Ethics and Security: Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Politics and International Studies
Abstract
This project introduces ethics research into the Global Uncertainties programme and adds value to on-going security research in the programme. The ethics research juxtaposes terrorism and transnational organized crime. On some understandings, terrorism is just a special kind of transnational organized crime, to be dealt with by established policing techniques within and between jurisdictions. Policing operations, at least in the West, are subject to stringent ethical and legal constraints, especially when directed at citizens of the jurisdiction being policed, and especially where the operations seek to prevent crime rather than to detain and try offenders guilty of an offence already committed. On other understandings, terrorism is a military threat, terrorists are combatants, and countering terrorism is literally a war. In a war, lethal force can legally and morally be used against combatants, and the penetration of military secrets by secret or underhand means is not typically considered immoral, because its target is an enemy rather than people who have the status of citizens. So it makes a great difference whether terrorism is seen as transnational organized crime that requires a policing response, or as a military threat. Even if it is seen as a policing matter, and especially as a preventive policing matter, there is considerable controversy over the means that can be used against it. Counter-terrorism involves mass searches at airports, secret wire-tapping, bugging, camera-surveillance and internet monitoring, questionable kinds of data-sharing, questionable kinds of detention even of people there is evidence against, and, at the extreme end, torture and extra-legal killing. Because of the way counter-terrorism affects a wide cross section of the public, some of the associated preventive policing techniques are more controversial than they would be if employed in a more targetted way against paedophiles, people traffickers; drug dealers; and weapons smugglers. Perhaps there is less scope, in policing non-terrorist, serious crime, for the use with bad consequences of ethnic and other stereotypes; and it may make a difference to that some kinds of transnational serious crime are much more prevalent, and harm many more people more frequently, than terrorism. Some activities associated in UK legislation with terrorism, such as glorifying it, are arguably protected by human rights to free speech and association; propaganda activities by the other side during a war, on the other hand, are routinely subverted by the other side, with no moral overtones. In short, the ethical differences between counter-terrorism and measures against (other kinds of) transnational organized crime are themselves of research interest. Identifying and explaining these differences, and suggesting how they should be reflected in public policy are important research tasks of this project. But the project also has a role in adding value to projects elsewhere in Global Uncertainties. These other projects sometimes aim at detecting patterns of behaviour that indicate possible criminal conspiracy, or even a tendency to violence. They also speed up identification of suspects. All of these kinds of research carry ethical risks, some of which may not be obvious to scientific researchers. The Leadership function of the project will involve interaction with other GU-funded projects for the purpose of identifying such risks and helping researchers to accommodate them, and even to write about them. Another function of the research will be to organize interactions between GU-supported researchers, companies in the UK and European security sector, and ethicists. Such interactions have been pioneered by the PI in previous European research.
Planned Impact
End-users involved in previous research I have led are likely to benefit from end-user interactions proposed for this project. These beneficiaries include Rory Doyle of Smiths Detection, Ehud Givon, CEO of WeCu Technologies in Israel, Erik Bladh of Axis Technology in Sweden and Olov Fäst, General Manager of the Swedish Space Corporation. A range of end-users from counter terrorism policing and intelligence would also be interested in this project. David Page (now retired, but working for Special Branch during the period of DETECTER) and Grant Moss (formerly of West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, now head of security at Queen Elizabeth Hospital) are two who might be mentioned. In addition to these, we have strong contacts among serving CT and serious crime officers from Merseyside, PSNI, West Mids and West Yorkshire as well as the Met and ACPO. I think that two ex-heads of GCHQ would be interested: Sir Francis Richards and Sir David Pepper. The SURVEILLE project end-user group will make available an international group of police end-users. There is also access to an end-user group in SURVEILLE made up of security officials in urban local authorities throughout Europe. Then there are legal and policy-making officials. Among NGO and Human rights agency representatives whom I have worked with in the past, Bjarte Vandvik, Secretary General of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, and Martina Huber, Programme Manager of Social Research for the Fundamental Rights Agency, are two I think would be prepared to confirm the value of the research.Finally in the area of policy making beneficiaries, I would name Timothy Cooper, Principal Research Officer of Research & Development Unit to FRONTEX (the External Borders Agency) and Bénédicte Havelange, of the Office of the European Data Protection Supervisor. Dr Cooper has commissioned research from me on border security issues, and Ms Havelange is a lawyer expert in in data-protection.
