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The paper connects two interrelated discourses: criticality assessments and cascading effects. During crises, crisis managers have to constantly assess and reassess the criticality of systems and elements in order to identify potential triggers for cascading effects and to distribute efficiently available resources for mitigation. To help practitioners to make the right decisions, models are needed for the preparation phase that extend their knowledge about dependency relations and critical system elements. To do so, the paper proposes a concept of dynamic interdependencies and criticality. It is argued that dependency relations and their impact on system elements are changing over time. We maintain that when elements and system either fail or become involved, or when resources become scarce and then regain availability, then the criticality of the individual element, the system, the resource, and finally the overall situation changes as well, either positively or negatively. This article also presents a software tool which models the dynamics of cascading crisis scenarios. Finally, this software is used to reconstruct an example of a cascading power failure to demonstrate how criticality evolves dynamically.

Cities can be seen as complex systems of heterogeneous processes with a high variety of different influences (e.g. social, infrastructural, economic, and political impacts). This especially applies for tasks concerning urban development of existing assets. The optimization of traffic flows, reduction of emissions, improvement of energy efficiency, but also urban climate and landscape planning issues require the involvement of many different actors, balancing different perspectives, and divergent claims. The increasing complexities of planning and decision processes make high demands on professionals of various disciplines, government departments, and municipal decision-makers. In the long term, topics like urban resilience, energy management, risk and resource management have to be taken into account and reflected in future projects, but always related to socio-spatial and governmental aspects. Accordingly, it is important to develop models to be able to understand and analyze the outcomes and effects of governmental measures and planning to the urban environment. Thus, a more systematic approach is needed – going away from welldefined city models to city system models. The purpose is to describe urban processes not only quantitatively, but to grasp their qualitative complexity and interdependencies, by modeling and simulating existing urban systems. This contribution will present the City System Model (CSM) concept closely related to an Urban Energy Planning use case, will highlight the methodology, and focus on first results and findings from an ongoing interdisciplinary research project and use case to improve the basis of information for decision-makers and politicians about urban planning decisions.

Mit den Mitteln einer Bildbeschreibung wird der Versuch unternommen, zu klaren, wie sogenannte Sichtbarkeitsregime erfasst werden konnen, um diese als Einheiten von sinnlicher Wahrnehmung, Macht und Raum zu verstehen. Grundlage hierfur bildet die Illustration zu einem Meeting the Challenge betitelten Bericht des European Security Research Advisory Boards von 2006, der die Agenda der Europaischen Sicherheitsforschung stark gepragt haben durfte. Alltag anzeigend fugt das Bild unmerklich Bedrohung und Sicherheit ineinander, reprasentiert nicht einfach Wirklichkeit, sondern erweist sich selbst als handlungswirksames Fragment dieser. Wahrend es Abstraktes mit Konkretem verbindet und konserviert, greift es als Bildakt auf den Betrachter aus, zieht diesen in Bann und zwingt ihn, sich in dem explizierten Netz aus Beziehungen zu positionieren. Anknupfungspunkt des Experiments bildet das klassische Problem der Bildbeschreibung, wonach sich kein Bild einfach in Sprache ubersetzen lasse, ohne es erneut sinnlichen Aufteilungen im Sinne Jacques Rancieres zu unterwerfen, die es dann selbst als ein Sichtbarkeitsregime ausweisen. Fur den Betrachter folgt hieraus aber, dass er die Bildtechnik als eine offene verstehen und sich von der einmal begriffenen Bildkonstruktion emanzipieren kann. Entsprechend sind hier auch Beobachtungen anzutreffen, die sich im Topologischen Manifest wiederfinden, insbesondere in den Abschnitten 5 und 7 zu den Sicherheitsraumen.

The existing literature on privacy impact assessments (PIA) considers such instruments as tools to produce knowledge and as part of risk management. This article wants to reconsider impact assessments as political tools, in which knowledge production can not be separated from negotiations between interests.

Sicherheitsbilder konnen als Resultate diskursiver Prozesse und Praktiken um Deutungsmuster verstanden werden. Unter Deutungsmustern werden Wissensbestande verstanden, die Wahrnehmungs-, Interpretations- und Handlungsprozesse leiten und kollektive Sinnzusammenhange herstellen. Auf Basis uberindividueller Wissensformen ermoglichen sie soziales Handeln. Ihre Orientierungsfunktion erzielen sie daher, dass sie Komplexitat reduzieren, Situationsentwicklungen antizipieren, soziale Gemeinschaft erzeugen. In ihrer Aktualisierung in der sozialen Praxis sind sie veranderbar und wandelbar. Soziale Deutungsmuster fliesen permanent in die Strukturierung sozialer Praxis ein und besitzen eine eigene soziale Realitat. Das Sicherheitsbild reprasentiert einen temporaren Konsens und dient als Referenzpunkt der Kommunikation uber gesellschaftliche Werte, Einstellungen und Relevanz- und Prioritatssetzungen – meist mit Bezugnahme auf konkrete Raume. In dem Beitrag werden exemplarisch funf Sicherheitsbilder herausgearbeitet. Sie reprasentieren in lokalen Situationen vertretenen Positionen und verdeutlichen, dass ein „Streit“ der Sicherheitsbilder unausweichlich ist.

