In 2012 Law and Internet Foundation shall start its participation in RESPECT – a project supported by the European Commission, Section "Security", Subsection "Surveillance and challenges for the security of the citizen”. The project is created within the research network LexConverge. Prof. Joseph Cannataci is the main researcher and overall project coordinator as part of the University of Malta team. Bulgaria is in partnership with 19 other partners from 15 different countries.

RESPECT seeks to investigate if the current and the foreseeable implementation of informational and communicational technologies for surveillance of the citizens is balanced, determining on the grounds of different indicators “level of balance”, where a lack of balance may exist and how it is perceived by the citizens. The project studies the options for redressing in the “balance” through a combination of Privacy-Enhancing technologies and different operational approaches. The investigations are focused on five key sectors not yet tackled by other recent studies in this area (CCTV, database mining and interconnections, on-line social network analysis, RFID and geo-location/sensor devices and financial tracking). In addition RESPECT will also carry out quantitative and qualitative analysis on citizens’ awareness and attitude to modern forms for surveillance. RESPECT will produce an aggregate of tools that would enable policy makers to better understand socio-cultural, operational and economical significance of the surveillance systems. The project will prepare operational guidelines for the incorporation of protection of personal data by design approaches which would enable the executive authorities to implement similar systems with lowest privacy risk and maximum security gain to citizen upon using of their personal data.

Law and Internet Foundation shall manage Work Package 14 referring to the consolidation of significant information from studies conducted in the area of personal data protection, infringement of rights by the implementation of modern surveillance systems and social-economical price for their implementation. Dr. George Dimitrov, Chairman of the Law and Internet Foundation, is the Work Package Coordinator.