Managing neoliberal labour relations: the role of cyber security

Cyber security systems are designed to protect networks and data from leaks and breaches. By focusing on the practice of using bulk data to predict future online threats I will demonstrate that cyber security is part of the entangled processes by which technologies operate under capitalism.

I will propose that cyber security fulfils capital's need to establish a division between the production and consumption of technology. This division conceals the ongoing commodification of user generated data, and reinforces the tendency towards ever-more complex forms of value extraction.

In order to deconstruct the relation between cyber security and regimes of accumulation, I will investigate the labour relations underpinning information and communication technologies (ICT). I will focus on the digital supply chains of China and the US as relations between the two have led to the mass production of technology and the rising popular use of the Internet. While initially the workshop of the world, China today accounts for a large proportion of the global consumption of ICT, and the country's tech companies compete with the US to dominate the data market. I will compare and relate their digital supply chains and labour market conditions, and assess the role of cyber security governance in each country.