The wonderful world of data protection – an academic odyssey

First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I’m pro data protection. Point blank. Data protection is an important aspect of privacy, and I consider privacy to be one of the most important values of contemporary societies. Hell, I have even pointed out the detrimental potential of data collection, transfer, and processing in several articles on discrimination and trusted traveler programs. But right now, data protection is driving me nuts. How come? We might call this a chain of unfortunate circumstances, but data protection has successfully blocked my research for a couple months now. 

Speculate this!

I'm reading this right now... has anyone read this and would like to share their thoughts? (Here's some very little info on the book on the Duke University Press website)

RGS 2014 - a surveillance recap

It’s been a while since the last conference recap – so here we go again! Surveillance studies has been a multi-disciplinary field from the outset, and particularly geographers have investigated the production and transformation of space through techniques of surveillance and control.

Teaching resources

The STS & Surveillance Repository is slowly accumulating a useful list of teaching resources about surveillance for academic and non-academic education. Our latest addition: the SurPRISE documentary films. Please take a look at our list, and let us know if anything is missing!

CfP: 3rd International LAVITS Symposium, Rio

With the nuisance of the world cup gone, one might finally decide to go to beautiful Rio again - so here's that matching call for that: 3rd International LAVITS Symposium on "Surveillance, Tecnopolitics, Territories", 13-15 May 2015

"International Wave at Surveillance Day", 16 August

Alright, the blog has been rather quiet (not to say: abandoned) over the past couple months. For me personally, this was due to wrapping up one research project, starting two new grants and making the final push of writing my PhD - hopefully that's a good enough excuse! :) Nonetheless, here we are back on track, and with a neat little note: apparently, on 16 August, it's the 4th "International Wave at Surveillance Day!"

So let's not discuss the fact that most of the greeting actions likely won't ever seen by a human operator (but vanish in automated algorithmic video analytics instead), and just smile at a CCTV camera - turning the fact of being under surveillance into a playful pretense of an ol' times panopticon. Whatever the rationale behind this might be (I'm still trying to figure it out...), here's the announcement!

Springer Handbook on Internet Research

Just in case your writing schedule is not yet stacked to the maximum - here's another call for authors! Springer is looking to put together a second volume of their "International Handbook of Internet Research" and they need contributors. Here's the full details:

After the remarkable success of the first International Handbook of Internet Research (2010), Springer has contracted with its editors to produce a second volume. This new volume will be arranged in three sections, that address one of three different aspects of internet research: foundations, futures, and critiques. Each of these meta-themes will have its own section of the new handbook.

SAGE Encyclopedia on Surveillance

Right, so the blog has been quiet for some time now, but this one is in fact core business for our interests: SAGE is putting together an encyclopedia on surveillance, security and privacy. Sounds like an all-encompassing approach and they are still looking for contributors. Here's the full announcement:

Although surveillance has been dominating headlines with revelations by Edward Snowden that the NSA has been tracking phone calls worldwide, surveillance of citizens by their governments actually has been conducted for centuries.

CFP: Big Brother - Big Data

The calls for the EASST 2014 conference in Torun are up! And here's the first call relevant to surveillance & STS (on Big Data!). To submit a paper, visit the conference website.

CfP: Questioning security devices

Security dialogue is putting together a special issue on security technologies in the broader sense of devices used for security purposes (including paper files). I don't know the journal too well, but the call does seem perfect for folks working at the intersection of STS and security/surveillance. Deadline for abstracts is February 15, 2014. Here's the original call:

CPDP14 - a surveillance recap

After the recent flurry of Calls, here's another conference recap with relevance to STS and surveillance studies. This year's edition of CPDP, which took place in Brussels last week, was indeed heavily coined by the “Snowden revelations” and the ensuing international political debates on PRISM, Upstream, and whatnot. Thus, while CPDP13 had its main scope on the (still ongoing) reform of the European data protection framework, this year it was all about the relationship between privacy (and data protection) and security and surveillance. Highly intriguing! [oh, and just to respond to an emerging theme of the STSS repository: there was pleasantly little explicit talk of “Big Data” - however it was of course always implicitly present as the specter that haunts contemporary discourses on privacy and data protection :)]

