Colin J Bennett
Biographic Data
| ID | 763205 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Colin J Bennett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Colin J |
| FAMILY NAME | Bennett |
| SIGNATURE | BENNETT C J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Victoria |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1503-8584 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 921 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Rethinking global digital health and AI-for-health innovation challenges
Digital health technologies can help tackle challenges in global public health. Digital and AI-for-Health Challenges, controlled events whose goal is to generate solutions to a given problem in a defined period of time, are one way of catalysing innovation. This article proposes an expanded investment framework for Global Health AI and digitalhealth Innovation that goes beyond traditional factors such as return on investment. Instead, we propose …
Understanding the “Micro” in Political Micro-Targeting
Background: There is vigorous international debate on the effects of political micro-targeting on campaigning practices and the integrity of democracy. It arguably encourages a more fragmented and transactional politics where localized promises go unchallenged. Analysis: If political micro-targeting requires a precisely segmented audience, a specific location, and a focused policy message, then how much political micro-targeting actually occurs i…
Revisiting the governance of privacy
The repertoire of policy instruments within a particular policy sector varies by jurisdiction; some “tools of government” are associated with particular administrative and regulatory traditions and political cultures. It is less clear how the instruments associated with a particular policy sector may change over time, as economic, social, and technological conditions evolve. In the early 2000s, we surveyed and analyzed the global repertoire of po…
What Is an Ombudsperson? Global Diffusion, International Standardization, and Institutional Diversification
The global diffusion of administrative institutions such as the Ombudsperson office provides clues into wider questions of democratic development. Explanations of institutional diffusion tend to assume, however, that the essential character of the institution remains relatively stable. While the office of the Ombudsperson has become a potent symbol of administrative fairness and independence in defense of the individual against the powerful publi…
The European General Data Protection Regulation
The global diffusion of data protectionThe recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica and the breach that allowed the harvesting of the personal information of some 87 million Facebook users (at latest count) has pushed privacy protection to the front pages, and focussed attention on "surveillance capitalism" (Zuboff, 2017) and on the capture of personal data as the central resource for the "platform economy".As Facebook reels from the scandal,…
The Governance of Privacy
This book was published in 2003.This book offers a broad and incisive analysis of the governance of privacy protection with regard to personal information in contemporary advanced industrial states. Based on research across many countries, it discusses the goals of privacy protection policy and the changing discourse surrounding the privacy issue, concerning risk, trust and social values. It analyzes at length the contemporary policy instruments …
Trends in Voter Surveillance in Western Societies
This paper surveys the various voter surveillance practices recently observed in the United States, assesses the extent to which they have been adopted in other democratic countries, and discusses the broad implications for privacy and democracy. Four broad trends are discussed: the move from voter management databases to integrated voter management platforms; the shift from mass-messaging to micro-targeting employing personal data from commercia…
Transparent Lives
Although most Canadians are familiar with surveillance cameras and airport security, relatively few are aware of the extent to which the potential for surveillance is now embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives. We cannot walk down a city street, register for a class, pay with a credit card, hop on an airplane, or make a telephone call without data being captured and processed. Where does such information go? Who makes use of it, and for …
Playing the Identity Card
Playing the ID card: Understanding the significance of identity Systems David Lyon and Colin Bennett 2. Governing by Identity Louise Amoore Part 2: Colonial Legacies 3. The elusive panopticon: The HANIS project and the politics of standards in South Africa Keith Breckenridge 4. China's second generation national Identity Card: Merging culture, industry, and technology for authentication, classification, and surveillance Cheryl L. Brown 5. Hong Ko…
Privacy and Surveillance
This chapter covers the multidisciplinary literature on the protection of personal information in the online world, which extends back to the origins of social research on computing, and addresses the link between key structures of the Internet and the literatures on privacy and surveillance. Then, it turns to the literature on the role of international, legal, self-regulatory, and technological policy instruments in protecting personal informati…
The politics of privacy and the privacy of politics
This paper surveys the various voter surveillance practices currently observed in the United States, assesses the extent to which they have been adopted in other democratic countries, and discusses the broad implications for privacy and democracy. Five interrelated techniques are analyzed: the development of voter management databases; the use of personal data from commercial data brokerage firms; micro-targeting; the decentralization of data to …
Playing the Identity Card
Security Games
Academic and political commentators have commonly sought to understand the Olympics as a cultural dynamic, a that motivates certain actors to project their relative interests in localized spaces and as well on a global scale (Hiller 2006; Boyle and Haggerty 2009b ). Mega-events, as this argument goes, are monumental cultural events (Roche 2000) that rely on the audacity of spectacle to dramatize and condition the cultural, political, legal and ec…
