Joseph Ferenbok

Probing, mocking and prototyping: participatory approaches to identity infrastructuring

Since the 1980s, PD has been expanding its scope in terms of scale of information systems as well as diversity of participants, settings and design techniques. A current frontier of PD is infrastructuring, the development of large scale systems that serve a wide range of needs of varied publics in an ideally taken-for-granted manner.n This paper takes a participatory approach to one prominent area of contemporary infrastructure development, that of jurisdictional identity schemes. Such developments pose significant privacy and security risks. However, for the most part ID scheme expansion is being conducted without the active participation of those most directly affected. We address this concern through a series of action research interventions into the development of proposed North American ID schemes.n We sought to turn what is often treated as a dry, technical topic into an open, accessible and even fun collective enterprise. Drawing on classic PD precepts, such as iteration, realistic use scenarios, ethnographically informed fieldwork, situated reflection, and mock-ups and prototypes, we experimented publically with various artifacts that range from a mock RFID scheme to an Android smartphone digital ID wallet app.n Based on this experience, we reflect on lessons for the PD community in terms of how it might approach the growing need for participatory infrastructuring.

?I?ll Be Watching You?

Anecdotally, most people know that the video technology they use in everyday life is changing at an alarmingly fast pace. Individuals recognize that the televisions they watch and the cameras they purchase are of increasingly higher quality, versatility, and integrated with computing technologies. However, the same individuals who purchase and use these technologies do not often think about what this means in connection with the technologies used to watch and record them. Most are similarly unaware of the networked infrastructures that may connect and add new functionality to the video surveillance systems that are collecting and using their personal information on a daily basis.

The Changing Ethics of Mediated Looking: Wearables, veillances, and power.

Wearable devices with independent computing and networking capabilities change the proximity of people and visual information to self-presentation and self-perception. This article examines the disruptive effect that wearable technologies like the Digital Eye Glass present in documenting and representing the self in a surveillant world. We look at how the power relationships in self-presentation and self-interpretation are changed by sousveillant apparatus, and we explore how these practices of looking mediate the subject and power in the changing ethics and politics of human-to-human and human-to-computer interaction.

Identity, privacy and security challenges with Ontario's enhanced driver's licence

This paper examines the development in Ontario of the ‘enhanced drivers licence’ as a passport substitute for entering the US, including the public discussion surrounding it. We discuss the significant security, privacy, and identity risks that outweigh the benefits claimed, and call for more effective public participation in decision making over future ID schemes.

“I'll be watching you”: Awareness, consent, compliance and accountability in video surveillance

This paper reports on-going, citizen-focussed research that seeks to a) understand what people know, and want to know, about the video surveillance they encounter; b) highlight the widespread privacy non-compliance of private sector video surveillance operators; and c) develop the means for citizens to hold surveillant organizations to public account. It combines in situ interviews, participatory design workshops and smartphone app development for probing surveillance practices while empowering concerned individuals to act collaboratively in better regulating video surveillance.

Private sector video surveillance in Toronto: not privacy compliant!

We report on the findings of a fieldwork study conducted on private sector video surveillance and signage in the Toronto area. The presence and operation of over 140 video surveillance camera schemes by large service providing corporations, in 2 major shopping centres and visible from public areas in downtown Toronto is documented. We analyse the data generated in relation to compliance with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the prevailing privacy law that governs such video surveillance operations. We find widespread non-compliance with PIPEDA, especially with regard to Principles 8 - Openness, and 9 - Individual Access. We explain this finding as resulting from a form of security over-ride, in which claims of security trump other concerns, including personal privacy. We propose stronger privacy awareness and enforcement around private sector video surveillance.