CRISP doctoral school

The Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) will have its second doctoral school on June 16-24 in Milton Keynes, UK. Francisca, Matthias and I had the pleasure to go last year. It was fantastic, because beyond discussing our doctoral research, it also inlcuded sessions on publishing, funding, and engagement with the media, as well as a bunch of lovely people. The deadline for applications is March 14. Here's a list of activities this year's doctoral school will include, and you can find out more on their website:

CfP: Politics of ICT

Here's one of the calls of the Graz conference on critical issues in STS that I posted here a while back. Sounds great for people who conduct research into algorithms, big data, development processes of surveillance technology, and the like. The deadline for abstracts is approaching soon, but here it is:

CfP: Data & Discrimination

Here's another one about data (this time without the "big" in the title). The call sounds great though, it's about one of the core questions of surveillance studies and focuses on discrimination. It seems that it's organized by communication scholars. Here's the call:

New Journal: Big Data & Society

I've had this in my inbox for a while but didn't get around to posting it, so here it is. There's a new journal relevant to both surveillance studies and STS; and guess what: it deals with big data. It's called Big Data & Society, and is a peer-reviewed, online-only, open access journal. I think it's fantastic that they want to fully exploit the possibilities of the digital format, i.e. by linking tohether different kinds of audiovisual media, or by including forms of knowledge beyond the traditional academic article (i.e. blogs). Here's an excerpt from their about page:

Conference Recap: Police Symposium on New Technologies

After the recent wave of calls for highly interesting events, it's about time for some original stuff! So here's a brief recap of a conference I attended last week - and this one was in fact quite different from the regular academic experience, which makes it all the more interesting. The federal law enforcement agencies of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well as the "Landespolizei" of Bavaria organized a tri-national conference on "new technologies" which was held in the VIP lounge of the Berne hockey stadium. This year was in fact the 4th edition of the event, setting the scope on ubiquitous computing (find the agenda here). But of course it was all about Big Data - surprise!

Call for Tracks @ EASST 2014

The organization of EASST 2014 in Torun is slowly coming up, and the organizing team is calling for tracks, which then will be turned into CfPs. This is a really good opportunity to team up and push your research agenda, particularly because the 2014 topic wants to draw attention to issues of social inequality. Learning my lesson form the 4S, something with Big Data in the title might be a good idea, although:

Quote attributed to Dan Ariely of Duke University. Picture via beyondanalysis.net

That being said, here's the original call for tracks:

Help needed for cryptoparties // Berlin area

For those who are in the Berlin area and are interested in activism: Hauke Laging is looking for help to bring CryptoParties to the Technical and Free Universities in Berlin. Cryoptoparty is an international initiative to learn together how to use basic cryptographic tools; i.e. how to send and receive encrypted emails, or how to encrypt sensitive data on your hard drive. And because almost everything is more fun with beer, it's a party. Hence their motto: "Party like it's December 31st, 1983". If you're interested, contact Hauke at hauke [dot] laging [at] openpgp-schulungen [dot] de. And for those who aren't based in Berlin, but are interested in the concept of cryptoparties, here's the website and the link to their handbook.

ISTC-Social Symposium on Information Materialities

The ISTC-Social hosts a symposium on the materialities of information at UC Irvine. Both full-fledged studies and work in progress are encoraged. So if you're in the area, this might be an excellent opportunity to discuss your ongoing work. Surveillance-related submissions are explicitly welcome! Note that the deadline has been extended to November 21. Here's the original call:

Discipline and Punish Audiobook

Is this nerdy? Geeky? Brilliant? I'm not sure, but it's definitely too cool NOT to post it. Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" was released as an audiobook version, narrated by Simon Prebble. Listen to a preview sample here! :)