Digital Criminology: Surveillance, Power and Accountability

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

The use of new (surveillance) technologies in criminal justice and policing raises issues of accountability but can also play an active role in holding perpetrators to account. Technologies do not operate in a vacuum. Rather they are characterized by the networks of actors involved and shaped by their socio-historical situatedness. The socio-technical practices are shaped by power relations, reflecting motivations and attitudes of the actors. This will influence to what extent the deployment of technologies is done in an accountable way. The four presentations shed light on these networks and how technology is both a challenge and a potential solution for accountability.
This panel is part of collection of digital criminology panels at EUROCRIM2025 and contributes to innovative crime and justice scholarship within the emerging field of ‘digital criminology’. Instead of positioning technology as separate from society more broadly, digital criminology takes up the idea that all technologies are embedded in social structures and that all societies are embedded in technological infrastructures. More specifically, digital criminology examines the incorporation of digital technologies, media, and infrastructures in criminological settings (Stratton, Powell and Cameron, 2018; Wood, 2020; Kaufmann and Lomell 2025, Van Brakel and Govaerts, 2025).

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Policing and Law enforcement (Policing WG)

Chair

• Marc Schuilenburg, Professor Digital Surveillance Erasmus University Rotterdam

Individual Presentations

• Digital Collection Tool: Collecting Witness Evidence Using a Culturally Sensitive Digital Investigation Tool - Michael Riegler, Simula Research Laboratory; Nandor Knust, UIT Arctic University of Norway; Annelies Vredeveldt, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Mapping police officers’ experiences & attitudes towards place-based big data policing - Naomi Theinert, Ghent University; Thom Snaphaan, Avans University of Applied Sciences & Ghent University; Robin Khalfa, Ghent University; Wim Hardyns, Ghent University, Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law

• Operational proportionality: Exploring understandings of proportionality in the police accountability framework of (smart) video-surveillance in public spaces in Belgium - Bram Visser, Vub; Rosamunde Van Brakel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

• Networked CSAM policing through the lens of the surveillance assemblage: a content analysis - Nena Decoster, Ghent University