Identifying Canadians at the Border: ePassports and the 9/11 Legacy

A lasting surveillance legacy that Canadians experience post-9/11 is the transformation of identification techniques, practices, and policies, particularly those associated with travel and border crossing. Ongoing securitization of ID documents, by way of adding radio frequency identification tags, facial recognition, and other biometric techniques, has been accompanied by a rhetoric that equates knowing individuals with knowing whether they represent a threat. This logic of threat analysis and identity management makes individuals responsible for proving they are safe, while simultaneously marginalizing civil liberties concerns accompanying (potentially) intrusive new forms of identification and surveillance. This article examines the 9/11 ID legacy in relation to the hesitant, but ongoing, development of the Canadian ePassport. Building on Clement et al. (2008), we trace the main drivers of Canadian policies and associated implementation initiatives. These include international policy laundering of standards for the biometric ePassport through the International Civil Aviation Agency, as well as policy actions that are more specific to Canada/US relations and linked to border-related security agreements over the past decade. We argue that the lack of transparency and public accountability in technical and policy development processes and weak resistance from individuals and civil society organisations have led to increased information asymmetry between Canadian citizens and their government.Suite aux évènements du 11 septembre 2001, un legs durable de la surveillance sur les Canadiens est la transformation des techniques, des pratiques et des politiques didentification, notamment celles associées au voyage et au passage des frontières. La sécurisation actuelle des documents didentification, soit par lajout dune étiquette didentification par radiofréquence, dune reconnaissance faciale ou dautres techniques biométriques, a été accompagnée par une rhétorique selon laquelle connaître des individus est équivalent à savoir sils représentent un risque. Cette logique de lanalyse des risques et de la gestion de lidentité fait en sorte que les individus sont responsables de prouver quils sont sans risque, en plus de marginaliser les libertés civiles par lintroduction attentatoire (potentielle) de nouvelles formes didentification et de surveillance. Examinant le legs des documents didentification à la suite des évènements du 11 septembre 2001, cet article se penche sur le développement lent, quoique continu, du passeport électronique canadien. En sappuyant sur Clement et al (2008), les auteurs identifient les principaux moteurs des politiques canadiennes ainsi que des initiatives de mise en œuvre. Parmi ceux-ci, on compte notamment le blanchiment des politiques internationales sur les normes biométriques du passeport électronique à laide de lOrganisation de laviation civile internationale, ainsi que les mesures liées aux ententes en matière de sécurité aux frontières entre le Canada et les États-Unis au cours de la dernière décennie. Selon les auteurs, le manque de transparence et de responsabilité publique relatif aux développements des politiques et des processus technologiques ainsi que la faible résistance des individus et des organisations civiles ont entraîné une asymétrie accrue de linformation entres les citoyens canadiens et le gouvernement.

I'll be watching you: What do Canadians know about video surveillance and privacy?

The growth of video surveillance systems and their augmentation by biometric and smart algorithms has significant implications for personal privacy. The growth of ICT networks and technologies such as face recognition make it increasingly important for people to know their personal information rights. Our project assesses what citizens know about the privacy implications of developing video surveillance technologies. We have three key questions: 1. What do Canadians know about their visual (video) information privacy rights?; 2. Does information about the current technologies and capabilities change people’s perspectives on visual privacy policy?; and 3. What information do people need? Three research stages are planned: interviews regarding video surveillance, workshops and round-table discussions on visual information policy, and a Public Forum to promote discussion among stakeholders including citizens, government agencies, vendors, academics, civil society, and media. This Research Note summarizes the project and reports on preliminary findings from 126 interview participants.

Bridging Identity Gaps—Supporting Identity Performance in Citizen Service Encounters

This paper explores in situ citizen service encounters in government offices. Drawing upon ethnographically informed fieldwork in Canada and Denmark, we discuss the challenges to supporting citizens in constructing and performing identities in public service settings. Our data suggests that citizens make use of at least three strategies in their attempts to perform the appropriate identities needed to “fit within the system” in specific encounters with government. There exists a strong correlation between citizens’ ability to perform identities that are compatible with the bureaucratic administrative processes and the quality and swiftness of the service they receive. As we bring to light in this paper, this “fitting in” with rigid bureaucratic procedures and IT systems interestingly requires a substantial collaborative effort between the receiver(s) of the service and a complex constellation of surrounding stakeholders and intermediaries. This collaboration and the performing of multiple identities raises challenges for the design of e-government systems aimed at supporting physical and digital citizen service provision, as well as issues regarding privacy, citizenship, and public service quality. Lastly, we turn to a discussion of how the established identity gaps can be addressed through design. Information and communication technologies as well as face-to-face encounters have an important role to play in the building of an interface to government. Here, it is paramount to consider the context in which people and systems must function in order to meet the need for dynamic identity performance.