Sicherheit und Stadt stehen in einem Spannungsverhaltnis. Einerseits verheisen Stadte Sicherheit, andererseits werden sie als Orte von Unsicherheit erlebt, wahrgenommen und auch etikettiert. Stadte bieten Schutz, bergen als Orte, an denen unterschiedliche Gruppen und Ordnungen aufeinandertreffen, aber ebenso Risiken und Gefahren. Diese Ambivalenz des stadtischen Raums hinsichtlich Sicherheit und Unsicherheit fuhrt zu immer wieder neuen Aushandlungen und Auseinandersetzungen

Terroranschläge und Kriege, Tsunami, Erdbeben, Vulkanausbrüche, Klimawandel, Ölpest, Finanzkrise - Berichte über »Katastrophen« sind längst medialer Alltag. Offen bleibt jedoch die Frage, welche Intentionen und Konsequenzen die zunehmende Verwendung des Katastrophenbegriffs durch Politik und Wirtschaft mit sich bringt. Die Beiträge des Bandes fragen daher: Dient der Begriff tatsächlich nur der Beschreibung - oder soll auch eine Atmosphäre des Ausnahmezustands geschaffen werden, die eine Anwendung von sonst nicht konsensfähigen Verfahren ermöglicht? Wohin führt es, wenn die Einordnung von Ereignissen in umfassende soziale Prozesse umgangen wird, wenn ihre Wahrnehmung als Konsequenz eingegangener Risiken ausbleibt?

The main challenge in implementing privacy and data protection in organisations is bridging the gap between law and practice. Most data controllers feel little incentive to put effort into this demanding process of translation from rule to action. We present an analysis of the fundamental transformation of the Deutsche Bahn corporation (DB) with regard to privacy and data protection policy and implementation. We argue that the scandal-afflicted organisation has started approaching data protection implementation as a problem of communication and negotiation. In full acknowledgement that insecurities exist and will always emerge as a function of business activities and technological changes, the goal of the DB's data protection officers is not to end up with a static set of rules and responsibilities, but to rebuild trust within the organisation and find ways to deal with insecurities in the future – openly and flexibly and in close dialogue with managers, employees, their representatives and the data protection authorities. The case thus exemplifies the role of communication in bridging the gap between law and practice.

The history of data protection could be narrated as a history of publicly celebrated data breaches. Recent years have seen massive leakages at many large companies, and scares about new invasive products and services. Google, Apple, and Facebook have become icons of an ‘information technology revolution’ and the ‘end of privacy’ at the same time. Other companies have been found to spy on their workforce, and states extend their surveillance systems in all secrecy.

The security field can be used as a burning lens to focus particular problems when it comes to the self-regulation of privacy: while the industry certainly represents a particular case when it comes to actor relationships, our analysis shows which questions need to be asked in order to understand existing structures and obstacles to privacy protection. The chapter is based on outcomes of recent research of the PATS project (Privacy Awareness Through Security Organisation Branding), including analysis of literature, websites, brochures and expert interviews. We argue that powerful obstacles lie in market structures that are obscure rather than provide incentives for self-regulation. These findings inform further thought about an Accountability principle with regard to the governance of privacy in different industries dealing with (personal) data. It is not enough to look at legal provisions and privacy statements when we want to assess the state of “health” of privacy and data protection in the EU—we need a thorough examination of the patient.

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively. This article is inspired by Haggerty and Ericson's notion of the `surveillant assemblage', which draws on philosophical concepts of Deleuze and Guattari in order to analyse the dynamics of contemporary increasingly extensive and intensifying surveillance. The surveillant assemblage has a twofold character. On the one hand it aims to increase visibility and on the other hand it works invisibly, `beyond our normal range of perception'. The surveillant assemblage offers a surveillance consensus. To disentangle this consensus this article focuses particularly on CCTV as a technology that is still visible. We analyse three aspects of the surveillance consensus, namely, correlating with the aesthetical concept of consensus, what we call (after Luhmann) (1) the illusion of total inclusion, which is hardened by (2) media arrangements and eventually by (3) regulation. We will refer to these three aspects empirically along with examples from the development of CCTV in the UK, France and Germany.

This article is based upon an analysis of the commonalities between CCTV and television. Although this article is not meant to contribute to media studies as a science, it will nonetheless use empirical data from diverse TV shows, time periods and regions to show the decisive role television plays in public acceptance and implementation of public surveillance technology, as well as in the construction of suspicion. Additionally, this article considers the technological similarities of CCTV and television by using TV data as a source of ethnographic material to understand the discriminating nature of visual surveillance technologies.