The COST action Living in Surveillance Societies has ended in April 2013

The United Kingdom has more CCTV cameras per capita than almost any other country on Earth ? an estimated one camera for every thirteen people, a density that developed not through any single policy decision but through decades of incremental adoption by local councils, retailers, transport authorities and private landlords, each acting independently and each contributing to a surveillance infrastructure that, taken as a whole, has become one of the defining features of public life in Britain. This is precisely the kind of phenomenon that the Living in Surveillance Societies (LiSS) COST Action was created to examine. Funded through the European Science Foundation and the EU Framework Programme and administered by COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research), LiSS ran from 2009 to 2013 as the first pan-European research network to study surveillance from a multidisciplinary social science perspective. Chaired by Professor William Webster of the University of Stirling, the network brought together more than 150 researchers from 26 countries across Europe, working across sociology, law, political science, criminology, information science and ethics. The central argument that unified this diversity of disciplines was straightforward: surveillance had already been normalised ? embedded so deeply into the fabric of everyday life that most people neither noticed it nor questioned it ? and that this normalisation was producing economic, political and social consequences that urgently required rigorous, cross-border examination.

LiSS Living in Surveillance Societies explored how monitoring, data protection, and accountability shape everyday life, while wider digital sectors such as non GamStop bookmakers provide another example of how online activity can raise questions about regulation, transparency, and user oversight.

The LiSS network organised three major annual conferences in Belfast, Ia?i and Barcelona, alongside a Doctoral Training School, targeted Working Groups and a programme of Short Term Scientific Missions enabling early-career researchers to build international connections and collaborative expertise.

The published outputs of the Action contributed significantly to the academic literature on surveillance studies, data protection and the governance of technologically mediated monitoring systems, offering useful context for understanding complex digital environments including non GamStop casino platforms.

The core aim throughout was to translate research into practical recommendations: helping policy-makers, legislators and private organisations implement surveillance systems that society could understand, scrutinise and hold to account.

By focusing on public trust, evidence-based policy and responsible oversight, LiSS supports a broader conversation about how digital systems should be governed, whether the subject is state surveillance, private monitoring, or a casino not on GamStop operating within a cross-border online marketplace.

Among the digital partners who support the continued visibility of this research platform are several independent resources from the online entertainment space. For those wanting a detailed comparative breakdown, the Best Non GamStop Casinos UK guide evaluates platforms across licensing, security, payment options and game selection using consistent criteria ? the kind of structured, evidence-based assessment that LiSS applied to the governance of surveillance. Built on the principle that transparency and access to reliable information allow individuals to make genuinely informed choices, this resource complements the broader directory effort. Taken together, these companion listings offer a maintained, current overview of active platforms operating outside the GamStop voluntary self-exclusion register, updated as the market shifts and compiled without agenda ? which is, in the end, what good research looks like too.

This site is no longer avtive, but serves as an archive of the activities of the COST action IS0807 that ran from April 2009 to April 2013. Addresses and affiliations of the experts may have changed since.

I you want to know more about the action or about the website, lists and activities, contact either?

William Webster: william.webster(at)stir.ac.uk...

Proceedings of LiSS Conference 3. Edited by Webster et al.

Further information available here

Special Issue of the Journal of Contemporary European Research

here

?

Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy

CRISP University of Stirling Launch programme available here

CRISP Open University Launch programme available here

?

Further information about CRISP available

European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Final Report

Further information available here

Further information available here

Eds. Wright, D. and De Hert, P.

Further?information available here

Part One of a Special Issue of the journal Information Polity

Edited by Webster, Toepfer,?Klauser and Raab

Further information available here

RGS-IBG Annual International Conference

University of Edinburgh, 3 to 5 July 2012

Further information available here

ICIL 2012, Corfu June 29-30, 2012,

Further information available here

Call for applications for LiSS Short-Term Scientific Missions

Further information available here

here

A new project funded by the EU FP7 Programme.

?

Further information available here

?

Or contact Michael Friedewald

conference Technical University Berlin, April 5th and 6th 2011

The organizers are pleased to annouce the following confirmed keynote speakers on the Privacy and Accountability conference:

Colin Bennett, Paul de Hert, Charles Raab, Priscilla Regan.

Please mind the deadline for abstract submission, which is the 1st of
december. (details on

The first LiSS Newsletter has now been published and is available here

here

?

The project website can be found

A new book entitled 'Global Privacy Protection: The First Generation' edited by James R. Rule and Graham Greenleaf and containing a chapter by LiSS expert Ivan Szekely is now available in paperback.? More information about the book can be found at: https://www.e-elgar.co.uk/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=13251

BROAD (Broadening the Range of Awareness in Data protection) project video clips are now freely downloadable from the test version of the International PET Portal and Blog (https://pet-portal.eu/video).? The videos present privacy and informational self-determination as a value in the information society or unmask privacy-invasive behavioral...

The Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society has published a new blog covering issues relating to privacy, data protection and surveillance.?

The TILT blog is available at: https://vortex.uvt.nl/TILTblog/

?

A Special Issue on CCTV of the journal Information Polity

For more information see CFP

PRESCIENT is a new European research project which aims to provide an early identification of privacy and ethical issues arising from emerging technologies and their relevance for EC policy.

For more information see the PRESCIENT website: https://www.prescient-project.eu/

?

An opportunity to undertake surveillance related doctoral research at the Open University Business School (UK) in conjunction with the 'New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting' project (Canada).

For further information see: https://www.open.ac.uk/oubs/our-different-approach/in-focus.php

?

1.???? Surveillance, Marketing and Consumption, eds. Jason Pridmore and Detlev?Zwick, deadline 28 February 2010.

2.???? Surveillance & Empowerment,?eds. Torin?Monahan, David Murakami?Wood and David J. Phillips, deadline 31 March 2010.
?
See the Surveillance and Society homepage for further information.

For further information see the invitation to tender:?

Call for Proposals, Ashgate Publishing

For more information see CFP or contact Series Editors:

- Call for Papers (link to PDF)

Yvonne Jewkes - jy25(at)leicester.ac.uk

Katja Franko Aas -