As the financial problems in the Euro zone rein on, I am drawn back to a dispute I read about in December 2014 when I was completing some work on credit scoring in the UK. This dispute also revolved around credit and the likelihood of payments. In this case, Bev Oates was calling for an investigation into the affairs of UK Credit Referencing Agencies. Oates had been involved in a commercial...
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Posted Sep 22nd 2015
Posted Sep 22nd 2015
Recently I rang the telephone numbers displayed on CCTV signs in order to gain access to my CCTV data. After all, this is my right. However, only 6 of the 17 organisations approached provided my data.
I have been researching in the area of surveillance and surveillance studies for a number of years now and I have a deep interest in how laws governing aspects of surveillance actually work...
Posted Dec 10th 2014
It is possible, desirable and respectful of human rights to conduct targeted surveillance on identified suspects with independent judicial oversight. It doesn’t appear feasible, however, to collect information on everything and everyone en masse. So why keep doing it?
The 2010 Conservative party election manifesto promised to ‘roll back the frontier of the database state’. It promised to...
Posted Jan 14th 2014
Revelations from Edward Snowden about the scope of intelligence activities in the UK have led to renewed attempts to enhance democratic oversight of the UK’s security services. The heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ appeared before the Intelligence and Security Committee for the first time, while Lord Macdonald called for strengthened parliamentary accountability. In this post, we ask democracy and...
by Frédéric Bisson CC BY
Posted Oct 29th 2013
The saturation of media coverage of surveillance and spying (including GCHQ, the Snowden revelations, Mrs. Merkel’s mobile), together with the furore over phone hacking, has elevated the salience of information and privacy issues in the public and political consciousness. Whether this attention will be converted into changes in policy and practice remains to be seen, as new public issues...
Posted Sep 18th 2013
A new game which looks at how much personal information people are willing to reveal freely online and its cost to them, has been launched by The Open University Business School. This game enables you to explore issues relating to surveillance encountered in everyday life.
Play the Privacy Game with friends or against the computer assuming the identity of various characters: Hacker, Bank...
Posted Sep 18th 2013
Hosted by: The Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP), University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK.
The Living in Surveillance Societies (LiSS) COST Action (IS0807) invites doctoral research students from any academic discipline to participate in an international Doctoral Training School to take place in February 2013. Participation in the School will be...
Posted Sep 17th 2013
CRISP has hooked up with the Royal Society of Arts to deliver a public workshop entitled 'Surveillance, Privacy and Security: Rights, Responsibilities and Challenges'.
The event will take place at the St Stephen Centre, Edinburgh on Saturday 21 March, 9.30am - 12.30pm
Speakers include: Professors Charles Raab, University of Edinburgh; William Webster, University of Stirling; and,...
Posted Sep 16th 2013
The IRISS project, funded by the EC under the 7th Framework Programme, has just published a major 412-page report entitled Surveillance, Fighting Crime and Violence. The report analyses the factors underpinning the development and use of surveillance systems and technologies by both public authorities and private actors, their implications in fighting crime and terrorism, social and economic...