News and Research articles on Surveillance

Governing Chinese technologies: TikTok, foreign interference, and technological sovereignty

Ausma Bernot, Griffith University
Diarmuid Cooney-O'Donoghue, University of Warwick
Monique Mann, Victoria University of Wellington
PUBLISHED ON: 27 Feb 2024 DOI: 10.14763/2024.1.1741

In this article, we analyse attempts to regulate and control TikTok through the lens of foreign interference and technological sovereignty in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

Over the past fifty years, surveillance practices once considered untenable due to their incompatibility with democratic rights and values have been rebranded as tolerable, neutral, or even desirable.

The grey-zones of public-private surveillance: Policy tendencies of facial recognition for public security in Brazilian cities

André Ramiro, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society
Luã Cruz, State University of Campinas (Unicamp)
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Mar 2023 DOI: 10.14763/2023.1.1705

The article explores the regulatory “grey zones” in the deployment of facial recognition (FRT) in policing in Brazil, and the policy and civic responses to them.

An analysis of the EU data protection legislation and the AI Act proposal to assess, in light of the principle of proportionality, whether or not law enforcement authorities should be prohibited from using these technologies in "real time".

Cypherpunk

André Ramiro, Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec)
Ruy de Queiroz, Federal University of Pernambuco
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Apr 2022 DOI: 10.14763/2022.2.1664

Cypherpunk refers to social movements, individuals, institutions, technologies, and political actions that, with a decentralised approach, defend, support, offer, code, or rely on strong encryption systems in order to re-shape social, political, or economic asymmetries. ​

Digitally-disadvantaged languages

Isabelle A. Zaugg, Columbia University
Anushah Hossain, University of California Berkeley
Brendan Molloy, Independent researcher
PUBLISHED ON: 11 Apr 2022 DOI: 10.14763/2022.2.1654

Digitally-disadvantaged languages face multiple inequities in the digital sphere, with their speaker communities frequently experiencing the duality of digital neglect and surveillance. These languages suffer from gaps in digital support, and when support does exist, it often makes speaker communities vulnerable to surveillance and gaps in content moderation.

Regulatory arbitrage and transnational surveillance: Australia’s extraterritorial assistance to access encrypted communications

Monique Mann, Deakin University
Angela Daly, University of Strathclyde
Adam Molnar, University of Waterloo
PUBLISHED ON: 16 Sep 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.3.1499

This paper is part of Geopolitics, jurisdiction and surveillance, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Monique Mann and Angela Daly. Introduction Since the Snowden revelations in 2013 (see e.g., Lyon, 2014; Lyon, 2015) an ongoing policy issue has been the legitimate scope of surveillance, and the extent to which individuals and groups can assert their fundamental rights, including privacy. There has been a renewed focus on policies regarding access to encrypted communications, which are part of a longer history of the ‘cryptowars’ of the 1990s (see e.g., Koops, 1999). We examine these provisions in the Anglophone ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) The FVEY partnership is a comprehensive …

Transnational collective actions for cross-border data protection violations

Federica Casarosa, European University Institute
PUBLISHED ON: 16 Sep 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.3.1498

Although the GDPR paves the way for a coordinated EU-wide legal action against data protection infringements, only a reform of private international law rules can enhance the opportunities of data subjects to enforce their rights.

Geopolitics, jurisdiction and surveillance

Monique Mann, Deakin University
Angela Daly, University of Strathclyde
PUBLISHED ON: 16 Sep 2020 DOI: 10.14763/2020.3.1501

The internet is a forum for geopolitical struggle as states wield power beyond their terrestrial territorial borders through the extraterritorial geographies of data flows. This exertion of power across multiple jurisdictions, and via the infrastructure of transnational technology companies, creates new challenges for traditional forms of regulatory governance and the protection of human rights.

Data-driven elections: implications and challenges for democratic societies

Colin J. Bennett, University of Victoria
David Lyon, Queen's University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1433

In the wake of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is timely to review the state of the debate about the impact of data-driven elections and to identify key questions that require academic research and regulatory response. The papers in this collection, by some of the world’s most prominent elections researchers, offer that assessment.

Voter preferences, voter manipulation, voter analytics: policy options for less surveillance and more autonomy

Jacquelyn Burkell, The University of Western Ontario
Priscilla M. Regan, George Mason University
PUBLISHED ON: 31 Dec 2019 DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1438

Personalised political messaging undermines voter autonomy and the electoral process. Use of voter analytics for political communication must be regulated.