Introduction to Cyber-Surveillance
The rapid expansion of digital networking and especially the Internet over the past two decades has been a boon for the many informationally intensive activities that facilitate and increasingly constitute contemporary social, economic, political and cultural life. Access to information and the means to produce information have grown dramatically, enabling both individual empowerment and democratic participation. Digital mediation is transforming…
In Further Defence of Privacy
A right of reply in the privacy debate
In Defense of Privacy
It has recently become fashionable within the surveillance studies community to subject the concept and regime of “privacy protection” to some very rigorous criticism. “Privacy” and all that it entails is argued to be too narrow, too based on liberal assumptions of subjectivity, too implicated in rights-based theory and discourse, insufficiently sensitive to the social sorting and discriminatory aspects of surveillance, and overly embroiled in sp…
Privacy Advocacy from the Inside and the Outside
For the most part, privacy and data protection laws arose not through grassroots pressure but through interactions between governmental and business elites in the context of broader international harmonization efforts. Thus, civil society activists have rarely been seen as a client constituency with equivalent weight to governmental and business interests. There is evidence, however, that the privacy advocacy network is becoming more influential …
Governance and Information Technology
The privacy commissioner of Canada
The contemporary roles of the privacy commissioner of Canada are multiple: he can be an ombudsman, auditor, consultant, educator, policy adviser, regulator and judge. Yet, Canadian privacy legislation provides quite poor guidance as to how he should perform and balance these roles and tends to put emphasis on complaints‐resolution, a function that is less useful in promoting general compliance with the privacy principles. The analysis of the expe…
Surveillance and Mobilities
The editorial introduces the pieces in this special issue on surveillance and mobilities. It draws out the key themes of the issue, asking: what is meant by 'mobility' and why it deserves such a focus; what are the goals and purposes of the surveillance of mobilities; and finally, what are the consequences. It proposes a simple typology of mobilities: 'what moves' (body, transactions, and artefacts); and 'movement itself
Visions of Privacy
From the Publisher: What kind of privacy future are we facing? In Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age, some of the most prominent international theorists and practitioners in the field explore the impact of evolving technology on private citizens. The authors critically probe legal, social, political, and economic issues, as each answers the question: How can we develop privacy solutions equal to the surveillance challenges of …
The Distribution of Privacy Risks
It is commonly accepted that the use of personal information in business and government puts individual privacy at risk. However, little is known about these risks-for instance, whether and how they can be measured, and how they vary across social groups and the sectors in which personal data are used. Unless we can gain a purchase on such issues, our knowledge of the societal effects of information technology and systems will remain deficient, a…
Arguments for the standardization of privacy protection policy
Understanding Ripple Effects
This article examines different explanations for the cross–national diffusion of three recent innovations in bureaucratic accountability—the institution of the ombudsman, freedom of information legislation and data protection (information privacy) law. The first two explanations are based on the assumption that these innovations are by–products of modernization, either the growth of the state or democratization. The third assumes that policy is s…
Taking the measure of privacy
The lessons of learning
What Is Policy Convergence and What Causes It
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Understanding Ripple Effects
This article examines different explanations for the cross–national diffusion of three recent innovations in bureaucratic accountability—the institution of the ombudsman, freedom of information legislation and data protection (information privacy) law. The first two explanations are based on the assumption that these innovations are by–products of modernization, either the growth of the state or democratization. The third assumes that policy is s…
How States Utilize Foreign Evidence
This article examines how evidence about Program A in Country A may be utilized in Country B, and thus how utilization may explain the adoption of the same program. Elites and activists have a number of interests in using policy evidence from another country: to put an issue to a systemic or institutional agenda, mollify political pressure, provide an exemplar, indicate the range of options or reinforce conclusions already reached. The interests …
Different Processes, One Result
Revisiting the governance of privacy
The repertoire of policy instruments within a particular policy sector varies by jurisdiction; some “tools of government” are associated with particular administrative and regulatory traditions and political cultures. It is less clear how the instruments associated with a particular policy sector may change over time, as economic, social, and technological conditions evolve. In the early 2000s, we surveyed and analyzed the global repertoire of po…
In Defense of Privacy
It has recently become fashionable within the surveillance studies community to subject the concept and regime of “privacy protection” to some very rigorous criticism. “Privacy” and all that it entails is argued to be too narrow, too based on liberal assumptions of subjectivity, too implicated in rights-based theory and discourse, insufficiently sensitive to the social sorting and discriminatory aspects of surveillance, and overly embroiled in sp…
Trends in Voter Surveillance in Western Societies
