Our emerging information society - The challenge of large-scale information exchange in the constitutional state

This text presents the content of the author's inaugural address delivered on the occasion of the public acceptance of his chair at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of Utrecht University and also for the Faculty of Law, to work within the discipline of Information Science, and more specifically Chain-computerisation in the constitutional state. The field of study is introduced and illustrated by a chain analysis of the recently agreed plan to exchange information on criminal records within the European Union.