"Counter-Surveillance in an Algorithmic World" James Dutrisac, M.Sc. Student, Department of Computing, Thursday April 19, 12:30 pm, MC D528.

Counter-Surveillance in an Algorithmic World James Dutrisac M.Sc. Student, Department of Computing, Queen's University Supervised by: David Skillicorn

Currently counter-surveillance focuses mainly upon either subverting the process of collection (e.g. wearing a rubber mask), or subverting the action (e.g. changing one's name to suggest a different ethnicity). However, both of these approaches ignore a considerable part of the surveillance process, the analysis of the surveillance data. It is the analysis of surveillance data that allows for the building of the models that are used to sort people and objects. This work consists of two major components, the first of which is the delineation of the stages of surveillance, of which we argue that there are three: the collection, the analysis, and the action. In the next phase of this research we consider exactly what counter-surveillance means at the analysis stage. To do this, we explore how data may be manipulated to subvert analysis. We analyse three data-mining techniques, classification using both decision trees and support vector machines, and the development of assoociation rules using the a priori algorithm. Each of these commonly used algorithms have unsuspected and significant vulnerabilities that may be easily exploited. Read more about @title...

Randy Lippert, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Windsor, "CCTV Surveillance, Business Improvement Areas and the Free Rider".

Thursday, March 29th Location: Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room D411 Time: 12:30 to 2:00 pm

In downtown retail consumption zones in recent years, business improvement areas (BIAs) have facilitated 'open-street' CCTV surveillance and a range of new physical security provisions. Based on ongoing research, in this seminar Professor Lippert explores the BIA as a form of private urban governance that targets what are commonly called 'free riders'. He then examines in detail an effort to deal with free riders and an interrelated security crisis that recently erupted in one Ontario city's downtown core. Eventually implementing 'open-street' CCTV to confront the crisis, the role of the downtown BIA, privacy law and other forms of legality, and the transfer of a special form of knowledge, are elaborated with the aim of troubling some assumptions in recent studies of private security and CCTV surveillance. Read more about @title...

on Privacy and Surveillance, March 15, 2007 at 7:00Pm in Policy Studies room 202.

The technological revolution of the 1990s has profoundly changed the way that information flows in society. Every day we send numerous emails, make unprecedented numbers of calls, and make many of our purchases using online applications. We go about our business and studies everyday using online tools.

While this period of technological change has facilitated rapid economic development and advancement in a relatively short period of time, there have been unseen costs, largely in the domain of privacy. All of our online activities, from purchases to emails to internet visits, are monitored by businesses as a means of gaining greater consumer information. This erosion of personal privacy has altered the relationship between consumers and business, giving business unprecedented informational power. Read more about @title...

Sociology professor David Lyon is among 10 outstanding Canadian researchers to be named a new Killam Research Fellow for 2007.

"The Canada Council for the Arts, a highly respected independent foundation, continues to recognize the excellence of Queen's researchers through the prestigious Killam program," says Vice-Principal (Research) Kerry Rowe. "David Lyon's work on privacy and surveillance has been especially timely in the wake of 9/11, and this Fellowship will enable him to intensify his research and contributions in this important field."

http://qnc.queensu.ca/stor Read more about @title...

"Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World" By Maureen Webb; March 20, 12 - 1pm, School of Policy Studies Room 202. Read more about @title...

Aaron Doyle, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University; "Rethinking Surveillance and the Mass Media: Beyond the Synopticon".

Friday, March 9th Location: Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room D411 Time: 12:00 to 1:30 pm

In various contexts, the mass media conduct surveillance, engender public support for it, help resist surveillance, or help the marginalized use surveillance itself as a tool of resistance. New media technologies allow intensified surveillance but also create openings for new forms of resistance. In this seminar, Professor Doyle considers various examples, including the use of CCTV footage on broadcast news and the recent trend towards posting cell-phone footage of official brutality on the YouTube website. Read more about @title...

POSTPONED Diane Kelly "Access and Privacy: Implementing the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act at Queen's", NEW DATE AND TIME TBA.

Diane Kelly Access & Privacy Coordinator Queen's University

This talk, originally scheduled for Feb 15, has been postponed. The new date/time will be published as soon as possible.

The Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act was recently amended to include Ontario universities and, as of June 2006, Queen's is governed by that legislation. The purpose of the legislation is to give the public access to university records and to protect personal information collected by universities. Kelly will discuss the issues which have arisen in the context of the implementation of this legislation which was developed to govern provincial government agencies. Read more about @title...

David J. Phillips "Mobile worker management systems and the infrastructure of visibility", Wednesday, January 31st, 12:30 - 2:00 PM, Mac-Corry Hall, Room D-411.

David J. Phillips Associate Professor Faculty of Information Studies University of Toronto

Heterogeneous networks of law, ideology, economics, and technique facilitate and constrain surveillance practice. Every stage of the construction of these networks, these infrastructures, is open to contestation. Within this contest lie the possibilities of many different outcomes for institutionalized practices of identity and knowledge production. Some of these might produce knowledges that are not domineering, but instead may be deployed by the known population itself, in order to make sense of the world from alternative perspectives, to create and maintain sub-cultural identities and to articulate those identities with the larger social order. Read more about @title...

Jennifer Whitson "Securing the Self: Consumer responses to dataveillance, information 'leaks' and identity theft" Thursday, January 18th, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Mac-Corry Hall, Room D528.

Jennifer Whitson "Securing the Self: Consumer responses to dataveillance, information 'leaks' and identity theft" Department of Sociology and Anthropology Carleton University

Using the example of identity theft, Whitson suggests that institutionally promoted informational security measures encourage the fashioning of a particular form of subject; a hyper-vigilant citizen whose daily routines, home environment, consumption patterns and sense of self is being brought into accord with power dynamics characteristic of an informational age. While citizens are encouraged by the specter of identity theft to reduce personal risks and maximize the potentialities related to their data doubles, available securitization methods are rooted in institutional self-interest and quests for profit. In responding to occurrences of identity theft, victimized citizens occupy a position traditionally held by offenders. They become the primary object of statistics, trend predictions, risk profiling, and surveillance in general and commonly suffer more from the bureaucratic trials necessary to re-establish their identity then from the initial victimization itself. Read more about @title...

AutoID 2007 - 5th IEEE Workshop on Automatic Identification Advanced Technologies 7- 8 June 2007 Alghero, Italy.

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Paper Submission: January 15, 2007

General Chairs: Massimo Tistarelli and Davide Maltoni

Important dates:

Paper submission: January 15, 2007 Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2007 Final camera-ready copy due: February 20, 2007

SCOPE:

We are evolving towards an age of convergence in identification technologies where everything that can compute has an IP address, every thing static has an RFID and every individual has a biometric identifier. AutoID 2007 will bring together researchers, practitioners, and users from these converging fields to describe the state of the art and identify urgent open problems. Read more about @title...