Surveillance Capitalism

Feb. 22 – 4:00 p.m. EST (UTC–05:00) – Waterloo, Canada: The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) and CIGI invite you to join us, in person or via Zoom, for a discussion featuring speakers Shoshana Zuboff and Jim Balsillie on the urgent topic of “surveillance capitalism,” its threat to our information civilization, and how its trajectory undermines democratic norms and the centuries-long evolution of market capitalism. BSIA Director Ann Fitz-Gerald and CIGI President Paul Samson will moderate.

Find out more and register here.

More than half the world’s adults will have the chance to vote in major elections this year. Yet there are widespread fears that elections in 2024 will contribute to democracy’s global decline. The polluted online information environment is often mentioned as one important factor to scrutinize, but there’s a danger this attention will “fall into the traps of hot takes, overblown assertions about the power of tech to affect election outcomes, and US-centrism.”

To counter these shortcomings, Heidi Tworek and Chris Tenove are collaborating with CIGI to produce a series of analyses bringing together experts with deep knowledge of the countries in question. In this introduction, Tworek and Tenove write that “one year from now, people could inhabit very different political worlds than the ones that currently exist.…Our hope is that these analyses will help us understand a most consequential year for democracy.”

As part of CIGI’s project Legitimate Influence or Unlawful Manipulation?, experts in internet governance and human rights have written a series of policy briefs to provide insight into the far-reaching impacts evolving technologies present to our freedom of thought, as well as ways to counter them. Below are the latest releases; explore the full series here.

Today, nearly all human activity can be captured as data, from numerous undisclosed sources, and monetized by large digital platforms — without any assurance that human rights, including the right to freedom of thought, are upheld. Current policies and regulations, often siloed, are inadequate to achieve comprehensive governance of the monetization process.

Giuseppina D’Agostino and Robert Fay propose ways to address the deficiencies in artificial intelligence (AI) and data governance. Among their recommendations, they urge policy makers to consider the role of intellectual property (IP), arguing that enforcing IP rights can enhance, rather than hinder, transparency, and facilitate algorithmic monitoring.

“A fair contest where contenders use facts, logic and reason to persuade a free, open-minded audience is an ideal way for a society to settle its affairs. Evidence from cognitive sciences, however, puts a dampener on such hopes.…our cognitive makeup is susceptible to biases and manipulation. The human mind is vulnerable. The collective is even more so.”

Nitin Pai writes that the ancient practice of information warfare has become the centrepiece of international politics today. With nation-states and non-state actors engaged in a relentless global contest to influence people’s thinking, cognitive autonomy becomes a national security objective. Pai offers recommendations for defence and national security policies for liberal democratic states.

Outer space has long been the stuff of militaristic dreams yet has largely escaped the armed conflict that plagues Earth; warfighting in outer space is hard. But, Jessica West says, “technology is making the impossible possible and our luck is running out. Space is becoming — if not exactly easy — far more accessible.” Military ambitions for outer space are growing. Any harm to space systems is almost certain to inflict human costs on Earth.

Despite many efforts to govern space, there are few rules and mechanisms to prevent such harm. The principles of the Outer Space Treaty offer a way through the current impasse: these values need new, energetic voices at the table.

“Welcome to Space 2.0,” writes Melissa J. Durkee, where “innovative startups, academic labs, speculative investors and other private actors inhabit the new landscape alongside governmental space agencies.”

But, she notes, “Space Law 2.0 has not yet arrived to meet the moment. And that’s a shame. Governments could be stepping up to develop international regulatory frameworks to better govern the public-private space environment, with its new projects and plans. Because governments aren’t crafting new international agreements at the moment, norms are developing in other ways.”