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The 5th International CPDP Conference (CPDP2012) 'European Data Protection: Coming of Age' was a big success! Many thanks to the organisers and all participants!
For more information please visit
webpage.

Follow our blog at http://vublsts.wordpress.com/

M. Hildebrandt & A. Rouvroy (2011) Law, Human Agency and Autonomic Computing. The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology. Routledge, 248 p. available now!
Content & Order

S. Gutwirth, Y. Poullet, P. De Hert & R. Leenes (2010) Computers, Privacy and Data Protection: An Element of Choice. Springer, 457 p. available now!
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The User Empowerment in a Social Media Culture (EMSOC) project has been launched.
Its goal is to critically assess to what extent and how people are empowered or disempowered by their everyday use of social media.
For information please visit
The project website

E. Mordini & P. De Hert (2010) Ageing and Invisibility, IOS Press, The Netherlands, 220 p. available now!
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CPDP 2009 Book "Data Protection in a Profiled World" available now!
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Release of the 2nd edition of the Think Privacy Campaign with LSTS contributions.
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The interdisciplinary Research Group on Law Science Technology & Society at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (LSTS) was established in November 2003 as a result of the transformation of the Centre for the Interaction Law & Technology (CIRT), which carried out research in the field of computer law (privacy and data protection, EDI, computer crime, intellectual property, ...), criminal investigation and police law, environmental law, the relationships between law and psychiatry, etc. since the early 1990s.

LSTS is devoted to analytical, theoretical and prospective research into the relationships between law, science, technology and society. Even if LSTS's core expertise is legal, we also have a strong experience and track record in legal theory, philosophy of sciences and bio-ethics, and we engage in criminological and STS-research too. Our scientific approach is characterised not only by analytical legal work, but also by conceptual reflection, speculative work and by multidisciplinarity. Since its foundation, LSTS comprises researchers of the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLWF) covering disciplines such as philosophy, philosophy of science, mathematics and logic. Since 2008, LSTS also comprise researchers in medical ethics and bio-ethics, linked to the faculties of philosophy and medicine.

LSTS has a well-established reputation in research concerning privacy and data protection, profiling technologies, ambient intelligence and 'autonomic computing' in a broader sense. Next to this LSTS research deals with the regulation of technology; with the impact of security and crime-fighting policies upon human rights; with issues at the crossroads of intellectual property law and science and technology; with the impact of profiling techniques and statistics on the law and the individual; with the participation of the citizens, civil society and publics, into science and technology policies (participatory Technology Assessment, rethinking representation) and with the legal and ethical issues relating to the commodification of human body material (focussing especially on organ transfer, biobanking and patenting of human body material). The team has been involved in internationally networked research projects and publishes widely.

Recent books & publications

Coessens Kathleen, Francois Karen, Van Bendegem Jean Paul (2012) Mirror neuron, mirror neuron in the brain, who's the cleverest of them all? From the Attraction of Psychology to the Discovery of the Social. Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol.46, n. 3.

Francois Karen (2012) Beyond the Human-Nature Dualism. Towards a Concept of Nature as Part of the Life-World. from Analecta Husserliana (in press).

Pinxten Hendrik, Francois Karen (2012) Ethnomathematics: A social and scientific issue / Etnowiskunde: maatschappelijke en wetenchappelijke keuze. from Volkskunde (forthcoming), vol.113.

Bellanova Rocco (2011) Following the Digitalised Rabbit: Biometrics, Bodies and Borders. The International Spectator, issue 1, vol.46, pp.152 - 154, published by Routledge.

Bellanova Rocco (2011) Waiting for the barbarians or shaping new societies? A review of Helen Nissenbaum-s Privacy In Context (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010). vol.16, n. 4, pp.391 - 395.

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Recent books & publications