Colin Bennett

Data-Driven Elections: Papers Published

Papers delivered at the Big Data Surveillance (BDS) 2019 workshop on Data-Driven Elections , hosted by Colin Bennett and David Lyon in Victoria by project partner the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC (OIPCBC) , have been published in a special issue of Internet Policy Review , an international journal for...

Data-driven elections and the key questions about voter surveillance

By David Lyon and Colin Bennett, The Conversation , August 5, 2019

Using data during election campaigns is nothing new. But as the Canadian federal election approaches, authorities must be diligent that data tracking doesn't become surveillance. Read more

Proportional representation isn't all about the data

By Colin Bennett, Opinion, Times Colonist , November 4, 2018

Cambridge Analytica was a symptom of a pervasive belief that elections are now won with data, says Colin Bennett, a political science professor at the University of Victoria. He contends that these practices are far less common in countries that have multi-party systems rooted in elections based on proportional...

Questions remain over political party data practices after recent testimony, says expert Colin Bennett

by Laura Ryckewaert, The Hill Times , November 5, 2018

Little has been learned and questions remain after the recent and unprecedented House committee appearance by representatives from Canada’s major political parties, who spoke about and took questions on parties’ collection, use, and protection of personal data, says University of Victoria professor and privacy expert Colin Bennett. Read...

Are Data Driven Elections Ethical? – Some Lessons from the UK

By August 13, 2018, Opinion, Globe and Mail.

A data-driven election can be ethical

In the run-up to the 2019 federal election, there needs to be far more transparency about how personal data is captured, processed, mined,...

  • 2018.05.14

Election bill does little more than reinforce the status quo

By May 7, 2018, Opinion, iPolitics

Buried in the Liberals’ massive overhaul of Canadian elections law, revealed last week, were some provisions about privacy protection. Political parties are now mandated to have privacy policies, to display them on their websites and to lodge them with Elections Canada. Read...

Cambridge Analytica shows the perils of ‘voter analytics’ industry

By Colin Bennett, Opinion, iPolitics , March 21, 2018

Recent revelations about the practices of the British company, Cambridge Analytica (CA), raise a larger set of questions about democracy: Should “Big Data” be playing a role in our elections? Should the “micro-targeting” of precise...

PhD Fellowships Available - University of Victoria

Two Postgraduate Scholarships at the PhD level (beginning September 2017) are available in the Department of Political Science to work on a project, funded through a SSHRC Partnership Grant, on “ Big Data Surveillance ” under the supervision of Dr. Colin Bennett. The project is a broad interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of the development and impact of big...

SSC Seminar Series: Colin Bennett, University of Victoria

Is Your Neighbour a Liberal or a Conservative? Voter Surveillance and the ‘Data-Driven’ Election Campaign

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

12:30 – 2 pm

Stirling Hall 401

(Grad Students are also invited to join Colin Bennett for an informal discussion in MacCorry room C512 from 10.30 to 11.30 before his seminar.)

The conventional wisdom is that the modern political campaign needs to be “data driven” to consolidate...

Call for PhD Applications at the University of Victoria

One PhD stipend, funded through grants received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), and beginning in September 2012, is available in the Department of Political Science, University of Victoria

One PhD stipend, funded through grants received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), and beginning in September 2012, is available...