World-leading surveillance scholars gather in Stirling

The impact of new GDPR data protection regulations and the scandal of Facebook’s dark ads will come under the spotlight at a meeting of world-leading surveillance scholars in Stirling.

The two-day conference organised by William Webster, Professor of Public Policy and Management at the University of Stirling, is part of ‘The Big Data Surveillance’ project, which examines the relationship between big data and surveillance in security, marketing and governance contexts.

Professor William Webster.

This project focuses on the social, political and ethical issues generated by big data surveillance when it is used to predict outcomes, shape behaviours and determine life chances. 

Professor Webster, who is also director of the Centre for Research into Information Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) - a research centre dedicated to understanding the social impacts and consequences of technologically mediated surveillance, said: “In a world of fast-moving technology where sophisticated computerised processes are increasingly responsible for decision-making in a range of contexts, it is more important than ever for us to understand how these decisions are determined, how they impact on customers, service users and citizens, and importantly how such decision-making is held to account and governed.

“The Big Data Surveillance project is a very timely in that it brings together the world’s leading surveillance scholars to explore and examine these issues.” 

Academics from all over the UK, as well as the USA, Canada, Chile, France and Croatia, are attending the workshop which is being held at the Stirling Highland Hotel today and tomorrow (4-5 June).

Yuwei Lin, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Stirling, will also speak about Affective Labour in the Surveillance Economy.

The event will open with the keynote speech, On the Eloquence of Things: A Brief History of Computing, by Professor Jannis Kallinikos from the London School of Economics and Political Science.