Organisations
- University of Warwick (Fellow, Lead Research Organisation)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (Co-funder)
- Leeds Beckett University (Collaboration)
- COVENTRY UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON (Collaboration)
- Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (Collaboration)
- SWANSEA UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX (Collaboration)
People |
ORCID iD |
| Thomas Sorell (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Sorell, T.
(2018)
Bulk collection, intrusion and domination
Nathan C
(2016)
Liability to Deception and Manipulation: The Ethics of Undercover Policing
in Journal of Applied Philosophy
Sorell T
(2016)
Online Grooming and Preventive Justice
in Criminal Law and Philosophy
Sorell T
(2018)
Organized Crime and Preventive Justice.
in Ethical theory and moral practice : an international forum
Nathan C
(2017)
PRINCIPLES OF POLICING AND PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT
in Legal Theory
Sorell T
(2016)
The Scope of Serious Crime and Preventive Justice
in Criminal Justice Ethics
Sorell, T E
Violation of Privacy and Law: the Case of Stalking
in Law, Ethics and Philosophy
| Description | 1. Dimensions of Serious Crime that Justify Preventive Measures The research builds upon an intuitively plausible idea: the more serious and imminent crimes are, the more the prevention of these crimes is justifiable, if necessary by intrusive and coercive means. Intrusive and liberty-limiting preventive measures are not justified for all crimes, and in particular, are not justified for low-level, non-serious crimes. This raises the question of what distinguishes serious from low-level crime. We have found that there are deep complexities in addressing that question. We examine several of these complexities: a. The organisation of criminal activities makes the infliction of harm more frequent. Again a group's actions, if they reach a certain scale, pose a challenge to the state. General or organized commission of crime also undermines harm-reducing or welfare-increasing public institutions. Criminal gangs operate out of sight and in defiance of a jurisdiction and sometimes in competition with the authorities in a jurisdiction. This is not because they oppose all authority; on the contrary, they may be quite hierarchical themselves, or acknowledge a pecking order among fellow underground organizations. The point is that they are a locus of power and loyalty apart from overworld institutions, with secret plans and organization, and with a sense of money-making opportunities unconstrained by either conventional morality or law. They do not merely defy or ignore what the law prohibits, but recruit officials to see that the costs of defiance and disregard for the law in their case are minimized or eliminated. Further, they set themselves up as regulatory powers within illicit markets, discouraging new market entrants, intimidating unruly market participants, and acting violently against any would-be rival authorities. b. Crimes can be rendered more serious not by the direct harm that they cause, but by the harm they facilitate. Money laundering is one such case. Money-laundering facilitates the personal enjoyment of the proceeds of organized crime by criminals, and also the financing of a lot of crime, including the most serious crime, in the future. Knowingly making it easier through money-laundering for a criminal gang with a long track record of brutality to extend that record, or to diversify their activities to include further offences that are mala in se, does seem, in its turn, wrong in itself, and therefore punishable in principle. Money-laundering typically finances not only more serious harm-an increase in the number of crimes of a given degree of harmfulness-but an apparatus designed to make harm-production efficient in the future. An apparatus that, so to speak, industrializes crime -that makes the organization of crime more systematic and more efficient-- is worse than arrangements that simply facilitate more crime. The former involves specialization and co-ordination of many people's efforts. This is different from and morally worse than using the proceeds of one's own crimes to move from a part-time to a full time solo career in burglary. This line of thought runs contrary to claims made by prominent legal philosophers. Douglas Husak, an American legal philosopher who objects to heavy sentences for money laundering on moral grounds: according to him, depositing the proceeds of crime X does not add to the wrong of X itself, and only acts that reach the threshold for moral wrongness should be dealt with by hard treatment like imprisonment. His point is that imprisonment is out of order because punishment is out of order for something --an act of depositing money-- that is neither wrong in itself, nor necessarily bad in its effects. Such reasoning is faulty. c. Violations of privacy by agents other than governments are neglected in criteria of crime seriousness. Although Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognizes natural persons as possible violators of privacy, nosey neighbours, voyeurs, or spouses concerned with infidelity lie well outside its main ambit. Its focus is on arbitrary official intrusion and disruption, disproportionate police surveillance, and disproportionate data retention by governments. Encroachments by the authorities on parental rights to determine the education and religion of their children and even the size of their families are also included. In all of these cases it is against the state that privacy needs defending. Non-state invasions of apolitical privacy- in the sense of invasions that are detached from the invaded person's playing of a citizenly role - are also important, as in stalking - and sometimes are more harmful than state surveillance. 