Goldsmiths Law, in collaboration with Britain in Europe, the Knowing Our Rights research project and the New Europeans civil rights organisation, is hosting an one-day symposium on technology and human rights, in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica and GCHQ-NSA scandals.
Digital technology touches on and empowers every aspect of our lives, whether as consumers, users of public services, citizens or voters. Yet the collection and exchange of personal information can interfere with our right to privacy, and the abuse of technology can distort our democracies and lead to serious breaches of human rights.
The informational privacy mega-scandals of recent years, such as the revelation (by Edward Snowden) of the post 9/11 global, mass, surveillance systems operated by security services, or the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal (which came to the surface through the work of Carole Cadwalladr and whistle-blower Chris Wilie), point, worryingly, to the rise of a new Panopticism that threatens to suppress private existence in the interest of security, financial gain and control of political power.
In this one-day international, interdisciplinary, symposium, we will ask:
- How can the law be used to strike the right balance between freedom and security in the age of the internet? - What more can be done to make sure big technology firms respect the rule of law? - How can government surveillance best be monitored and held to account so that law enforcement agencies retain public confidence? - Can technology be used to promote democracy and development while respecting human rights?
See the full programme here.