David Lyon will teach a one-week summer course, “Surveillance in the C21st” at Regent College, a Christian Graduate School on the beautiful University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver, June 25-29.
Description: Personal data are vital to organizations today. Gathering and processing such data – whether images from cameras, details from credit cards or from ID documents – is surveillance. Supposedly innocent data are now highly valued by corporations (think of Amazon, Google or Facebook) and avidly sought by police and intelligence services. This has real-world consequences for ordinary people, enlarging or limiting their opportunities, access and life-chances.This course examines some of the questions about technology, organizations and ethics that the topic of surveillance raises. How did the culture of surveillance develop? How should personal data be treated? What are the benefits, consequences and limits of surveillance? Students will have the chance to consider their own ‘data practices’ and to contribute to one of society’s most pressing problems in an informed and critical Christian manner.
