Privacy and Surveillance: Monitoring humans and monitoring human rights?

1. Background
2. Speaker Profiles
3. Recommended Resources
4. Audio Links

Background

As we all become more familiar with the 'online' lifestyle matters of security become more important. When we do venture outside, the number of surveillance cameras monitoring our every move evokes questions over the emergence of a 'Big Brother' state.

The development of Radio-frequency identification Devices (RFIDs) offer endless opportunities for data collection but with no real boundaries to how far they could be used. Paying for the bus may be one thing, but monitoring our shopping preferences is something quite different.  Like never before, issues of privacy and surveillance are very much at the forefront of people's minds.

In light of such developments, privacy laws must reflect the progress of technological developments and not lag behind.  As digital surveillance increases, the nature of what surveillance entails also changes. The barriers to surveillance that once existed now seem to be rapidly diminishing as the prospect of tracking the precise movements and behaviour of every individual seem to be a very real prospect.

Who should decide what information is collected and monitored? Is privacy a thing of the past? Is the society that George Orwell depicted a model to aspire to or a case study to avoid at all cost?

Hosted by Lord Neill of Bladen,  BioCentre invited guests to an assessment of the issues surrounding privacy and surveillance informed by key academics and industry
specialists within this field of study.

 

Speaker Profiles

Professor Nigel Gilbert
Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey
Chair of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s group on Privacy and Surveillance.

Speaking on: What's wrong with a bit of high?tech surveillance? The social and individual benefits and costs of developments in surveillance technologies.

Nigel Gilbert read for a first degree in Engineering, intending to go into the computer industry. However, he was lured into sociology and obtained his doctorate on the sociology of scientific knowledge from the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Michael Mulkay. His research and teaching interests have reflected his continuing interest in both sociology and computer science (and engineering more widely).

His main research interests are processual theories of social phenomena, the development of computational sociology and the methodology of computer simulation, especially agent-based modelling.

He has been previously been involved in a number of different European based projects. European Indicators, Cyberspace and the Science-Technology-Economy System (EICSTES), was a project funded by the European Union to develop indicators of how the Science-Technology-Economy system is being affected by the growth of the Internet. SIMWEB was a project aimed to provide European businesses in the digital contents sector with insights and tools which would enable them to take informed business strategy decisions and become more competitive by adapting their traditional business models.

Current projects which Professor Gilbert is involved with include ‘Network Models, Governance and R&D collaboration networks’ (NEMO) which seeks to investigate the interplay between political governance, structure and function of politically induced R&D collaboration networks, in particular the networks that have emerged in the European Framework Programmes. Also, ‘NewTies’ which is a project growing an artificial society using computer programming that develops agents—or adaptive, artificial beings—that have independent behaviours. The project is the first of its kind to develop a large-scale and highly complex computer-based society.

Professor Gilbert is the Director of the Centre for Research in Social Simulation as well as Director of the University's Institute of Advanced Studies and responsible for its development as a leading centre for intellectual interchange. Other professional activities include being the Chair of the Management Board of Sociological Research Online, Editor of the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation and a Member of Council of the Academy of Social Sciences.

He is the author or editor of several textbooks on sociological methods of research and statistics including 'From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills' (2006, Sage Publications) and 'Simulation for the Social Scientist' with Klaus G. Troitzsch (2005, Open University Press).

 


Mr. Simon Holloway
Practice leader for Bloor Research for RFID

Speaking on: Making your life easier with RFID.

Simon Holloway joined Bloor Research in 2007 as their Senior Analyst responsible for RFID, BPM and Manufacturing. He has written a number of white papers on RFID and 2 technical reports on the RFID Market as well as producing a number of product evaluations and articles. As of April 2008, Simon has become Practice Leader for RFID, BPM and Manufacturing.

Simon Holloway is a recognized European Authority on RFID. He was the European Lead for Microsoft for RFID whilst being their Manufacturing Industry architect and is now a member of the Microsoft RFID Partner Advisory Council. He has presented regularly at the RFID Networking Forum as well as contributed articles to RFID Today, RFID Update, www.IT-Analysis.com, PRIME, Manufacturing Computer Solutions and Manufacturing and Logistics. He is a member of RFID Tribe and UKRFID. He was recently the keynote speaker at RFID I Norden in Sweden.

