'Profiling: A Hidden Challenge to the Regulation of Data Surveillance' Journal of Law & Information Science 4, 2 (December 1993) 403-419
7. Co-Author & Author (1984) 'Database Retrieval Technology and Subject Access Principles' Australian Computer Journal 16,1 (February, 1984) 27-32
8. Author (1994c) 'The Digital Persona and Its Application to Data Surveillance' The Information Society 10,2 (June 1994) 77-92
9. Author (1987) 'Just Another Piece of Plastic for Your Wallet: The Australia Card' Prometheus 5, 1 (June 1987) 29-45. Republished in Computers & Society 18, 1 (January 1988), with an unrefereed Addendum in Computers & Society 18, 3 (July 1988)
10. Author (1992) 'The Resistible Rise of the National Personal Data System' Software Law Journal V, 1 (January 1992) 29-59
11. Author (1985) 'Impact on Practitioners of the Australian Law Reform Commission's Information Privacy Proposals' Australian Computer Journal 17, 2 (May, 1985) 76-84
12. Co-Author & Author (1986) 'A Critique of the Australian Law Reform Commission's Information Privacy Proposals', Journal of Law and Information Science 2, 1 (August 1986) 83-110
13. Author (1994d) 'Information Technology: Weapon of Authoritarianism or Tool of Democracy?' Proc. 13th World Computer Congress, Elsevier, Hamburg (September 1994) 588-596
14. Author (1988b) 'Economic, Legal and Social Implications of Information Technology' unrefereed Issues & Opinions article, MIS Quarterly 12,4 (December 1988) 517-519
ALRC (1983) 'Privacy' Report No. 22, Austral. L. Reform Comm., Austral. Govt Publ. Service, 3 vols. 1983
Author (1993-94) 'Asimov's Laws of Robotics: Implications for Information Technology' IEEE Computer, 26, 12 (December 1993) 53-61 and 27,1 (January 1994) 57-66
Bennett C.J. (1992) 'Regulating Privacy' Cornell U.P., Ithaca, 1992
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Brenton M. (1964) 'The Privacy Invaders', Coward-McCann, 1964
Burnham D. (1983) 'The Rise of the Computer State' Random House, 1983
Couger J.D. (1989) 'Preparing IS Students to Deal With Ethical Issues' MIS Quarterly 13, 2 (June 1989) 211-218
Cowen Z. (1969) 'The Private Man' Boyer Lecture Series, Aust. Broadcasting Comm. 1969
Culnan M.J. (1993) '"How Did They Get My Name?": An Exploratory Investigation of Consumer Attitudes Toward Secondary Information Use' MIS Quarterly 17, 3 (September 1993) 341-363
Davies S. (1992) 'Big Brother: Australia's Growing Web of Surveillance' Simon & Schuster, Sydney, 1992
Dunlop C. and R. Kling (Eds.) (1991) 'Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices' Academic Press, 1991
FACFI (1976) 'The Criminal Use of False Identification: the Report of the Federal Advisory Committee on False Identification', U.S. Dept of Justice, 1976
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HEW (1973) 'Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens: Report of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems' (U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare) M.I.T. Press 1973
Keen P.G.W. (1980) 'MIS Research: Reference Disciplines and a Cumulative Tradition' Proc. 1st Int'l Conf. Inf. Sys. Philadelphia, December 1980, 9-18
Kling R. (1978) 'Automated Welfare Client Tracking and Welfare Service Integration: The Political Economy of Computing' Commun. ACM 21,6 (June 1978) 484-93
Kling R. (Ed.) (1996) 'Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices' 2nd Edition, Academic Press, San Diego, 1996
Laudon K.C. (1974) 'Computers and Bureaucratic Reform' Wiley, New York, 1974
Laudon K. (1986a) 'Data quality and due process in large interorganisational record systems' Commun. ACM 29,1 (Jan 1986)
Laudon K.C. (1986b) 'Dossier Society: Value Choices in the Design of National Information Systems' Columbia U.P., NY, 1986
