Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP)

Description

The Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) is a collaborative research centre spanning several UK universities, working on the political, legal, economic and social dimensions of what it calls the surveillance society. In its own words it exists to provide a platform for social-scientific and legal research and knowledge exchange in this area, to act as a focal point for existing and future research activity, to build on synergies between researchers at its partner institutions, to support future grant applications, to provide doctoral training in surveillance studies, and to engage policymakers, practitioners and the public.

Its own account of itself names the University of Stirling's Management School, the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Sciences and School of Law, the University of Southampton and Manchester Metropolitan University as the collaborating institutions, with six co-directors between them and no single institution presented as the lead. Its standing programme is a numbered online seminar series, which had reached a sixteenth instalment by April 2026, an occasional public annual lecture running since at least 2015, and periodic doctoral training schools. It also hosts the Scottish Privacy Forum, a network of privacy and data-protection professionals administered by the University of Stirling, whose recorded meetings run back to 2011.

Members' funded projects address algorithmic management and the digital monitoring of work, the regulation and governance of trustworthy autonomous systems, the right to repair for connected devices, emotional artificial intelligence in smart cities, and human rights in relation to big data and technology. In August 2026 two of its directors began Face[REC], a project co-designing the governance of live facial recognition in Scotland, funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, which the centre describes as addressing a form of artificial intelligence that uses biometric data and computer vision algorithms to match faces scanned in public spaces against images held in police databases. Its seminar programme extends to the arts, including a 2026 panel on surveillance logics in contemporary art that positioned artistic production as central to debates about surveillance as a system of power.

Currently active

Yes

Offers funding

No, this infrastructure does not provide funding.

Contact details

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Categorisation

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University affiliation(s)

Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester

University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh

University of Southampton
Southampton

University of St Andrews
St Andrews

University of Stirling
Stirling

Partner Infrastructures

Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR)

SIPR is a strategic collaboration between Scotland's universities, Police Scotland, and The Scottish Police Authority. Our mission is to support internationally excellent, multi-disciplinary policing … read more about Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR)

Edinburgh

UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing

The UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing is based at the University of Edinburgh, delivered through the Edinburgh Futures Institute together with t… read more about UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing

Edinburgh

Regulation and Design Lab (RAD Lab)

The Regulation and Design Lab is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Edinburgh examining how law and regulation should be accounted for in the design of human-technology interacti… read more about Regulation and Design Lab (RAD Lab)

Edinburgh

Additional Partnerships

Scottish Privacy Forum; Information Commissioner's Office; Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Regulation and Governance Node; Horizon Digital Economy Research; Joint Research Centre of the European Commission