In Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society, Firmin DeBrabander argues that rather than seeking to safeguard and revive privacy in the digital age, we should instead focus on becoming engaged citizens who contribute to a democ…
Category: surveillance
Book Review: Profit Over Privacy: How Surveillance Advertising Conquered the Internet by Matthew Crain
In Profit Over Privacy: How Surveillance Advertising Conquered the Internet, Matthew Crain explores the historical rise of surveillance advertising, showing how today’s digital landscape was shaped by decisions taken in the 1990s. Revealing the emergen…
Book Review: The Crowdsourced Panopticon: Conformity and Control on Social Media by Jeremy Weissman
In The Crowdsourced Panopticon: Conformity and Control on Social Media, Jeremy Weissman explores the role of ‘peer-to-peer’ surveillance through social media and how this is increasingly shaping our behaviour. This is a welcome addition to the scholarl…
Book Review: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff offers a comprehensive account of the new form of economic oppression that has crept into our lives, challenging the boundless hype that has often surrounded the activities of modern technology companies. While the book presents a decent history of the rise of surveillance […]
Managing secrets in higher education
In this re-post, Morten Hansen uses secrecy as a prism to deconstruct dynamics and processes in higher education. The reflections spring from various research projects on topics ranging from the Freedom of Information Act 2000, public-private partnerships, and new education markets. The post begins with experiences that Morten has had interviewing senior decision makers in the higher education sector as part of […]
As schools become suffused with ed-tech, is the only response to constant surveillance the right to remain silent?
The growing prevalence of ed-tech in schools has prompted concerns over the ability of students (and parents) to develop informed decisions towards how, why, when and who uses school data. As technologies increasingly make record of students’ every word and move, Velislava Hillman asks whether the constant monitoring, micromanagement and data collection of students can guarantee a safe environment for […]
Book Review: Scientists Under Surveillance: The FBI Files edited by JPat Brown et al
In Scientists Under Surveillance: The FBI Files, editors JPat Brown et al bring together obtained FBI files to offer an insight into FBI investigations into the life and research of some of the world’s most renowned scientists, showing this surveillance to be typically driven by fear, ignorance and senseless tip-offs. The collection sheds light on some of the most intrusive ways that powerful […]