Lindop N. (1978) 'Report of the Committee on Data Protection' Cmnd 7341, HMSO, London, 1978
Long E.V. (1967) 'The Intruders' Praeger, New York,1967
MacFarlan W. (1986) 'Editorial' MIS Quarterly 10,1 (March 1986)
MacFarlan W. (1988) 'Editorial' MIS Quarterly 12,1 (March 1988)
Marx G.T. (1985) 'The New Surveillance' Technology Review (May-June 1985)
Marx G.T. & Reichman N. (1984) 'Routinising the Discovery of Secrets' Am. Behavioural Scientist 27,4 (Mar/Apr 1984) 423-452
Miller A.R. (1972) 'The Assualt on Privacy' Mentor, 1972
Morison W.L. (1973) 'Report on the Law of Privacy' N.S.W. Govt. Printer, Sydney, 1973
Mykytyn K., Mykytyn P.P. Jr, and Slinkman C.W. (1990) 'Expert Systems: A Question of Liability' MIS Quarterly 14,1 (March 1990) 27-42
NSWPC (1976-) Annual Reports, and reports on particular issues as available, N.S.W. Privacy Committee, Sydney
OECD (1980) 'Guidelines for the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data' Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, 1980
OTA (1981) 'Computer-Based National Information Systems: Technology and Public Policy Issues' Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United States, Washington DC (September 1981)
OTA (1986) 'Federal Government Information Technology: Electronic Record Systems and Individual Privacy', Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the United States, Washington DC, OTA-CIT-296, June 1986
Oz E. (1992) 'Ethical Standards for Information Systems Professionals: A Case for a Unified Code' MIS Quarterly 16,4 (December 1992) 423-433
Packard V. (1964) 'The Naked Society' McKay, New York, 1964
PCA (1989-) Annual Reports, and reports on particular issues as available, Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, Sydney
PPSC (1977) 'Personal Privacy in an Information Society' Privacy Protection Study Commission, U.S. Govt Printing Office, 1977
Rosenberg J.M. (1969) 'The Death of Privacy' Randon House, 1969
Roszak T. (1986) 'The Cult of Information' Pantheon, New York, 1986
Rule J.B. (1973) 'Private Lives and Public Surveillance' Allen Lane 1973
Rule J.B. (1983) 'Documentary Identification and Mass Surveillance in the U.S.' Social Problems 31:222-234 December, 1983
Rule J.B., McAdam D., Stearns L., Uglow D. (1980) 'The Politics of Privacy' Elsevier, New York, 1980
Smith H.J., Milberg S.J., and Burke S.J. (1996) 'Information Privacy: Measuring Individuals' Concerns About Organizational Practices' MIS Quarterly 20, 2 (June 1996)
Smith R. E. (1974-) 'Privacy Journal', Providence RI, monthly since November 1974, and 'Compilation of State and Federal Privacy Laws', Providence RI, annually since 1974
Straub D.W.Jr and Collins R.W. (1990) 'Key Information Liability Issues Facing Managers: Software Piracy, Proprietary Databases, and Individual Rights to Privacy' MIS Quarterly 14, 2 (June 1990)
Thompson A.A. (1970) 'A Big Brother in Britain Today' Michael Joseph, 1970
Warner M. & Stone M. (1970) 'The Data Bank Society: Organisations, Computers and Social Freedom' George Allen & Unwin, 1970
Weber R. (1987) 'Toward a Theory of Artifacts: A Paradigmatic Basis for Information Systems Research' The Journal of Information Systems, 1, 2 (Spring 1987) 3-19
Westin A.F. (1967) 'Privacy and Freedom' Atheneum, NewYork, 1967
Westin A.F. (Ed.) (1971) 'Information Technology in a Democracy' Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1971
Westin A.F. and Baker M.A. (1972) 'Databanks in a Free Society' Quadrangle/N.Y. Times Book Co. 1972
Ytterstad P., Akselsen S., Svendsen G., and Watson R.W. (1996) 'Teledemocracy: Using Information Technology to Enhance Political Work' MIS Quarterly 20,3 (September 1996)
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