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09 April 2015: Essex academic to speak at inaugural conference on digital rights

Professor Pete Fussey

Pete Fussey, criminologist and Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, is to speak at the first ever Digital Rights Europe conference. The one day conference, to be held on 15 April in Dublin, will focus on European-wide issues around digital privacy, security and data protection.

Professor Fussey, whose areas of expertise include surveillance and society, will contribute to a session entitled ‘Policing in a Digitial Age: Legality vs Legitimacy. This will focus on the intersection of policing with technologies such as drones, bodycams, social media, mobile phone data and bystander video. Professor Fussey will discuss the conflicted and fragmented use of surveillance and security practices brought to light by the 2013 Edward Snowden revelations.

The conference has been organised by Digital Rights Ireland, Ireland’s leading digital rights advocacy group, and comes at a time when the gathering of big data is big news. Professor Fussey is one of 80 academics from 11 different departments at the University of Essex who are set to embark on the first global project to investigate the human rights implications of the collection, storage and use of big data. This landmark project is to be funded by a grant of nearly £5 million from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and matched by £1m from the University.