#13 The road to digital surveillance is paved with good intentions – with Prof Kate Henne

<p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Today I speak with Professor <a href="https://researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/kate-hennehttps:/researchprofiles.anu.edu.au/en/persons/kate-henne">Kate Henne</a>. Kate is the director of RegNet, which is the school of Regulation and Global Governance at ANU. She also leads the Justice and Techno Science Lab within the RegNet school. Kate&rsquo;s research interests and areas of expertise are enormous, and I&rsquo;ll put links to just some examples in the show notes, but to give you a flavour, they focus on the intersection of the politics and technology as it relates to biomedicalisation, criminalisation, gender regulation, human enhancement and wellbeing, and heavily discussed in this podcast, surveillance and police technologies.</p> <p>Technologies of these kinds are profilerating and making their way into our life in visible and invisible ways. They&rsquo;re becoming normalised, part of how we deliver services, how we prevent or monitor cheating, or how police police. Various digital technologies aren&rsquo;t just focused on organising calendards or romantically swiping in your neighbourhood, they&rsquo;re increasingly being called on to address systemic and structural issues in our community &ndash; it&rsquo;s not clear whether these technologies do more harm than good. What is clear is that that the potential benefits of technologies are married to real risks. And those risks mean we need to have a conversation about regulation.</p> <p>Kate is a wonderful expert to guide us through that conversation. Despite being so knowledgeable, Kate is a very generous conversationalist, and very regularly highlights the excellent research of her colleagues. I think you&rsquo;ll enjoy this one to start off the year.</p> <p>Timestamps:</p> <ul> <li>Why regulating technology matters (2:40)</li> <li>Technology, ecosystems and surveillance (5:00)</li> <li>Government technologies and unintended consequences (9:00)</li> <li>How Big Tech facilitates a shift in how racism and discrim