This paper surveys the various voter surveillance practices recently observed in the United States, assesses the extent to which they have been adopted in other democratic countries, and discusses the broad implications for privacy and democracy. Four broad trends are discussed: the move from voter management databases to integrated voter management platforms; the shift from mass-messaging to micro-targeting employing personal data from commercia…
The European General Data Protection Regulation
The global diffusion of data protectionThe recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica and the breach that allowed the harvesting of the personal information of some 87 million Facebook users (at latest count) has pushed privacy protection to the front pages, and focussed attention on "surveillance capitalism" (Zuboff, 2017) and on the capture of personal data as the central resource for the "platform economy".As Facebook reels from the scandal,…
The formation Of a Canadian privacy policy
For some cases of policy innovation, traditional models of the policy process based on assumptions of power and conflict are not helpful guides. This article suggests that it is often just as important to understand the pattern of learning or lesson‐drawing that takes place during policy development. With reference to the formation of Canadian privacy policy, as expressed in the Privacy Act of 1982, it is demonstrated that the lessons drawn from …
The Distribution of Privacy Risks
It is commonly accepted that the use of personal information in business and government puts individual privacy at risk. However, little is known about these risks-for instance, whether and how they can be measured, and how they vary across social groups and the sectors in which personal data are used. Unless we can gain a purchase on such issues, our knowledge of the societal effects of information technology and systems will remain deficient, a…
Regulating the computer
The introduction of information technology to governmental agencies has raised considerable concern for the erosion of personal privacy in most advanced democratic states. This article compares and tries to explain the choice of policy instrument in four key countries (Sweden, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom) to enforce the protection of personal data. Five options were available from the ‘international repertoire’ of solut…
The privacy commissioner of Canada
The contemporary roles of the privacy commissioner of Canada are multiple: he can be an ombudsman, auditor, consultant, educator, policy adviser, regulator and judge. Yet, Canadian privacy legislation provides quite poor guidance as to how he should perform and balance these roles and tends to put emphasis on complaints‐resolution, a function that is less useful in promoting general compliance with the privacy principles. The analysis of the expe…
What Is an Ombudsperson? Global Diffusion, International Standardization, and Institutional Diversification
The global diffusion of administrative institutions such as the Ombudsperson office provides clues into wider questions of democratic development. Explanations of institutional diffusion tend to assume, however, that the essential character of the institution remains relatively stable. While the office of the Ombudsperson has become a potent symbol of administrative fairness and independence in defense of the individual against the powerful publi…
From the Dark to the Light
The campaign in Britain to reduce official secrecy has had a number of broad and ill-defined objectives. This article argues that four basic values underpin demands for more open government: to promote more ethical conduct; to enhance executive accountability; to advance more informed policy-making; and to help individual citizens and groups advance particular rights and interests. This analytical framework is then applied to the three main strat…
In Further Defence of Privacy
A right of reply in the privacy debate
Protecting Privacy Across Borders
This article discusses the attempt to create a system governing the use of personal data within the European Community (EC) and between it and other countries. First, the main issues involved in data protection are reviewed, and the background to current developments in international standard‐setting activity is traced. The factors that affect the possibility of harmonization are then examined, and the ability of the EC to establish further conve…
Computers, Personal Data, and Theories of Technology
Public policies designed to regulate the use of information technology to protect personal data have been based on different theoretical assumptions in different states, depending on whether the problem is defined in technological, civil libertarian, or bureaucratic terms. However, the rapid development, dispersal, and decentralization of information technology have facilitated a range of new surveillance practices that have in turn rendered the …
Privacy Advocacy from the Inside and the Outside
For the most part, privacy and data protection laws arose not through grassroots pressure but through interactions between governmental and business elites in the context of broader international harmonization efforts. Thus, civil society activists have rarely been seen as a client constituency with equivalent weight to governmental and business interests. There is evidence, however, that the privacy advocacy network is becoming more influential …
Taking the measure of privacy
Oberview
From the Dark to the Light
The campaign in Britain to reduce official secrecy has had a number of broad and ill-defined objectives. This article argues that four basic values underpin demands for more open government: to promote more ethical conduct; to enhance executive accountability; to advance more informed policy-making; and to help individual citizens and groups advance particular rights and interests. This analytical framework is then applied to the three main strat…
Federal government information technology
Different Processes, One Result
Regulating the computer
