Understanding and responding to surveillance in Finland
How do the Finnish authorities surveil activists, and how can activists and researchers work with that? The topic of this workshop is to understand surveillance as well as the rights and strategies connected to it. It is organized by the project "Understanding Nordic Digital Order: Digitalisation of Policing in the Nordics, Activism, and Surveillance Oversight" (UNDO) funded by the Kone foundation. UNDO works on facilitating democratic oversight and control over digital policing. We develop legal and political strategies, awareness, and build technological tools for furthering citizen control over surveillance and digital policing.
UNDO tries to critically identify what is going on in the Nordics (SWE, DEN, FIN), with the digitalization of police forces in general and urban surveillance in particular. By discussing with activists and political movements in the aforementioned countries UNDO aims to identify what areas of the surveillance infrastructure need to become visible, how political action is affected by it and think about ways to counteract. Furthermore, UNDO wants to examine potential ways of bottom-up resistance to excessive digital policing strategies, the new surveillance shift which is taking place in the Nordic countries.
The UNDO project will design and develop software solutions that will try to help political activism, making the surveillance infrastructure visible, and keeping those in power accountable.
UNDO is a combination of research, activism and art. This way the project will try to expand its reach beyond traditional academic routes and will work towards the popularisation of its findings. This means further visibility and connectivity between interested parties (other activists, social movements) throughout Europe.
We are inviting you to participate in a workshop in Helsinki.
The conversation in the workshop will revolve around the description of this territory of surveillance and its exposure. What are the old and new systems deployed by the police? Who do these systems target exactly? Can these systems be circumvented? Can we think of possible software to help bypass or disclose this network? Is an algorithm for determining police violence or the next police raid feasible? Is a probabilistic mapping scenario of the expansion of the police surveillance network beneficial for targeted political interventions?
Having these questions in mind, we want to explore ways of counter-engineering software systems and try to see how such systems can be used for emancipatory purposes.
We will have two workshop sessions, you may choose the one that is most suitable for you timewise. The sessions take place in Koneen säätiön Kamari (Tehtaankatu 21 B 45, 5th floor)
on
Friday February 21st at 16-18
and
Saturday February 22nd at 12-14
We will offer some snacks and beverages.
Documentary
Part of the project is a documentary to get visibility for the issues UNDO researches. The film will look at these issues and how they affect social movements in the Nordic countries. The rough plan is to follow the climate movement in Finland, the palestinian solidarity movement in Sweden and the housing justice movement in Denmark. Members of the film collective RåFILM (they have also filmed with XR in Sweden) are making the documentary.
We are looking for a couple of people connected to XR that can talk on camera about their experiences in the movement and reflect on the issues. The idea is not to have an “expert” but someone who is active and has the experience. Please write to us if you are interested and we can talk more! The filming can take place connected to the workshop days and possibly later on.
Info about RåFILM
Sign up to participate in the workshop by contacting Saara Särmä
Please indicate which session you’ll participate in and also let us know if you would be willing to be filmed. If you have any questions about the workshop, UNDO project, or the documentary, don’t hesitate to ask Saara!