Simon Holloway established Holloway Consulting in 2002. The company provides a range of quality coaching services to software companies and user organisations in all sectors of industry, commerce and the public sector based around the exploitation of technology. Holloway Consulting bring their experience of the relevant business sector and innovative skills to introduce fresh new ideas and different approaches to the business users and IT. In 2008, Simon was asked to assist with the launch of new consultancy company, ConstructRFID, for whom he is acting as technical adviser.

Simon Holloway has worked for a number of organisations, including Solidsoft, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Forté Software and Redfern Consulting, where he has built up a reputation for his ability to provide translation between the business and IT worlds. His background spans some 20 years as an IT consultant specialising in IS/IT strategy planning, information management, corporate data and process modelling, business process reengineering, software selection and project management.  He has worked in a wide variety of industry and service based companies including Cadbury Schweppes, PITO, British Airways, Glaxo and Scottish Widows.

 

Professor Roger Brownsword
Professor of Law, King’s College London

Speaking on:  Privacy, Fair Processing and Confidentiality in an Information Society.

Roger Brownsword, who is a graduate of the London School of Economics, is Professor of Law at King’s College London where he is Director of TELOS (the KCL centre for the study of technology, ethics and law in society); he is also an Honorary Professor in Law at the University of Sheffield; and he is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
 
In recent years, Professor Brownsword has acted as a special adviser to the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Stem Cell Research and, more recently, to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee for its report on hybrids and chimeras.
 
Professor Brownsword has written on a wide range of topics in law and ethics, including co-authoring Human Dignity in Bioethics and Biolaw (OUP, 2001) and Consent in the Law (Hart, 2007) (both with Deryck Beyleveld). He held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2003-2004 to start work on his book Rights, Regulation and the Technological Revolution, which was recently published by OUP, and he is co-editing (with Karen Yeung) a collection of papers on Regulating Technologies which will be published by Hart this Summer.

 

Professor Karen Yeung
Professor of Law, King’s College London

Speaking on:  Privacy, Fair Processing and Confidentiality in an Information Society.

After completing degrees in Law and Commerce at the University of Melbourne, Karen Yeung came to the UK in 1993 as a Rhodes Scholar.   Despite the sandy beaches, fine food and plentiful sunshine, the allure of Australia was not sufficiently strong to draw her back to her home country.  She has been a Professor of Law at Kings' College London since September 2006, following twelve years at Oxford University.   Her research explores the ways in which the law, alongside many other policy instruments, is used to shape and constrain social behaviour.  In so doing, she has been contributing to a growing body of scholarship on regulation and governance, which has evolved into a coherent academic discipline that draws together a number of related disciplines and sub-disciplines including law, sociology, politics, criminology, public administration, management and organisation studies, psychology, economics, and anthropology.  Professor Yeung has acted as an adviser to several regulators in both the UK and Australia.

Since moving to the Centre for Technology, Ethics, Law and Society (‘TELOS’) at King’s College London, she has focused her attention on new and emerging technologies.  Her current research explores how new technologies may be used as an instrument for regulating social activities and constraining human behaviour, and the broader socio-political and ethical implications of their use. Her recent books include Regulating Technologies, Hart Publishing (2008 forthcoming) co-edited with Roger Brownsword and An Introduction to Law and Regulation (2007) Cambridge University Press, co-authored with Bronwen Morgan.  She teaches Regulation and Governance (graduate) and Public Law (undergraduate) and is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

 

Lord Neill of Bladen QC

Patrick Neill received his legal education at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was an honorary scholar (Demy) and took a first in Law in 1950 and a first in BCL the following year. He was awarded the Gibbs Law Scholarship and made an Eldon Scholar.

In 1950 Neill was awarded a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. He remained a fellow until he became Warden of the College (1977-1995). He was Vice- Chancellor of Oxford University from 1985 to 1989.

On graduation he taught law at Oxford and from 1954 to 1957 was Lecturer in Air Law at the London School of Economics.

He was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1951, took silk in 1966, made a bencher of his Inn in 1971, and served as Treasurer of the Inn in 1990.

Neill was knighted in 1983 and created a Life Peer in 1997. He is an honorary Doctor of Law of Buckingham, Hull and Oxford universities and an honorary Fellow of two Oxford Colleges.

 

Resources

BioCentre Opinion article - The Orwell Reflex by Nick Spencer

Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance: Challenges of Technological Change - Report of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s group on Privacy and Surveillance.

BioCentre symposium report - Privacy and surveillance. Monitoring humans and monitoring human rights?

Audio

Audio recordings of this Symposium can be downloaded here