PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIO-TECHNICAL SYSTEMS
Technology and Investment, 2012, 3, 13-17 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ti.2012.31003 Published Online February 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ti)
Privacy Negotiation in Socio-Technical Systems
Murthy Rallapalli1, Dinesh Verma1,2
1
Systems Engineering, IBM, Atlanta, USA
Systems Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, USA
Email: mr@us.ibm.com
2
Received October 30, 2011; revised November 30, 2011; accepted December 7, 2011
ABSTRACT
A socio-technical system (STS) is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society’s complex infrastructures and human behavior. In this sense, society itself, and most of its substructures, are complex socio-technical systems. This paper addresses a class of socio-technical systems, represented by web services in a number of domains and attempts to understand the possibility of empowering the web users and consumers to have a say in the development of privacy agreements. This paper examines the likelihood of the web users and consumers leveraging such a capability, should it exist. This should improve the way privacy agreements are handled that benefits both the service providers and the web users.
Keywords: Privacy; Socio-Technical System; Framework; Privacy Framework; Negotiating Protocol; Web Services
1. Introduction
A socio-technical system is defined as a mixture of people and technology. Depending upon what the system is addressing, it can become very complex. The actors in a
STS context diagram could include hardware elements, software elements, actual physical surroundings, people, procedures, laws & regulations, data sources and data structures. It is configurable meaning that particular components in the STS can change or adjust in response to new requirements over time. For instance, an e-commerce website may introduce payments by PayPal in
Privacy Negotiation in Socio-Technical Systems
Murthy Rallapalli1, Dinesh Verma1,2
1
Systems Engineering, IBM, Atlanta, USA
Systems Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, USA
Email: mr@us.ibm.com
2
Received October 30, 2011; revised November 30, 2011; accepted December 7, 2011
ABSTRACT
A socio-technical system (STS) is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society’s complex infrastructures and human behavior. In this sense, society itself, and most of its substructures, are complex socio-technical systems. This paper addresses a class of socio-technical systems, represented by web services in a number of domains and attempts to understand the possibility of empowering the web users and consumers to have a say in the development of privacy agreements. This paper examines the likelihood of the web users and consumers leveraging such a capability, should it exist. This should improve the way privacy agreements are handled that benefits both the service providers and the web users.
Keywords: Privacy; Socio-Technical System; Framework; Privacy Framework; Negotiating Protocol; Web Services
1. Introduction
A socio-technical system is defined as a mixture of people and technology. Depending upon what the system is addressing, it can become very complex. The actors in a
STS context diagram could include hardware elements, software elements, actual physical surroundings, people, procedures, laws & regulations, data sources and data structures. It is configurable meaning that particular components in the STS can change or adjust in response to new requirements over time. For instance, an e-commerce website may introduce payments by PayPal in