Archive for November, 2009

New Identity Cards Website Launched

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

PayslipThe 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

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

SkullA 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)

Special Issue: Security and Data Protection

The French journal Cultures & Conflits has dedicated its summer issue (number 74) to the theme of ‘Security and Data Protection’. Articles explore, amongst other things, the protection of personal data in transatlantic context, enlarging access to European databases and the EU’s strategy against organized crime, and the issue closes with an interview with Armand Mattelart conducted by IdentiNet member Didier Bigo. For further details, see the issue flyer (pdf). Articles (in French) and abstracts (In English) can be found on the journal website.


Post Categories


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.