Chris Parsons, research associate at Citizen Lab, will be holding a workshop on his research on SIGINT and surveillance. The workshop will take place on Wednesday March 7 at 10:00am in the Munk School Building (room 302N).

Chris will be speaking about, first, the areas of research in which he is involved and how technologies are evolving at a rate which exceeds the drafting and passage of legislation or establishment of government accountability regimes. After providing a broad overview of this area of work he will discuss, specifically, how the transition to digital technologies have led to a quantum leap in Canadian government agencies’ access to data and corresponding lawful authorities to access said data, but without corresponding accountability regimes. He will argue that such leaps risk separating the lawfulness of government activities from the legitimization of such activities, and outline potential challenges to democratic politics that raise as a result.

This will be a great opportunity to learn more about the regulatory challenges posed by technological development, and the ways law enforcement and intelligence agencies are exploiting loopholes this creates.