2. The critique of preparatory offences We defend some specific pieces of legislation that have been criticized for criminalizing preparatory acts. Thus we find that the approach to grooming in section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act in particular is justifiable. First, it effectively distinguishes between "contact" groomers and "fantasy" groomers, removing a basis for doubt about grooming offences on the possible remoteness of grooming behaviour from actual sexual contact. Second, it distinguishes between the sexualization of online behaviour between children and the informal profiling of likely targets by forensically aware adult paedophiles, who sometimes pose as sexualized children. We examine also the application of serious crime prevention orders under the Serious Crime Act 2007. Although the principle of these orders is justifiable, they allow preventive orders to be served on people convicted of relatively minor offences who do not belong to criminal gangs, and in contexts in which there are large minorities who break the law. In such cases the restriction of autonomy can be disproportionate. This calls for the fine-tuning of the legislation, since most of the offences that the legislation is applied to are serious and might in practice involve organised crime. In the case of counter-terrorism, on the other hand, the main moral difficulty lies elsewhere: rather than that of making appropriate allowances for large minorities who break the law, the problem is to capture in law the distinction between extremism in speech and violent extremism in deed. A lot of controversial preventive measures in counter-terrorism take the form of criminalizing approval for, assisting, or not informing on terrorists. For instance, non-violent extremism is targeted by the Prevent Duty Guidance for England and Wales March 2015, para.8. Non-violent extremism includes agitation against "British values," such as tolerance and democracy. We find that criminalizing the expression of approval for terrorism is rights violating; recent laws call upon institutions to root out practices that are hard to distinguish from things those institutions have tolerated for a long time. Further, we find general critiques of the "logic" of preventive justice or preparatory offences fall short of the mark. These include the following objections: a. The autonomy objection holds that preventive police activity removes people's 'window of moral opportunity' to act in the right way. At best this will provide only one consideration amongst others, and will not rule out preventive measures entirely. b. The personal criminal law objection complains that the existence of different laws for different people that civil preventive orders create is inconsistent with the value of equality before the law. This objection forgets that laws in general have differential effects upon citizens. c. The due process for punishment objection argues that coercive preventive measures amount to a form of punishment that can be applied without the proper procedures such as trial, legal representation, and the possibility of appeal. This objection depends upon a common, but flawed, understanding of the basis for due process and criminal procedure. 3. Intrusions and proportionality The policing of organised crime and terrorism involves the infiltration of networks of people, and this typically requires the use of intrusive and manipulative methods such as the deployment of wiretaps, targeted surveillance, undercover officers, and informants. Other things being equal, it is more justifiable to use such methods to the extent that their expected costs (in the form of an invasion of privacy, and so forth) fall upon those whom there is reason to believe are involved in wrongdoing. We find that there is insufficient attention provided in the express wording of the law in this area to this idea, as expressed in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (and also the current Investigatory Powers Bill). Although a distinction is made in the legal structure between effects upon those who are targets and those who are intruded upon collaterally, there is not sufficient direct recognition of the higher ethical bar for intrusion on those who are innocent or only at the fringes of an organised criminal group. Nonetheless, actual practice surrounding covert strategies may express sensitivity to the issue of innocence, even where the law does not. |
| Exploitation Route | In the course of our work we met with a number of researchers working in technology development and criminology, including the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (Queen's University Belfast), Shane Johnson (UCL), Chris Hankin (Imperial College London), Matt Jones (University of Swansea), Martin Innes, (Cardiff), Tao Chen (UCL). From these meetings we found: • There is insufficient discussion and thought to the ethics of technology application as security technology projects proceed • Privacy concerns relating to intrusive policing and intelligence are badly identified • Predictive policing (which is not the same as preventive policing) work is not sufficiently attuned to issues of presumption of innocence or discriminatory profiling. • The ethical concern over bulk collection of data by intelligence agencies will usefully be understood as involving freedom, and not just privacy. We carried out the following impact-related activities: • The commission of an ethics training video for use by undercover police in training • Work on influence for the Government Office of Science • A workshop on the ethics of undercover policing, attended by police representatives • A series of meetings on counterfeiting, held in Parliament Further use of findings would involve further formal ethics input into crime-related technology projects, training modules for police and security services, and reports for Government agencies on particular aspects of their work. |
| Sectors | Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/globaluncertainties/ |
