Research Center for Public Space Information (SU)

Center Director: Ikuo Kaneko (Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance)

Campus: Shonan Fujisawa

Security cameras are installed everywhere, from convenience stores to apartment buildings. The N-system, which individually identifies all cars on highways, is in constant operation, and personal information is automatically registered in corporate databases. We now live in a society where your photo and personal information can appear on the internet just by walking down the street, even without you entering the information into a PC yourself. This trend of collecting and storing vast amounts of privacy-related information in public spaces is set to accelerate, whether we like it or not.

If information from public spaces is misused, there is a risk that our personal lives will be endangered. On the other hand, if we can create appropriate rules and operational systems to effectively utilize currently untapped information from public spaces, the quality of social services such as crime prevention, healthcare, and education will dramatically improve, and new businesses will emerge.

If information from public spaces is misused, there is a risk that our personal lives will be endangered. On the other hand, if we can create appropriate rules and operational systems to effectively utilize currently untapped information from public spaces, the quality of social services such as crime prevention, healthcare, and education will dramatically improve, and new businesses will emerge.

This center aims to enable the social and economic utilization of information from public spaces while strictly managing privacy issues, by leveraging knowledge, skills, and practical experience that integrate social systems and technology.

This center was established with the intention of applying to the Global COE Program.

Public space information, anonymization, privacy, personal information protection, information society infrastructure

This plan is based on the assumption of being selected for the Global COE Program in FY2009.

On the educational front, the focus will be on the Academic Advisory Board for students who have determined their courses following initial mentoring.

On the research front, we will advance comparative studies on the conceptual and practical handling of personal information and privacy in various countries. We will also begin designing and building a platform. The knowledge, know-how, software, and case studies gained from empirical research will be stored in a searchable and editable database, which will also include functions for running simulations under various conditions and analyzing the results.

Aiming for selection for the Global COE Program in FY2009, we examined the center's basic policies and objectives.

The center's objective was set as "to enable the social and economic utilization of information from public spaces while strictly managing privacy issues, by leveraging knowledge, skills, and practical experience that integrate social systems and technology."

To achieve this objective, we established a direction by taking the following concrete steps: (1) confirming the willingness of overseas partner institutions to cooperate; (2) on the research side, creating an overview design and annual milestones for two major platforms under development; and (3) on the educational side, examining curricula and course models for new courses in the Doctoral Programs.