News
6TH BIANNUAL SURVEILLANCE AND SOCIETY CONFERENCE
Barcelona, April 24-26, 2014
Major characteristics of surveillance are ambiguities and asymmetries. Surveillance is actuated from a variety of different desires and rationales. These might be: control, governance, security, profit, efficiency but also care, empowerment, resistance and play.
Therefore, the outcomes of surveillance can be perceived as positive or negative and may trigger intended or unintended consequences.
Among others, the conference will cover the following topics: Smart surveillance, democracy and surveillance, resilience and sTheories of surveillance.
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Federal Communications Commission Seeks Public Comment to Protect Phone Record Privacy
The public has been invited from the Federal Communications Commission to comment on a petition requesting the FCC to rule that the sale of consumer phone records to the government is a violation of the federal Communications Act.
French Data Protection Authority Fines Google for Data Consolidation
The French data protection authority (CNIL), has fined Google 150,000 Euro for consolidating the data of users. The decision results from an investigation, after the fail of the Google privacy policy in March 2012, which showed that Google combines user data across 60 Internet services to create detailed profiles on Internet users.
7th International Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference
Brussels, 22-24.1.2014
The annual three-day CPDP conference is dealing with the topics privacy and data protection. Each year, the conference gathers policy makers, academics, computer scientists, consultants, practitioners and activists from all over the world to share ideas and discuss emerging subjects in information technology, privacy, data protection and law.
NSA Surveillance: More Revelations at the European Council Meeting
At the European Council meeting in Brussels on Friday, new revelations about NSA snooping continued to appear, with the Italian “L’Espresso” magazine concentrating attention on the allegedly vast scale of US and British surveillance of phones and email in Italy.
European Parliament Committee Approves Comprehensive Privacy Law
The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties has voted to approve the EU data protection regulation. Before that, the committee members appointed stronger safeguards for data transfers to non-EU countries, an explicit consent requirement, a right to erasure, and larger fines for noncomplying businesses.
Google Plan to Use Names and Photos of Users for Advertising Without Consent
Google would like to change its Terms of Service to allow itself to utilize users’ profile names, profile photos and actions they take on Google or on third-party applications for advertisements. These changes authorize Google to take personal information for commercial use without seeking the affirmative consent of their users.
Amendment of Data Protection Rules
Today, Monday 21 October, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties will vote on amendments of several privacy and data protection rights in Europe. The recent detections surrounding government surveillance, which exposed the involvement of the biggest internet companies, illustrate the urgancy of a modification of the European privacy rules.
The New Surveillance Conference
November 30th until December 1st, Berlin
The New Surveillance – A critical analysis of research and methods in Surveillance Studies
A two-day International Conference hosted at the Centre for Technology and Society of the Technical University Berlin
In the last years surveillance technologies in everyday life have gained attention from the public. Especially the consequences of the emerging Surveillance Societies have been analyzed by an emerging, interdisciplinary, field of Surveillance Studies, including disciplines of Sociology, Psychology, Human Geography, Cultural Studies, Political Science, Criminology, Organisational Studies and Socio-legal Studies.
These studies started to:
- identify the potential of the new technologies,
- explore the organisational context of surveillance,
- examine the practice of surveillance in a diverse set of contexts.
Civil Liberties Inquiry On Surveillance
September 11, 2013
The Civil Liberties (LIBE) committee from the European Parliament hold a first hearing, attended by Jacques Follorou from Le Monde, Jacob Applebaum from the Tor and Wikileaks projects, Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of the Guardian, Carlos Coelho, EPP MEP and former chairman of the Echelon committee and Gerhard Schmid, former socialist MEP and rapporteur of the Echelon report and Duncan Campell, investigative journalist on the 5th of September.