| Description | Our group has continued to organise a series of conferences and workshops that draw together academics, practitioners, and policy makers. In doing so we have cemented contacts within the police, especially at the College of Policing and West Midlands Police. We have thus provided for the College of Policing a masterclass on Ethics and Big Data, and also hold a position on its Undercover Policing Oversight Group. We also have held an event with the Industry and Parliament Trust on counterfeiting, and are contributing to its report on the subject. |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Consultations on Communications Data Bill - Home Office |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Two roundtables organised by Home Office to discuss the 3 reports on investigatory powers (i.e., those by David Anderson QC, the ISC, and RUSI). Discussed duties for new info commissioners office and encouraged clarity in defining the role; urged importance of sufficient staffing and support. |
| Description | Ethics input for West Midlands Police training (ongoing) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Go-Science consultations |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Consultation on security topics, drawing directly on work under Global Uncertainties |
| Description | Membership of Undercover Oversight Group, College of Policing |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Description | Senior Leaders' Masterclass, College of Policing |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/ierg/news/?newsItem=094d43f546f2471b014715dc1ce72f92 |
| Description | The Usual Suspects? Effects of Illicit Trading on the UK Economy |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| Description | Collective Activity Research Proposal: Undercover Policing Research Network Scoping Seminar |
| Amount | £2,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2015 |
| End | 10/2015 |
| Description | Departmental Research Funding Support for fellowship at CAPPE, Charles Sturt University |
| Amount | £3,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Warwick |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 07/2015 |
| End | 08/2015 |
| Description | ESRC Festival of Social Science |
| Amount | £3,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2013 |
| End | 11/2013 |
| Description | 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project ethics input |
| Organisation | Coventry University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organised meeting between members on the ethics issues arising from the 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project on new security technologies. Directing future applications for collaborative funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Introduced detail of the 'Shades of Grey' Project and proposed issues that may be of ethical concern. |
| Impact | The collaboration spans computer science, psychology, and philosophy. At this early stage its primary outcome is the establishment of a working discussion group. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project ethics input |
| Organisation | Leeds Beckett University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organised meeting between members on the ethics issues arising from the 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project on new security technologies. Directing future applications for collaborative funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Introduced detail of the 'Shades of Grey' Project and proposed issues that may be of ethical concern. |
| Impact | The collaboration spans computer science, psychology, and philosophy. At this early stage its primary outcome is the establishment of a working discussion group. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project ethics input |
| Organisation | Swansea University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organised meeting between members on the ethics issues arising from the 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project on new security technologies. Directing future applications for collaborative funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Introduced detail of the 'Shades of Grey' Project and proposed issues that may be of ethical concern. |
| Impact | The collaboration spans computer science, psychology, and philosophy. At this early stage its primary outcome is the establishment of a working discussion group. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project ethics input |
| Organisation | University of East London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organised meeting between members on the ethics issues arising from the 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project on new security technologies. Directing future applications for collaborative funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Introduced detail of the 'Shades of Grey' Project and proposed issues that may be of ethical concern. |
| Impact | The collaboration spans computer science, psychology, and philosophy. At this early stage its primary outcome is the establishment of a working discussion group. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project ethics input |
| Organisation | University of Essex |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Organised meeting between members on the ethics issues arising from the 'Shades of Grey' Global Uncertainties project on new security technologies. Directing future applications for collaborative funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Introduced detail of the 'Shades of Grey' Project and proposed issues that may be of ethical concern. |
| Impact | The collaboration spans computer science, psychology, and philosophy. At this early stage its primary outcome is the establishment of a working discussion group. |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Assessor panel, CREST |
