Protest in the age of advanced surveillance: Evidencing chilling effects and complex human rights harm in digital societies

Speaker: Pete Fussey, Professor, University of Southampton
Series: Cambridge Computing & Criminology Network

The surveillance of protests today relies on a blend of novel and more traditional approaches, of visible and invisible, remote and proximate remote techniques. The heightened intrusion contrasts with the reduced visibility of surveillance, extending asymmetries between observed and observer, and bringing complex implications for those subjected to this form of monitoring. Drawing on extensive fieldwork cultivated as part of a UN human rights project, documenting the experiences of protests organisers, legal observers and activists in over 80 countries, this paper identifies and analyses the complex and interconnected harms generated by the surveillance of protests in the digital age.