We are delighted that Professor Jane Duncan has been awarded a BA Global Professorship with the University of Glasgow. Jane will be based in Sociology (School of Social and Political Sciences) from 9 January 2023 - please do get in touch to say hi or connect about research. Here, Jane talks about her planned research, and why a BA Global Professorship at Glasgow was such a good fit for her.

Could you tell us a bit more about your research programme?

The project is looking at public oversight of digital surveillance for intelligence purposes - how do publics, activists and journalists challenge or even change government plans for digital surveillance, often carried out in the name of national security? Digitisation has provided intelligence agencies with the capabilities to conduct surveillance at an unprecedented scale, which requires effective oversight to limit the potential for abuse.

In many countries, oversight is usually carried out by official institutions such as Parliament, courts, independent statutory offices, or an ombudsman, whose role is to monitor and review surveillance capabilities to ensure that intelligence agencies use them effectively and lawfully. However, across southern Africa – where digital surveillance is expanding - these official oversight institutions lack the power and resources to perform these functions. Consequently, oversight in these countries typically is conducted by the public, through, for instance, challenging unjustifiable secrecy, publicising abuses and organising campaigns to rein these agencies in.

Through comparative case study research exploring lessons from key moments when public oversight has been attempted in the region, my research will develop a model for successful public oversight of digital surveillance.

 

What do you think is the biggest problem we face in terms of digital surveillance and governance? 

As I mention above, digitisation is allowing intelligence agencies to expand surveillance capabilities massively, yet often in the absence of adequate oversight. This problem makes abuses of these capabilities possible, and in some contexts, even likely. At the same time, official oversight bodies may not be effective in holding the agencies to account for how these agencies use these capabilities, which means that public needs to play a particularly important role in exercising oversight.

A key challenge here is the secrecy that usually attaches to national security matters, making public agency on such matters difficult. However, it is not impossible, and recent experiences with such oversight in southern Africa have shown that. 

 

And what should we be more optimistic about? 

When the public become involved in exercising oversight through civil society or social movement activism around surveillance abuses, for instance, or through investigative journalism, they can be surprisingly effective in holding governments to account and changing the trajectory of how these capabilities are being used, and for the better. My research will explore what we can learn about which factors make such successes more (or less) likely.

 

What made you decide to apply for a BA Global Professorship? 

The BA Global Professorship will give me an opportunity to concentrate on research on a full time basis, which has not been possible before in my academic career. I was also attracted to the fact that the British Academy supports cutting edge, risky research, which means that they’re willing to go where other research organisations may fear to tread. Research on intelligence and surveillance is inherently risky and the area may even be considered unresearchable, given the secrecy that all too often surrounds these issues. But I believe that not only is such research possible, it is also very necessary as it helps to shine a light on the how these capabilities are being used, and to what ends. 

 

And finally, what are you most looking forward to about joining College of Social Sciences at Glasgow?

The College has a highly relevant and engaged research focus and is a natural host for the work of the Global Professorship. Its interdisciplinary focus and its research themes - and especially the Digital Society and Economy theme - are particularly relevant in this regard. The synergies are quite uncanny, actually. 

This project is funded by the British Academy. You can see the full list of 2022 Global Professors on the BA website.

 

First published: 14 December 2022

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Prof Jane Duncan