| Organisation | Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Assessor of applications and member of commissioning panel. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) is a national hub for understanding, countering and mitigating security threats. CREST brings together the UK's foremost expertise in understanding the psychological and social drivers of the threat, the skills and technologies that enable its effective investigation, and the protective security measures that help counter the threat in the first place. It does so within a context of significant stakeholder and international researcher engagement, and with a clear plan for sustained and long-term growth. |
| Impact | Assessment of applications and drafting of calls |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | 'Ethics in Interdisciplinary Research and Preventing Serious Crime in Urban Contexts', Warwick Doctoral Training School |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk on 'Ethics in Interdisciplinary Research and Preventing Serious Crime in Urban Contexts' Students gained a better understanding of how to include an interdisciplinary ethics element in their research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | 'Technology, Democracy and Security' - joint workshop with Hong Kong University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 11th April 2016 IERG researchers delivered a workshop on 'Technology, Democracy, and Security' at Hong Kong University's Department of Philosophy. Tom Sorell, Chris Nathan, Jethro Butler and Kat Hadjimatheou presented recent work on the ethical issues around bulk collection, privacy and policing. The event was chaired by HKU's Uwe Steinhoff. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/news/?newsItem=094d434554810e25... |
| Description | College of Policing Senior Leaders Masterclass |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The group organised and gave several presentations at a College of Policing Senior Leaders Masterclass on Big Data and Social Media, in Bramshill, Hampshire. The event informed and stimulated discussion among serving senior police on the topics of the privacy implications of big data analysis; the risks to privacy of social media monitoring by police; and the possibilities for ethical guidance for police using big data applications or social media. Other presentations were given by senior police officers, a communications industry representative, and social and computer scientists developing bid-data applications for police. As reported by Giles Herdale (at College of Police), further crystallised awareness among police on ethics issues in big data and social media. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Commentary on College of Policing Draft Code of Ethics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Seven page commentary on College of Policing Draft Code of Ethics with a series of Recommendations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/news/ierg_warwick_comments_on_d... |
| Description | Commissioned report on the ethics of bulk collection of data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Series of meetings with intelligence officials leading to a commissioned report on the ethics of bulk collection of data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Conference on 'Disruption, Ethics, and Policing' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Discussion and networking event with academics and serving senior police on the ethics of disrupting criminal activity. Follow up discussions with Martin Innes (Cardiff / College of Policing) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Conference on 'Policing and Preventive Justice' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Frank debate about the role and limits on preventive policing. Participants at the event were drawn from ex-police, think tanks, and academia, inclinding Heidi Lomell (University of Oslo), and Vic Towell (Royal United Services Institute). Improved contacts facilitating future collaborations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Consultations on Communications Data Bill - Home Office |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Attendance at Home Office consulting on the draft Investigatory Powers Bill |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Cybersecurity meetings - Washington |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Roundtable of thought leaders at the Washington campus of Johns Hopkins, plus large meeting at british embassy in February. Beginning of long term collaboration with Georgetown and Washington |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Cybersecurity research ethics and responsible disclosure workshop - Royal Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop examining: What are the major ethical and legal challenges facing cybersecurity research? How should the potential dual use of cybersecurity research be managed most effectively? What does an ethical and legal framework look like for 'responsible disclosure'? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Digilantism event (London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An agenda-setting seminar on the theme of 'Digilantism and Crowd-Justice' at the Digital Catapult Centre in London. By 'Digilantism' we mean a kind of punishing exposure of wrongdoing to a digital community, e.g. by YouTube posts. Famous examples with a source in the UK are postings of video of a woman putting a cat in a rubbish bin and racist rants on the London Underground. Such postings can lead to the identification of the perpetrators, and both trolling and police action against them. Among the questions raised by this activity is whether it is a criticizable departure from the rule of law, whether it is a fair form of public disapproval, and what happens if some of the reaction is extreme, or if people in video are misidentified? The day focused on a series of 'provocations' from invited speakers - including Karen Salt (Aberdeen), Shaun Lawson (Lincoln), Carl