DATA - PSST! Debating and Assessing Transparency Arrangements - Privacy, Security, Surveillance, Trust

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Research ContextSince whistle-blower Edward Snowden's revelations of 2013 we arguably live in a qualitatively and materially different techno-cultural period. Snowden revealed the surveillance activities of US and UK government signals intelligence agencies, catching unaware academic computer scientists, information specialists and privacy experts. Meanwhile, social media have normalized the practice of people watching each other by mediated means. Given this novel techno-cultural condition of increased, normalized and forced transparency, what are the academic responses? Building on Jeremy Bentham, we suggest that today, there are at least 3 forms of transparency: 1.Liberal transparency - that opens up machinations of power for public and democratic inspection, using knowledge as a force for promoting societal net benefit and happiness; 2.Radical transparency - that opens up both public processes and the private lives of citizens for inspection;3. And what we term forced transparency - the negative consequences of radical transparency, ie where resistance to transparency is tantamount to guilt and where choice and autonomy are stripped away.Aims & ObjectivesWhile we have begun a typology of transparency, the boundaries in practice are unclear, as is the extent, and consequences, of society's move towards Bentham's vision of radical transparency. We envisage expanding this typology while exploring cases where boundaries blur. Recognizing that privacy is a qualified right, our starting point is that transparency is not inherently dystopian. Rather, we aim to understand the implications and responses to how positively conceived norms might be perverted. As such, our 2-year Seminar Series will explore, from multi-disciplinary/end user perspectives, how different aspects of transparency (whether voluntarily entered into, or state/commercially/peer-imposed) affect questions of privacy, security, surveillance and trust. These areas have been chosen, as transparency violates privacy; is argued as necessary for security; indiscriminately mass surveills; and both demands and compromises trust.To explore these topics, we will draw on perspectives from Journalism, Media, Sociology, Criminology, Law, Politics, International Relations, Intelligence, Business, History, Computer Science and Philosophy, and on end users from media, journalism, law, governing bodies, regulators, Non-Governmental Organisations, business and security.Seminars will be hosted in Bangor, Aberystwyth, Sheffield and London, and will be free to participants. We will produce: a web site hosting seminar summaries, a blog, and a Final Report outlining areas of academic consensus/dissensus; policy briefs compiled for end users; and a short documentary on transparency hosted on a video-sharing site, with a 6-second Vine clip. We will produce a Special Issue on transparency in an open-access, international, peer reviewed academic journal to illuminate and theorise social norms and consequences of transparency. We will generate an inter-disciplinary research agenda on transparency, to progress future research bids and conferences.Potential Applications & BenefitsBeyond academics, beneficiaries include: commercial and government organizations engaged in transparency; trans-national regulatory bodies, and NGOs, lawyers and media outlets concerned with transparency; and citizens engaged in, and affected by, transparency practices. Academics and end users will better understand: (a) benefits of data collection, storage and analysis; (b) challenges on issues of privacy, security, surveillance and trust; and (c) cross-overs on these issues between state and commercial institutions. Impacts are expected from starting a public debate on transparency that may change transparency-related social and cultural practices of key actors (including citizens), so contributing to social, policy and economic change (as key actors better understand evolving norms).