Watching the watchmen: CRISP researches the surveillance societies

Updated Thursday, 1st November 2012

Introducing CRISP - research into how surveillance and privacy shapes society.

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A shadow of a CCTV camera All over the world, surveillance societies have started to emerge. These are societies which function, in part, because of the extensive collection and analysis of data about individuals, groups and their activities as they go about their lives.

For example, retail loyalty programmes, website cookies and no-fly lists each qualify as surveillance because they gather data about individuals’ activities to influence what happens to them in future. They also raise privacy concerns because of the insight they generate into people’s lives through the processing of information.

The Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP), based at the Open, Stirling and Edinburgh Universities, focuses on how these issues shape individuals’ lives, organizations, governments and society as a whole.

On our website you can read about our research projects, events, staff and their publications. You can also follow links to groups who are closely involved with campaigning and regulating the surveillance society.

Meet the staff, learn about the projects and the research at the CRISP website

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