I started writing about privacy about 20
years ago and no one taught me more
about what privacy is and why we should
care about it than Allen Weston as early
as the early 1960s Allen was thinking
and writing about privacy in a way that
would make a difference for the decades
to come he was the first to understand
the implications that computer
technology had as well as other kinds of
automated technology or personal privacy
he saw the tensions that today exists
between privacy and freedom and
individualization and all sorts of
things and control surveillance he saw
that all coming together well before
almost anybody else did his seminal book
privacy and freedom defined privacy as
the ability to control how much about
ourselves we will deal to others Allen
Weston early on understood the value of
bringing together a community of people
to work on privacy issues whether it was
from business government or advocacy
groups and some of that early work he
did in bringing groups together really
inspired the formation of the
International Association of privacy
professionals I can't think of a more
appropriate tribute to Allen's legacy
than the Western fellowships organized
by the ia PP to identify young promising
scholars and thinkers in the field of
privacy to support them to allow them to
do their work it marries two of his
great interest one of course privacy
research privacy writing the academic
side of his life's work with the other
side which is making it practical making
it meaning
well embedding it in America's
corporations we need people who are able
to look beyond just the immediate
problem to be solved beyond the
immediate profit to be made these
fellows I hope will be men and women of
not only great confidence in this but
also great foresight and
multidisciplinary because we're
realizing more and more it takes many
disciplines to attack these kind of
problems it will cultivate young
scholars and thinkers at precisely the
moment that they need the most support
and intellectual freedom and in that
sense it's just a perfect tribute to
Allen's legacy this has been such an
honor for Allen he's had lots of honors
as you can well imagine during his
professional life but he's been really
touched by this and he feels that this
program will be extraordinarily with his
fellowship and with other programs and
actions I think we're all taking to help
grow the ia PP and the professions I
hope that we will be and I know we're
going to be worthy stewards of Alan's
legacy privacy issues now permeate many
facets of our individual and family
lives our social and cultural minus our
state and national politics and key
relationships of us all with employers
businesses and government we have come
to realize that how well democracies
balance the competing demands of privacy
disclosure and surveillance will exert a
major influence on the quality of civic
life in the 21st century and that
shaping this balance will now have to be
done in the context of continuing
terrorist threats and actions in short
privacy is a quality of life topic worth
the best scholarship thoughtful advocacy
and continuing attention of us all thank
you very much for coming this evening
and we should all get to work
you