Perspectives on Surveillance Technologies

In this seminar we have invited Anders Albrechtslund, Kristin Veel, and Bryce Clayton Newell to share insights on the interrelations between people, surveillance, and technology from their recent and new research projects.

Human Agency and Surveillance

Anders Albrechtslund, Professor of Information Science and head of the Center for Surveillance Research (CENSUS), Aarhus University.

Health, welfare, and crisis governance are now widely organized through data‑intensive surveillance technologies, ranging from self‑tracking apps and remote monitoring devices to large‑scale public health infrastructures. These systems shape how care is delivered, how responsibility is assigned, and how people come to understand themselves and others through data. Rather than focusing on surveillance as a purely technical or institutional arrangement, this talk examines how it is lived and acted upon in everyday health contexts. The analysis shifts attention from systems to subjects, asking how individuals experience surveillance and how they engage with, respond to, and influence the practices through which monitoring becomes part of ordinary life. The presentation draws on the interdisciplinary project Human Agency in Data‑Intensive Surveillance, initiated at Aarhus University in 2024, which combines ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, studies of self‑tracking and preventive health practices, and analyses of surveillance technologies and legislation introduced during the COVID‑19 pandemic in Denmark. By examining the “who” of surveillance, the project seeks to understand the lived realities of data collection in healthcare and everyday life. The talk focuses on what people actually do in response to surveillance: how they navigate, negotiate, challenge, accept, or rely on these technologies, and what forms of agency become possible – or are shut down – in the process. By centering empirical experiences across health, welfare, and crisis settings, the talk offers a grounded account of how agency takes shape in mundane, often ambivalent engagements with data‑driven monitoring systems.

Technology-Facilitated Abuse in the Smart Home

Kristin Veel, Professor of Aesthetic Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Digital technologies are increasingly embedded in everyday domestic life. Devices such as smartphones, smart speakers, tracking apps, and connected home systems enable new forms of communication and coordination, but also new possibilities for control. While these technologies are often framed in terms of safety and convenience, they also create conditions for surveillance, coercion, and psychological harm in intimate relationships. In this talk, I present the research design on an interdisciplinary research project on technology-facilitated violence in intimate relationships, initiated in January 2026. The project adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining (1) survey data and qualitative interviews with victims and practitioners, (2) ethnographic studies of everyday technology use alongside cultural analysis of media representations, and (3) close collaboration with practitioners from crisis centres, law enforcement, and policy organisations. Together, these approaches allow us to examine how digital technologies can facilitate the monitoring, manipulation, and control of partners. The presentation focuses in particular on the continuum between practices of care, intimacy, and everyday coordination, and forms of abuse, exploring assumptions about how sensing, monitoring, and responsiveness become normalized within domestic life, often in ways that blur the boundaries between support and control. By situating technology-facilitated abuse within broader cultural imaginaries of the home – as a space structured by both care and control – the paper contributes a cultural studies perspective on how digital technologies can contribute to shaping the conditions under which violence can emerge and persist.

Surveillance, Visual Evidence, and Mechanical Objectivity

Bryce Clayton Newell, Associate Professor, University of Oregon / Visiting Fulbright Scholar, University of Copenhagen.

I will discuss two separate research projects linked by their engagement with the evidentiary value and epistemic authority of visual media; one is a more established project and the other still in its formative stages. In the first, I examine police officer and community member perceptions of violent police video recorded on police body-worn cameras. In the second, I examine the concept of synthetic media (e.g., including but not solely AI-generated “deepfakes”) through an information-centric lens. The evidentiary value of visual media is important because, as Castells (2013) argues, "the shaping of minds is a more decisive and lasting form of domination than the submission of bodies by intimidation and violence." On the one hand, police organizations engage in image work designed to communicate police perspectives and anchor the narrative around police surveillance video in ways that reinforce police legitimacy (Bock, 2021) — a prime example of information politics. On the other hand, generative artificial intelligence (AI), synthetic media, and deepfake content represent important emerging topics in the study of media and information studies. Legal scholars and legislators are also grappling with how to regulate the design and deployment of generative AI technologies and the synthetic media and deepfake content they produce. I hope to provoke conversation about how we understand visual media, synthetic media, and the information politics that follow.