DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

Pervasive Media may afford an intensification of surveillance, data mining, and loss of privacy, and this is certainly the perception amongst many potential designers and users. 'Pervasive or Invasive?' is designed as a day of presentations and discussions with people from different disciplines, to generate shared understandings of the issues, and then start to define what Ethical Design in Pervasive Media might be. The day will have workshop discussion opportunities - working with developers and designers to generate the beginnings of a set of ethical design principles for Pervasive Media applications (Outcomes available here).

The day will begin at 9.30 with an introduction to the structure of the event and what outcomes we are hoping for. The symposium has been designed to allow as much participant involvement as possible, with a mixture of short presentations and discussion workshops. Each presenter will speak for 15 minutes, with 5 minutes allowed afterwards for quick questions. The speakers are:

a.m. presentations

Rob van Kranenburg: What is ethical design in a pervasive media context?

Nello Cristianini: The Privacy Delusion: Today's technology allows the collection and exploitation of a vast amount of diverse data. As we go about our everyday lives, we leave behind a permanent trail of personal data, that is never deleted but instead carefully analysed, and even traded, to model our behaviour and  in some cases to try and influence it.

Patrick Crogan: Pervasive Majority: When so much decision-making is delegated today to profiling software, intelligent agents, search algorithms and realtime marketing opportunism, the majority becomes increasingly minoritised, infantilised, that is, deprived of the savoir faire, on the basis of which one can discern, evaluate and decide for oneself.

12.45, 13.45 Lunch

p.m. presentations

Andy Miah: Ethical Design in Pervasive Media: Some Principles. Deciding what ethical principles should govern the practice of pervasive media design, it is first necessary to understand a) how ethical codes operate; b) what kind of ethical governance is appropriate to design c) what are the distinct ethical parameters of pervasive media.

Lizbeth Goodman: Under/Over the Radar: Surveillance and Sousveillance in Mobile Media Design for Community Empowerment

">Bill Sharpe will chair the Plenary, where we will attempt to summarise the discussions, agreements and disagreements that have been generated throughout the day.

The day will end at 5.30pm Presentations, discussion and feedback sessions will be sound-recorded. Outcomes will be published in various formats and information about that will be circulated to participants.