The Precautionary Principle in the Information Society

The Precautionary Principle aims to anticipate and minimize potentially serious or irreversible risks under conditions of uncertainty. Thus it preserves the potential for future developments. It has been incorporated into many international treaties and pieces of national legislation for environment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHuman and ecological risk assessment Vol. 10; no. 5; pp. 787 - 799
Main Authors Som, Claudia, Hilty, Lorenz M., Ruddy, Thomas F.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boca Raton Taylor & Francis Group 01.10.2004
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
information society
Information technology
precautionary principle
Principles
Risk assessment
Social impact
Sustainable development
technological risk
uncertainty
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Summary:The Precautionary Principle aims to anticipate and minimize potentially serious or irreversible risks under conditions of uncertainty. Thus it preserves the potential for future developments. It has been incorporated into many international treaties and pieces of national legislation for environmental protection and sustainable development. However the Precautionary Principle has not yet been applied systematically to novel Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their potential environmental, social, and health effects. In this article we argue that precaution is necessary in this field and show how the general principle of precaution can be put in concrete terms in the context of the information society. We advocate precautionary measures directed towards pervasive applications of ICT (Pervasive Computing) because of their inestimable potential impacts on society.
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ISSN:1080-7039
1549-7860
DOI:10.1080/10807030490513801