Privacy and Surveillance in the Quantum Age: Developments in Quantum Sensing Technologies and their Implications

In the quantum technology innovation landscape, quantum sensing technology (QST) gets relatively little attention. Compared to other quantum technologies, though, QSTs have a more advanced technology-readiness and wider possible application areas, ranging from defence, intelligence, space, biomedicine, mining, and environmental monitoring. QSTs may improve the performance of current advanced sensing systems and allow new applications, which could have significant societal implications. QSTs could play a crucial role in transforming the surveillance capabilities of state and non-state actors, such as of military, intelligence services, law enforcement and commercial entities. And with advanced computational capacity, these actors could wield enormous power in sensor data analysis. Most QSTs are currently being tested in lab environments, and it is hard to predict exactly how and where QSTs will be adopted. Still, developments in QSTs warrant an early exploration of policy implications and their possible effects on fundamental rights, privacy and data protection, in particular.

• What are the key properties of quantum sensing technologies and what are their potential applications? What opportunities do they bring and what are the challenges for deploying them outside of the lab?
• What are some of the notable investment developments and who are the key actors in the quantum sensing space?
• What are some of the main privacy law and policy implications of quantum sensing, and how can law respond to the dual-use nature of certain quantum sensing applications and contribute to the proper balance between the different societal interests implicated by quantum sensing technologies?
• What are some of the current issues, from a privacy and surveillance studies perspective, of advanced sensing applications?

Organised by Centre for Quantum & Society / Quantum Delta NL (NL)

Moderator Bengi Zeybek, University of Amsterdam (NL)

Speakers Philippe Bouyer, Quantum Delta NL (NL); Masa Galic, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL); Chris Hoofnagle, University of California (US); Henning Soller, McKinsey (DE)

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