Miller (Demos) to stimulate discussion to identify the key research challenges and opportunities in this area and to explore potential collaborations for future work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Ethical Issues in Undercover Policing (College of Policing commissioned special consultation) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Special meeting funded by the College of Policing, organised by IERG at Warwick University. This meeting aims to enhance police understanding of the views of people with experience and relevant expertise on how undercover policing should be delivered and managed. It brings together a series of non-police experts in the field. A report of the event is to be submitted to the National Undercover Scrutiny Panel, an independent body established by the College of Policing to challenge police decision-making. The Scrutiny Panel will act to ensure that relevant lessons are taken forward. Delegates will receive feedback from the Scrutiny Panel and directly from the College on how their considerations have been acted upon. In addition, the final report will be delivered to senior police officers for them to consider, independently, how to deal with relevant lessons from the seminar. (Due June 2016.) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2006 |
| Description | Industry and Palirament Trust event 'Carbon Copy Economy? Solving the Problems Counterfeiting Creates for the Global Economy' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The group organised a discussion on the issues that counterfeiting raises for the economy, including for the pharmaceutical and fashion industries. Present were policymakers and industry representatives. The MP present expressed interest in pursuing the matter further. The Industry and Parliament Trust invited Prof Sorell to contribute to its report on counterfeiting. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Masterclass on cyberwarfare ethics for intelligence community |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Commissioned day-long course on the ethics of cyberwarfare for practitioners. Five members of the IERG group gave talks, took questions, and managed a general discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Online Grooming and Preventive Justice |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tom Sorell presented his paper 'Online Grooming and Preventive Justice' at the ESRC Integrator workshop, 'Citizens Online'. The paper was also live-streamed on Twitter via Periscope to a peak audience of around 200. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/events/citizens_online_schedule... |
| Description | Paper on pedophile hunting and scambaiting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Tom Sorell presented a paper on pedophile hunting and scambaiting at a conference on digilantism at University of Montreal on 3 November 2017 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Policing the Virtual World |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 14th April 2016 Tom Sorell and Chris Nathan presented papers at Canberra's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. They spoke alongside senior Australian police and policy officers as well as other academics. Tom Sorell presented on 'On-Line Grooming and Preventive Justice'. Chris Nathan presented on 'Proportionate Intrusions'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/news/?newsItem=094d434554810e25... |
| Description | Presentation at " Human Futures and Cyber Futures", RUSI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Tom Sorell participated in a panel alongside Richard Aldrich (Warwick) and Thomas Rid (KCL) entitled "Strategy, Social Science and Cyber in 2025" at this Warwick Intelligent Futures event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/wif/event/london/programme/progr... |
| Description | Presentation to Digital Wildfire London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Tom Sorell, presentation on 'Digilantism' at the Digital Wildfire showcase event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/blog/digital-wildfire |
| Description | Presentation to serving officers of the New York Police Department |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | IERG team presentation on ethics of use of voice recognition software to about 80 serving officers of the New York Police Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/news/presentation_at_americal/ |
| Description | Security Research Cluster meeting - Loughborough University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Participation in Resilience conference at Loughborough University. Tom Sorell gave talk on the Ethics of Mass Surveillance and Bulk Collection of Data. An invitation only event structured around the three subthemes of "Resilience to Natural Hazards", "Public Health Resilience", and "Security and Defence". Brought together a select group of academic, policy and practitioner experts in these three fields, providing informed discussion and focussed networking opportunities. This event was part of the formal external launch of Loughborough's "Secure and Resilient Societies" research challenge. The keynote speaker was Steve Flynn, Founding Director of the Center for Resilience Studies, and Co-Director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security at Northeastern University. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17i1KWIpIug |
