News Archive: 2009

New Book- Privacy in Context

Congratulations to Helen Nissenbaum on her new book Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy and the Integrity of Social Life , published by Stanford University Press.

Privacy is one of the most urgent issues associated with information technology and digital media. This book claims that what people really care about when they complain and protest that privacy has been violated...

New Book- Coming to Terms with Chance

Congratulations to Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. on his new publication Coming to Terms With Chance: Engaging Rational Discrimination and Cumulative Disadvantage , published by Ashgate.

This book examines the application of probability and statistics to an ever-widening number of life decisions that serve to reproduce, reinforce, and widen disparities in the quality of life that different groups of people...

The Vancouver Statement

A group of researchers who participated in the Surveillance Games Research Workshop Nov. 20-21 in Vancouver, B.C. have drafted a joint statement on security, surveillance and mega-events for public release.

The "Vancouver Statement" has been signed by international experts specializing in the areas of surveillance, privacy and mega-events and is now being circulated to media,...

New Book- Schools Under Surveillance

Congratulations to Torin Monahan & Rodolfo D. Torres (editors) on their new book: Schools Under Surveillance: Cultures of Control in Public Education

Description:

Schools under Surveillance gathers together some of the very best researchers studying surveillance and discipline in contemporary public schools. Surveillance is not simply about monitoring or tracking individuals and their data—it...

Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's U

A proposal to provisionally establish a faculty-based Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University has received approval. 22 October 2009. I am pleased to report that our proposal to provisionally establish a faculty-based Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University has received approval from Queen’s principal Daniel Woolf. A Surveillance Studies Centre (SSC), replacing but building on the former Surveillance Project, will...

Call for Papers -Surv and Society Conference

A Global Surveillance Society? The Fourth Biannual Surveillance and Society Conference

Supported by the Living in Surveillance Societies (LISS) COST Action and the Surveillance Studies Network

City University London, UK April 13 – 15, 2010 Overview:

Surveillance has become a ubiquitous feature of living in the global north, with citizens routinely monitored by a...

New MA in Surveillance Studies

City University London now offer an MA in Surveillance Studies.

Surveillance studies is a rapidly expanding research field which investigates the wide-ranging role of surveillance in social, cultural, economic and governmental processes.

The MA, the first of its kind in the world, builds on the research strengths of the sociology department and is delivered by leading...

Call for Papers on Surveillance and Society

XVII International Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology 11-17 July 2010 Gothenburg, Sweden Session 1: Surveillance and Popular Culture

This session will analyze overlaps between popular media representations of surveillance and actual surveillance practices. Attention will be given to the role of media in translating public concerns over new surveillance systems and the influence of media upon the...

Call for Participants

Preempting Dissent: Open Sourcing Secrecy

An Open Source Documentary Film Project Call for Videos, Testimonials, Photographs, and other Audio Visual Materials This project examines new forms of social control including the proliferation of Tasers and the rise of “no-fly” and watch-lists. We are seeking contributions to this project in the form of video, still images, and testimonials. This content...

SCAN Workshop

Camera Surveillance in Canada: A Research Workshop January 14-16*, 2010, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Sponsored by the 2009-2010 Contributions Program of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), Ottawa

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Sorting Daemons: Art, Surveillance Regimes and Social Control at the...

Deep-Packet Inspection in Canada

Colin Bennett and Christopher Parsons have received a grant for $28,211 from the Federal Office of the Privacy Commissioner under the Contributions Program to develop a repository of information about Deep-Packet Inspection in Canada.

Read the official OPC announcement here: ://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nr-c_090529_cp_e.cfm

Mat Johnson wins essay prize

Mat Johnson is the 2008-09 winner of a new Essay Contest established by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

The paper entitled "Protecting Privacy in Public: The Need for Public Surveillance Regulation in Canada", was written under the supervision of Professor Art Cockfield, who encouraged Mat to enter this new essay contest. Mat will receive $2,500 for...

SCAN Awarded OPC Funding

The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner (OPC) has awarded SCAN (Surveillance Cameras Awareness Network, an affiliated pan-Canadian group of The Surveillance Project) $50,000 to complete research and produce a report on Video Surveillance in Canada and to mount an international research workshop on the same theme.

Read the official OPC announcement here: http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nr-c_090529_cp_e.cfm

Privacy and Surveillance at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games

New report available by Philip J. Boyle and Kevin D. Haggerty on Privacy Games: The Vancouver Olympics, Privacy and Surveillance . Prepared for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Under the Contributions Program, March 2009.

New Book: Lessons from the identity trail

Congratulations to Ian Kerr, Valerie Steeves and Carole Lucock on their edited collection Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society .

This book examines key questions about anonymity, privacy, and identity in an environment that increasingly automates the collection of personal information and relies upon surveillance to promote private and public sector...

New Report on Facial Recognition Technology

Facial Recognition Technology: A Survey of Policy and Implementation Issues , by Lucas D. Introna and Helen Nissenbaum, now available.

The report highlights the potential and limitations of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), noting those tasks for which it seems ready for deployment, those areas where performance obstacles may be overcome by future technological developments or sound operating...

Surveillance Games

By Philip J. Boyle and Kevin D. Haggerty

February 25, 2009

Now that the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics are receding into memory, we can contemplate the wider significance of this travelling five ring circus. The games now amount to a machine for change, initiating processes that operate at different levels to produce legacies that reverberate long after the...

News Series on The Surveillance Society

Don Butler has written a week-long series on the surveillance society in the Ottawa Citizen , involving several members of The New Transparency Project .

See the following stories:

Surveillance Series, Ottawa Citizen 2009 by Don Butler

Part I: A very different world Since 9/11 the use of close-circuit TV cameras has exploded

Part II: Devil in the details When it comes to social sorting, you are what you eat, buy, surf, post

Part III: Social networking or social spying?

Part IV: Keeping tabs goes high-tech More and more, we're spying on each other — and it's getting easier

Part V: You've been targeted

Call for paper proposals - Surveillance Games

Call for paper proposals for a workshop on "The Surveillance Games" Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre, Vancouver, BC. November 20-22, 2009

Congratulations to Jason Pridmore

Congratulations to Jason Pridmore on his new position as senior researcher at the DigIdeas project under the direction of NewT collaborator Irma van der Ploeg at Zuyd University in The Netherlands.