picture dy dfuster74 (@flickr)
On Friday 25 May 2012, LSTS researcher Irina Baraliuc will give a presentation to introduce her ongoing research related to the FWO project “Public and private use: an online private sphere in copyright?”. This LSTS lunch-seminar is to take place from 12am to 2pm, at VUB (Room 4C306).
A double panel and a seminar hosted by Theory Talks & Millennium
during the 2012 Annual Millennium Conference
October 20-22 2012, at the London School of Economics
Conveners: Rocco Bellanova, Julien Jeandesboz, Peer Schouten
Background
Technical devices such as algorithms, databases, and robots mediate the production of (in)security and the conduct of war; ‘non-places’ such as financial markets remap and reshape the exercise of state sovereignty; previously established distributions such as between ‘private’ and ‘public’ entities are increasingly entangled in hybrid assemblages. These and other heterogeneities of the international are part of a renewed focus on materialities and material practices in international relations (IR).
World politics is thus increasingly recognized as involving the participation of multiplicities of heterogeneous elements, many of which were until now smoothened out in mainstream IR accounts. When IR researchers shift their analytical lenses, they bring into focus agencies and practices that actively contribute to the assembling of the international—in doing so, they intervene in, and reformulate some of, IR’s most classical concerns. Point of departure for this workshop is that dealing with such seemingly new world politics, and accounting for these constitutive heterogeneities, however remains a difficult challenge.
Aim of the event
The main goal of the event is to bring together researchers that, in different ways, depart from an understanding of IR premised on homogeneity and engage with entanglements and multiplicities that go beyond rational choice and inter-subjective social constructions. The ambition is to foster debates and exchanges on shared concerns with accounting for heterogeneities in the international. In particular, the aim of this event is to bring to the fore the potentialities and pitfalls of working with ‘thinking tools’ that hail from beyond the traditional disciplinary horizons of IR, such actor-network-theory (ANT), science, technology and society studies (STS), or performance theories.
Further information can be found here.
privacy by Alan Cleaver (@flickr)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (VUB-LSTS), Trilateral Research & Consulting LLP and Privacy International are currently conducting research on privacy impact assessment (PIA). Our project, undertaken in the framework of the action grants of the EU’s Fundamental Rights & Citizenship Programme, is called PIAF: A Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for Data Protection and Privacy Rights.
Among the most important elements of our project are two workshops aimed at national data protection authorities and selected policy-makers. The goal of these workshops is to provide a briefing on the project deliverables and their key findings, seek feedback on work and discuss the next steps. The first workshop took place in Brussels on 12 October 2011 and was devoted to mapping the best elements of existing PIA frameworks. The second workshop will focus on the empirical research on contextual factors affecting the introduction of PIA frameworks in EU Member States, gathered as a result of a questionnaire survey of data protection authorities in the EU.
The second workshop will take place in Sopot, Poland on Tuesday, 24 April 2012, from 14:00 till 17:30. Please find the draft agenda here.
picture by sburke2478 (@flickr)
The PRISMS project will analyse the trade-off model between privacy and security and devise a more evidence-based perspective for reconciling privacy and security, trust and concern. It will examine how technologies aimed at enhancing security are subjecting citizens to an increasing amount of surveillance and, in many cases, causing infringements of privacy and fundamental rights. It will conduct both a multidisciplinary inquiry into the concepts of privacy and security and their relationships and an EU-wide survey to determine whether people evaluate the introduction of security technologies in terms of a trade-off. The project has been now officially launched, read the full press release here.
On March 15th 2012 LSTS Researcher Rosamunde van Brakel is co-presenting a paper with Gemma Galdon Clavell titled: Public order policing in crisis? Surveillance, kettling & #occupy at the Post-crash City: Security, Policing and Social Control workshop held at the Centre for Urban Research, University of York, UK.
Programme can be found here.
LSTS researcher Katja De Vries will discuss “Facebook and privacy” on Thursday 8th March 2012. Starting time: 14:00. Address: VUB, Pleinlaan 2, building D, room 108. Entrance fee: between 1 and 8,5 euros. In Dutch. More information can be found here.
LSTS researcher Rosamunde van Brakel will give a presentation on Monday February 27 titled “Ethical Reflections on the Surveillance of Children: A Difficult Balance between Care and Control” at the Ethics of Surveillance conference held at the University of Leeds, UK.
See for programme: Ethics of Surveillance conference
Three LSTS researchers will intervene today, 24 February 2012, at the 2012 International Legal Informatics Symposium (IRIS) taking place in Salzburg. Irina Baraliuc will give a presentation titled “Law and Technology of Online Profiles after Death“, whereas Raphaël Gellert and Dariusz Kloza will present “Can privacy impact assessment mitigate civil liability? A “precautionous” approach“. Detailed programme: here (pdf).
A Q&A of World Politics Review features Rocco Bellanova and Paul De Hert on the current debates surrounding the EU-US 2011 PNR agreement and on the PNR saga in general.
You can find their replies online.
You can spot some footage from the 2012 Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) International Conference (as well as a couple of LSTS researchers) during the first episode of Right On, a new programme from Euronews: “Our private lives on the web“.