| Description | The Usual Suspects? Effects of Illicit Trading on the UK Economy, House of Commons, Organised with the Industry and Parliament Trust (November 2015) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Usual Suspects? Effects of Illicit Trading on the UK Economy Hosted by the Industry and Parliament Trust and City of London Cooperation supported by research from the University of Warwick Thursday 26th November 2015 Policy Workshop, 09.30 - 11.00 Meeting Room N, Portcullis House In the Chair Dr Duncan Hine, Principal Research Fellow, University of Warwick Guest Speakers Peter Nelson, Anti-Illicit trade Manager, Imperial Tobacco Detective Superintendent Maria Woodall, City of London Police Attendees Adrian Bailey MP, House of Commons Tony Bellis, Government Markets & Public Affairs Manager, 3M Lord Cotter, House of Lords Simon Danczuk MP, House of Commons Lord Dykes, House of Lords Dominic Gates, Government Relations Adviser, Anglo American Guy Hendricks, UK Government Affairs Manager, Corporate & Legal Affairs, Imperial Tobacco UK&I Anne Lieberman, Business Relations Manager, Industry and Parliament Trust Nick Maher, Chief Executive, Industry and Parliament Trust Karl McCartney MP, House of Commons Peter Pratt, Senior Associate, Collyer Bristow Philip Saunders, Parliamentary Affairs Counsel, City Remembrancer's Office, City of London Professor Tom Sorell, Professor of Politics and Philosophy, University of Warwick Lord Watson of Invergowrie, House of Lords Amanda Zambon, Public Affairs Manager, DHL Background The trade of illicit goods puts a significant burden on the UK economy. Illicit trade amounts to around £90bn each year. All parts of the retail sector suffer with consumers often unaware of the dangers of fake toys, clothing, cosmetics, tobacco and medicines. Additionally, businesses lose trade to "black market" goods, and manufacturers suffer reputational damage through illicitly branded products. Meanwhile, public agencies are fighting to ensure standards are maintained across the retail sector as well as tackling the sale of counterfeit goods. Recognising the rising problem of illicit trading, the 2015 Budget increased funding to combat the problem. Notes Peter Nelson • Sales of counterfeit cigarettes lose HMRC about £2B per annum • 10-14% of cigarettes are illicit, in a different study KPMG rate illicit trade at 14.1% • Cross border shopping is also a problem due to our high tax regime • A container of cigarettes sold at half retail price will yield £1.1m of profit • Reports increasing of illegal whites now runs at 500 per annum • High month of July saw 97 reports • 'Tap House' outlets on housing estates are a major problem • When closed down legal shops turnover can go up by £1k per week! • Illegal factory in Durham could produce 150 packs per minute • Loos to revenue from this factory at full production equals £1m per day • Factory has stock of 89 million empty packets Detective Superintendent Maria Woodall • City of London Police deal with physical goods and streaming and every combination • Next year will be working with Banks to seize and close illegal accounts where fake goods are paid for • This is based on a Canadian initiative • Banks must cooperate as Visa and MasterCard drive enforcement • Massive issue is coming with all set top boxes capable of downloading leading to a major increase in streaming Discussion • Plain packaging can lead to more than 3% increase in counterfeiting • In Australia counterfeit packaging is often better quality than the genuine product • Codentify is a new app to aid forensics and to act as a point of sale test • Counterfeit cigarettes can be up to 400 times more dangerous than genuine • There is little or no legislation making it illegal to buy counterfeit products • A new law on goods in transit will be enacted next year which will make it harder to transport counterfeit materials |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Training on Cyberwarfare ethics for officials |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | One day commissioned masterclass on the ethics of cyberwarfar, delivered to practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Undercover Policing Oversight Group, College of Policing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Questions put to senior police as part of oversight group chaired by Chief Constable Alex Marshall, including on the recent and critical HMIC report. The panel exists on an ongoing basis, for a planned period of 18 months. It provides consistent opportunities to illustrate the useful of ethics discourse in a high level policing context. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Undercover policing workshop (Warwick) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshop on the ethics of undercover policing organised at Warwick, funded by the Department of Politics. Speakers were Seumas Miller (CSU/Delft), Christopher Nathan (Warwick), Ben Bowling (KCL), Antony Duff (Stirling); chair was Simon McKay (barrister). Participants included further academics and retired and serving police. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/ierg/news/undercover_workshop_sched... |
| Description | Visit to ECIT / CSIT (Belfast) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Visit to Centre for Secure Information Technologies. Each group outlined its work and held discussion of ethical issues raised by the tecnology developed by CSIT. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Widening participation talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to potential PPE students, entitled 'What is Terrorism?' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Workshop on the Ethics of Intelligence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Intelligence agencies are presently subject to far greater public and democratic scrutiny than they ever have in the past. Correspondingly, a literature is developing that probes the ethics of intelligence. How do acts of espionage relate to acts of war? Do states have carte blance in deploying electronic surveillance upon citizens or officials of other states? What kind of accountability is appropriate for intelligence officials? This seminar examines what ethical framework we best work within in order to answer those questions. Topics include how far we should depart from the just war tradition in the intelligence context, and the fundamental case for intelligence work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |