CFP: Privacy and Surveillance

The Birkbeck Law Review (http://www.bbklr.org/) is pleased to announce a call for submission of abstracts for the upcoming Privacy and Surveillance Conference, to be held on the 31st of October and the 1st of November, 2014.   

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES The BBKLR welcomes submissions from legal practitioners, policy makers, students, academics, and any individuals who are interested in the topic of surveillance and privacy and willing to present their paper at the main central London campus of Birkbeck, University of London.   

Prior to potential presenters submitting their full paper, we ask interested individuals to send an abstract of approximately 250-300 words. Submissions should be sent using the online submissions system (http://www.bbklr.org/submission-system.html). If the abstracts are approved by the Editorial Board, the panelist will be asked to submit a maximum 5000 word paper that adheres to the BBKLR's submission guidelines (http://www.bbklr.org/uploads/1/4/5/4/14547218/bbklr_submission-guidelines_november-2013.pdf).   These papers will be published in a special edition of Volume 2 Issue 2 of the Birkbeck Law Review.   

SPECIFIC TOPIC GUIDANCE   

We would like to invite submissions on the following topics:  

1.    Surveillance, Law and Resistance:

Recent debates on surveillance and data tend to focus on human rights (including privacy laws) as the main legal field which regulates, fails to regulate, or ought to regulate surveillance. In this context human rights law is often used to challenge unlawful surveillance practices. However, the current discussion often overlooks the various ways in which the law itself has been implicated in authorising and shaping surveillance practices, historically and today – from colonial laws to anti-terrorism, immigration, and welfare laws. At the same time, it is often pointed out that the liberal and individualist nature of contemporary human rights practice and philosophy in Western countries meaningfully limits our ability to address structural inequalities and injustices. This is also true in the context of surveillance, which often targets individuals on the basis of their belonging to certain suspect groups.  

In this topic, we wish to critically explore the possibilities and limitations of challenging surveillance within the human rights framework and to reflect on recent advocacy efforts in this field. It also seeks to look beyond legal strategies and into alternative resistance practices – from disobedience, social mobilisation and direct action, to watching the watchers (surveillance, inverse surveillance), whistleblowing, cyber activism, and activist journalism.   We welcome papers engaging with these themes and their relations to any of these subjects:

- Disobedience 
- Cryptography
- Cyber-activism
- Surveillance 
- Inverse surveillance
- Whistleblowing
- Activist journalism
- Social solidarity and mobilisation  

2.    Transforming surveillance 

Modern electronic communication has reshaped both how we interact with each other and the ways in which we are watched. Changing consumer practices, mass voluntary sharing of information, and increasing dependency on online search engines and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is increasingly blurring the lines between public and private spheres. Recent revelations of widespread electronic surveillance by intelligence agencies highlighted the problems of protecting our information in such an environment, as well as the inadequacies of relying on consent as a central organising concept. At the same time, and outside the digital world, policies and legislation are playing an important role in facilitating the outsourcing of surveillance practices to individuals, corporations, and the general public. The promotion of a new Immigration Bill in the UK imposing immigration monitoring and reporting responsibilities on landlords, banks and DVLA staff, is one such example.   

These trends complicate the traditional ‘big brother’ paradigms which tend to place the state at one end and its individual subject at the other. This thematic stream will explore the decentralisation and diffusion of surveillance, surveillance locations, and surveying actors, and the implications for both personal freedoms and social exclusion.   We welcome papers engaging with these themes and their relations to any of these subjects:

-Social media
- Consumerism
- Outsourcing and privatisation of surveillance 
- Community policing and gated communities
- The political economy of surveillance technologies - Corporate accountability  - Social exclusion 
- Racial profiling 
- Cloud and ubiquitous technologies  

**If your expertise does not fall in either one of these two topics, the BBKLR is also willing to consider other topics within privacy and surveillance**    

DEADLINES

Deadlines for Abstracts: 25th June, 2014 (Deadline extended)
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 4th July, 2014
Full Paper Submission: 1st August, 2014
Date of Publication: TBA  

ONLINE SUBMISSIONS SYSTEM All submissions are processed through our online submissions system (http://www.bbklr.org/submission-system.html).