Welcome to victorwanningen.com


Dear Visitor,

Currently this site is under construction. In the near future you will find my digital portfolio here. For the time being, in case you want to contact me you can send me an e-mail, or you can contact me via facebook. In addition, I keep a blog at victorwanningen.waarbenjij.nu, with associated photographs to be found at Picasaweb. Below you will find my brief academic biography, followed by a summary of my recently completed master’s thesis research project entitled: ’Policy in Socio-Technical Transition: The Case of Consumer Privacy Protection for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Retail’.

Best wishes,

Victor Wanningen

Academic biography

Victor Wanningen holds a Bachelor Degree in Telematics, i.e. a specialization in computer science focusing on computer networks. In addition, Victor holds the internationally and multidisciplinary oriented Master Degree in Philosophy of Science Technology and Society. Victor completed these degrees at the University of Twente located in Enschede in the Netherlands. Currently Victor is enrolled in the PhD program in Public Policy offered by the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology located in Atlanta in the United States. In addition, Victor is a research associate of the Internet & Public Policy Project (IP3) associated with the School of Public Policy. Victor’s main objective is to specialize himself in the area of Innovation Policy for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), IT Policy for short. This specialization area is contextualized within a larger field that examines the societal transition to a state of affairs in which the physical world of people and object gets integrated with the virtual world of the Internet or Cyberspace. Key notions in this field are the information society, globalization, Internet governance, the Internet of things, ambient intelligence, ubiquitous computing, and cloud computing.

Master’s thesis research project:
’Policy in Socio-Technical Transition: The Case of Consumer Privacy Protection for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Retail’

Within the Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society (PSTS) master’s program, Victor enrolled in the Science, Technology and Society (STS) specialization track that offers an internationally and multidisciplinary oriented approach to scientific and technological innovation that takes place within its societal context. Victor specialized himself in science and technology innovation policy by taking the PRIME pathway within the STS track. Victor carried out his master’s thesis research project in Europe at the University of Twente, working with dr. ir. Ellen van Oost and Prof. Stefan Kuhlmann. In addition, Victor visited the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GaTech) in Atlanta in the United States for seven months. At GaTech Victor had the opportunity to work with Prof. Hans Klein, a specialist in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy.
In his research, Victor focused on understanding the innovation policy dynamics concerning an emerging technology. Specifically, he performed a case study concerning the emerging application of the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology on consumer products in the European retail sector. In essence, RFID is an emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that enables the wireless identification, tracking, and tracing of entities, such as objects, animals, and even humans. As RFID is applied on consumer products, it could facilitate in ubiquitous consumer surveillance. This as RFID carries the potential for covertly tracking consumers by means of tracking their purchases outside and inside the retail store. The key issue associated with RFID therefore is the unprecedented risk to violating consumers’ privacy.
In order to get the empirical data to inform his research Victor visited the RFID pilot projects that are undertaken by the METRO Group, the biggest retailer in Germany. Since 2003, the METRO Group has been pioneering with the application of RFID under real-life conditions on individual groceries in the supermarket and on garments in the department store. In addition, Victor interviewed actors from organizations that have influence on the policy processes and policy outcomes in the so-called policy-making arenas for consumer privacy regulations of RFID. Finally, Victor attended a public policy conference and a business conference on RFID to get in-depth insights in the latest policy developments and latest state of the technology.
In his thesis, Victor enabled to conceptualize the emerging regulations for protecting consumer privacy for the emerging application of RFID in the European retail sector. This by conceptualizing it in terms of an emerging governance regime that consists of connected multi-level and multi-stakeholder connected policy-making arenas in which there are different policy processes yielding policy outcomes for collective action. Victor introduced the concept of a policy niche to conceptualize this emerging regulatory capability for protecting consumer privacy for the emerging application of RFID in the European retail sector.
In conclusion, the endeavor of conducting multidisciplinary research in an international context stimulated Victor to pursue a career in academic research. In case you desire to get a hold of a copy of Victor’s master’s thesis entitled: ’Policy in Socio-Technical Transition: The Case of Consumer Privacy Protection for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Retail’, you can download it here. Moreover, below you find a photograph of Victor and his graduation committee that was made during his graduation on the 25th of June 2009. From left to right the photograph depicts: dr. ir. Ellen van Oost, Victor, Prof. Hans Klein, and Prof. Stefan Kuhlmann.



Copyright © 2009-2010 Victor Wanningen