The Guardian and The Telegraph newspapers ran stories this weekend reporting that UK police are planning to use unmanned ‘spy drones’, originally developed for surveillance in military contexts, to monitor antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural thieves, and fly-tippers. According to the reports, an arms manufacturer is currently developing the so-called Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) – capable of taking high-resolution images from heights of up to 20,000ft – for civilian deployment, and that the drones could be in use by local forces in time for the London Olympics in 2012. For the full reports, see here (Guardian [includes video and comments]) and here (Telegraph). Picture: ‘Guardian Spirit of the Waters’, by Odilon Redon (1878)/Wikimedia Commons
Seminar: Foucault, Databases, and the Dispositif
Published January 21, 2010 Member Activities , Seminars Leave a CommentTags: DNA Databases, Europe, Foucault, Policing, Profiling, Security, Surveillance, technology, Twentieth Century
The first ‘brown bag lunch’ IPS discussion seminar will take place at King’s College London on Thursday 28 January 2010. Co-organised by IdentiNet participant Didier Bigo, discussion will be introduced by a presentation from Andrea Molteni (University of Milan) on the functioning of the concept of the dispositif within the work of Michel Foucault, which will go on to consider its relevance to the analysis of DNA databases, especially within the Italian context (a full abstract is available here). Wine will be provided, and participants are encouraged to bring along their own sandwiches. The seminar will take place from 12.30pm–2.30pm in the War Studies meeting room, which is on the sixth floor of the King’s Building on Strand Campus (map). If you wish to attend, please confirm with andrea.molteni@kcl.ac.uk. Picture: Flickr/dullhunk (CC)
Surveillance Studies Centre Launches
Published January 15, 2010 Member Activities , Projects and Centres , Websites Leave a CommentTags: CCTV, Civil Liberties, ID Cards, Policy, Privacy, Surveillance, Twentieth Century
The Surveillance Project, the interdisciplinary, international research initiative based in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University under the direction of IdentiNet member David Lyon, relaunched today as the Surveillance Studies Centre. The SSC will both expand the existing research programme (in particular The New Transparency Project) and serve as a platform for new funding applications. It will also ‘advance the surveillance studies field by way of workshops, lectures and seminars, empirical work, publishing, community outreach, liaising with policy and activist groups, and student training’. For full details, see the new centre website.
Some 2009 Conference Impressions
Published January 11, 2010 Conferences , Network Updates Leave a Comment
David Barnard-Wills, a delegate at our 2009 public conference (Identifying the Person: Past, Present, and Future), has written a wonderfully detailed unofficial report on the event, which is available in two parts on his impressive ‘Surveillance and Identity’ research blog (Part 1, Part 2). Dr Barnard-Wills is currently a Research Fellow at Cranfield University’s Department of Informatics and Sensors. The official conference report is scheduled to appear in the Spring 2010 issue of History Workshop Journal.
Workshop: Immigration and National Identity in British History
Published December 22, 2009 Conferences Leave a CommentTags: Britain, Empire, Europe, Globalisation, Migration, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century
A one-day workshop on ‘Immigration and National Identity in British History: Europe, Empire, and Commonwealth’ will take place in the Dahrendorf Room of St Antony’s College, Oxford from 10am–5pm on Monday 18 January 2010. Sponsored by the Slavic Research Centre of Hokkaido University in Japan, in association with St Antony’s College, the workshop will feature six papers on experiences of migration and identity in British imperial and colonial contexts, and will conclude with a general discussion. There is no charge for attending the workshop (delegates can purchase their own lunch from the St Antony’s dining hall), but if you wish to attend – and for full programme details – please contact the organizer on hiromi.mizokami(at)sant.ox.ac.uk. Picture: Flickr/Northampton Museum (CC).
The Identity Project
Published December 20, 2009 Conferences , Exhibitions , Member Activities , Websites Leave a CommentTags: DNA Databases, Genetics, Imposture
The Identity Project, a nine-month season of activity from the Wellcome Trust, is currently underway in London and elsewhere. The Trust supports a large amount of research into genetics (including the Human Genome Project), and the season is intended to explore ‘scientific and social perspectives of identity – historic and contemporary – to encourage debate and discussion and to ask how well we will ever be able to know ourselves’. The season includes an exhibition entitled Identity: Eight Rooms, Nine Lives, as well as several other events throughout the UK, including a workshop on 23 January 2010 on Secret Lives, which will feature a contribution from IdentiNet lead investigator Professor Edward Higgs (University of Essex). For further details, see The Identity Project website.
New Identity Cards Website Launched
Published November 22, 2009 Websites Leave a CommentTags: Civil Liberties, Globalisation, ID Cards, Policy, Surveillance, Twentieth Century
A new website on national ID cards has been launched: http://www.identity-cards.net. The website contains a comprehensive listing of national ID cards by geographical region worldwide, as well as a list of resources on the topic. Users can also submit and update information about national ID card systems globally. The website has been developed under The New Transparency Project, and was inspired by the book Playing the Identity Card (Routledge, 2008), edited by Colin Bennett and IdentiNet member David Lyon. It is maintained and updated by a group of students and faculty from Queen’s University and the University of Victoria.
Fake Payslips Latest Trend in UK Forgery
Published November 16, 2009 News Stories Leave a CommentTags: Britain, Crime, Forgery, Identity Theft
The Observer newspaper ran a report yesterday on a growing breed of false documentation in the UK: fake payslips. According to the report, ‘dozens of websites are selling the high-quality documents which are being used as false proof of salary in applications to banks… [at the same time as] as mortgage lenders are being asked by the Financial Services Authority to become more reliant on documentation such as payslips’. Police are planning a crackdown on the websites, which offer a choice of designs and even calculate tax, national insurance and pension contributions on figures supplied (without verification) by clients. For the full story, see here. Picture: Flickr (CC)
CFP: Biopolitics Across Borders
Published November 16, 2009 Calls for Papers , Conferences Leave a CommentTags: Biometrics, Biopolitics, Genetics, Globalisation, Security
Papers are invited for a graduate student conference on Biopolitics Across Borders: Ideas and Practices, to be held at Columbia University on 9 April 2010. The conference will explore the ideas and practices of biopolitics on a transnational scale, the contribution of managing human life to international conflict and cooperation, and the challenges to transnational biopolitics as they have manifested at an individual and community level. Proposals with a historical dimension are particularly welcome; for further information and submission guidelines, see the conference flyer (pdf).
Workshop: Legal Medicine and Expertise in History
Published November 13, 2009 Conferences Leave a CommentTags: Crime, Fingerprinting, Forensics, Legal Frameworks, Medicine, Policing
A one-day workshop to be held at Oxford Brookes University on Friday 4 December 2009 will explore ‘Legal Medicine and Expertise in History’. According to the organizers, ‘[T]he workshop is designed to facilitate intellectual exchange and debate between academics working on the history of forensic medicine, by bringing together scholars who study the subject in a variety of national contexts and across a broad period of time. It will engage with two central themes: the character and role of forensic medicine in Europe since the medieval period; and the relationship between medicine, the law and wider society as illuminated by the notion of ‘expertise’’. It promises to be rich in identification angles; for further details, including speaker information, full programme and abstracts, see the workshop webpage. Picture: Flickr (CC)
