The global and local politics of surveillance, technology and counterterrorism

Speakers:
Nikita Sonavane (Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, India)

Rhys Machold (University of Glasgow)

This event brings together scholars and legal advocates working at the intersections of surveillance, technology and counterterrorism across diverse geographic and historical contexts. In recent years, the growth of mass surveillance and data-driven global security has reached unpresented levels, with the multiplication of existing and novel technologies, often accompanied by new legal and information infrastructures, forms of reasoning and pre-emptive security techniques for governing potential terrorist ‘risks’.

These developments are irreducibly transnational – involving circuits of capital, travelling experts, collaborations amongst a myriad array of state and non-state actors, and new networks for exchanging and analysing data – but their manifestations are by no means seamless or homogenous across different geographic and political contexts. Moreover, the ways and extent to which they have been resisted and contested varies considerably across contexts. These security practices are also often shrouded in secrecy, which makes political critique and accountability efforts even harder.

This event features three speakers: Nikita Sonavane, Gavin Sullivan and Rhys Machold and features insights from their scholarship, legal advocacy and activism carried out across the UK, South Asia, North America and the Middle East. Through a conversational format, the event will open space for a wide-ranging discussion about the shifting natures and political stakes of surveillance and data-driven security today and what can be gained from approaching these matters from a transnational focus, in ways that put data-driven security practices and techniques into question.