The introduction of information technology to governmental agencies has raised considerable concern for the erosion of personal privacy in most advanced democratic states. This article compares and tries to explain the choice of policy instrument in four key countries (Sweden, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom) to enforce the protection of personal data. Five options were available from the ‘international repertoire’ of solut…
The formation Of a Canadian privacy policy
For some cases of policy innovation, traditional models of the policy process based on assumptions of power and conflict are not helpful guides. This article suggests that it is often just as important to understand the pattern of learning or lesson‐drawing that takes place during policy development. With reference to the formation of Canadian privacy policy, as expressed in the Privacy Act of 1982, it is demonstrated that the lessons drawn from …
How States Utilize Foreign Evidence
This article examines how evidence about Program A in Country A may be utilized in Country B, and thus how utilization may explain the adoption of the same program. Elites and activists have a number of interests in using policy evidence from another country: to put an issue to a systemic or institutional agenda, mollify political pressure, provide an exemplar, indicate the range of options or reinforce conclusions already reached. The interests …
What Is Policy Convergence and What Causes It
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Computers, Personal Data, and Theories of Technology
Public policies designed to regulate the use of information technology to protect personal data have been based on different theoretical assumptions in different states, depending on whether the problem is defined in technological, civil libertarian, or bureaucratic terms. However, the rapid development, dispersal, and decentralization of information technology have facilitated a range of new surveillance practices that have in turn rendered the …
Regulating Privacy
The information revolution has brought with it the technology for easily collecting personal information about individuals, a facility that inherently threatens personal privacy. Colin J. Bennett here examines political responses to the data protection issue in four Western democracies, comparing legislation that the United States, Britain, West Germany, and Sweden forged from the late 1960's to the 1980's to protect citizens from unwanted comput…
The lessons of learning
Protecting Privacy Across Borders
This article discusses the attempt to create a system governing the use of personal data within the European Community (EC) and between it and other countries. First, the main issues involved in data protection are reviewed, and the background to current developments in international standard‐setting activity is traced. The factors that affect the possibility of harmonization are then examined, and the ability of the EC to establish further conve…
Taking the measure of privacy
Rules of the road and level playing-fields
The politics and policy of data protection
The politics and policy of data protection
Arguments for the standardization of privacy protection policy
Understanding Ripple Effects
This article examines different explanations for the cross–national diffusion of three recent innovations in bureaucratic accountability—the institution of the ombudsman, freedom of information legislation and data protection (information privacy) law. The first two explanations are based on the assumption that these innovations are by–products of modernization, either the growth of the state or democratization. The third assumes that policy is s…
The Distribution of Privacy Risks
It is commonly accepted that the use of personal information in business and government puts individual privacy at risk. However, little is known about these risks-for instance, whether and how they can be measured, and how they vary across social groups and the sectors in which personal data are used. Unless we can gain a purchase on such issues, our knowledge of the societal effects of information technology and systems will remain deficient, a…
Visions of Privacy
From the Publisher: What kind of privacy future are we facing? In Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age, some of the most prominent international theorists and practitioners in the field explore the impact of evolving technology on private citizens. The authors critically probe legal, social, political, and economic issues, as each answers the question: How can we develop privacy solutions equal to the surveillance challenges of …
Surveillance and Mobilities
The editorial introduces the pieces in this special issue on surveillance and mobilities. It draws out the key themes of the issue, asking: what is meant by 'mobility' and why it deserves such a focus; what are the goals and purposes of the surveillance of mobilities; and finally, what are the consequences. It proposes a simple typology of mobilities: 'what moves' (body, transactions, and artefacts); and 'movement itself
The privacy commissioner of Canada
The contemporary roles of the privacy commissioner of Canada are multiple: he can be an ombudsman, auditor, consultant, educator, policy adviser, regulator and judge. Yet, Canadian privacy legislation provides quite poor guidance as to how he should perform and balance these roles and tends to put emphasis on complaints‐resolution, a function that is less useful in promoting general compliance with the privacy principles. The analysis of the expe…
Governance and Information Technology
In Further Defence of Privacy
A right of reply in the privacy debate
In Defense of Privacy
It has recently become fashionable within the surveillance studies community to subject the concept and regime of “privacy protection” to some very rigorous criticism. “Privacy” and all that it entails is argued to be too narrow, too based on liberal assumptions of subjectivity, too implicated in rights-based theory and discourse, insufficiently sensitive to the social sorting and discriminatory aspects of surveillance, and overly embroiled in sp…
Political science (29 works) · Computer Science (23 works) · Law (22 works) · Law (18 works) · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection (18 works) · Politics (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Business (16 works) · Internet privacy (15 works) · Public Administration (14 works)