Winner of UiO’s Award for Young Researchers: – Secrets Also Have a Function

Mareile Kaufmann is this year’s winner of the university’s Award for Young Researchers. At 40 years old, she only just fits into the category when it comes to age. However, if you look at her achievements as a researcher, few would dispute that she belongs to the senior category.

Mareile Kaufmann was only 38 years old when she was permanently employed as a professor at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law in 2021. 

At the department, Kaufmann currently leads two projects: ‘Digital DNA’, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and ‘Bodies of Evidence’, funded by the Research Council of Norway.

She has been a visiting researcher at the University of Essex and at Berkeley, at ETH Zurich, at the University of Montreal, at the University of Copenhagen, at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, and at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, the city in which she was born and raised. 

The article ‘Predictive Policing and the Politics of Patterns’, which she wrote together with two colleagues, was the winner of the prestigious Radzinowicz Prize in 2019.

In addition to publishing her research in highly ranked journals, the prize committee also refers to her involvement in public debates and active presence in Norwegian and international media.

– I got to design my dream project

Uniforum got to meet Mareile Kaufmann at her office in Domus Juridica. A little boy is asleep in a pram next to us. Kaufmann, who had her second child in 2023, is on maternity leave until the end of September.

The fact that it is possible to have a good family life and a career at the same time is one of the things she appreciates about working in Norway, she says.

– As researchers, we work under constant pressure to get our work published, and competition for resources is fierce, but we also have a lot of freedom in Norway to structure our own working hours, she points out.

Mareile Kaufmann describes the environment at the department as fantastic, and she is full of praise when she talks about her colleagues.

– I love my job, she declares.

If you ask Mareile Kaufmann what she is most proud of having accomplished as a researcher, you will not get a clear answer.

– Most of what I have done was teamwork, she emphasises.

However, if you ask what has meant the most to her career as a researcher, she is in no doubt.

– The postdoc position I got at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law in 2016 was a big turning point for me, she says, and elaborates:

– I came from a research community that had rigid structures and frameworks for what you should do and what is required of you. But the post doc position announced in 2016 was an open call. So when I wrote the application I was able to design a research project I knew I would love everything about.

The moment Kaufmann realised that she got accepted into a paid position for this very project became the moment when everything fell into place.

– It became clear that research was the right thing for me. It was an amazing feeling, she says.

– I named the baby

The university’s prize committee emphasises Kaufmann’s interdisciplinary research at the intersection of technology, genetics and society.

According to the committee, Kaufmann has not only created a new international field of research, Digital Criminology, but also changed the understanding of what digitalisation is and what it means for the social and natural sciences.

She feels that it is a bit of a stretch to say that she is the creator of Digital Criminology.

– These are things colleagues have been researching for years, she points out. Among other things, researchers have studied how camera surveillance is used as a means for preventing crime at the same time as it affects freedom and social trust.

– But it is probably true that I named the baby, Kaufmann admits.

But what exactly is digital criminology?

Kaufmann starts by stating what it is not.

– Digital criminology is not the same as cybercrime or online crime.

Criminology is often defined as research on the manifestations, causes and effects of crime and crime control. According to Kaufmann, Digital Criminology is about how digital technologies change access to information and provides new data practices in all areas of criminology.

A good match

Mareile Kaufmann is one of the editors of a Handbook of Digital Criminology. The book, intended as a research and teaching guide, became more extensive than Kaufmann had envisioned.

– How should one develop and structure the subject? One of the book’s premises is an understanding of the digital as something material. The information we collect is grounded in something concrete, in hardware and technology. In addition, we must ask how information is analysed. How is it used to create meaning? What exactly is an algorithm? We also have to look at the empirics: What methods can researchers use to study the field? These are questions we address in the book, says Kaufmann.

Mareile Kaufmann took her master’s degree at the University of Hamburg. 

The main reason why she was looking for job opportunities in Norway in 2010 was her partner who works as a graphic designer at NRK, she admits. The opportunity arose when she discovered that the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) had a research group on security, and worked with many of the same issues that she wanted to work on.

– I saw it was a good match, she comments.

With a small student scholarship in her pocket, Kaufmann contacted PRIO and asked to work as an intern. PRIO accepted her, even though the scholarship she had received in Germany barely covered the administrative costs.

– Maybe because they realised I wanted it so intensely, she thinks today.

And it wasn't long before she was promoted to a paid position, first as a doctoral research fellow and later with the title of senior researcher. The title of her PhD project was Resilience - Governance and in/security in interconnected societies.  

Kaufmann continued to contribute to some of PRIO’s projects even after she took up the post doc position in 2016 at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law.

At PRIO, she has until recently been participating in a project studying China’s and India’s biometric borders, and in a project on the use of artificial intelligence in war.

– Algorithms are not just mathematics

In her postdoctoral project, Kaufmann investigated how digital technology influences surveillance.

In the article that won her the Radzinowicz Prize in 2019, Kaufmann and her co-authors interviewed employees in law enforcement and software companies. The study showed how different algorithms create patterns that are used to determine where police patrols should be deployed.

– We must not forget that algorithms in digital systems are a result of people’s decisions and priorities. The algorithms are not just mathematics, she comments.

Mareile Kaufmann likes to talk about the politics behind technology. 

– Technology is never neutral, she reminds us.

– The ways in which technologies work is always a result of data collection and prioritisations captured in the algorithms’ parameters. This creates its own form of governance within society. In addition, most digital solutions are linked to economic systems that are not democratic. For example, many technologies are owned by large companies that capitalize on the data of their users, she points out.

Secrets confirm friendship

Surveillance is one of the topics Kaufmann has conducted a lot of research on. What do we gain and what do we lose if we are subjected to extensive surveillance?

– One key problem remains the balance of self-determination and control, she says. 

Among other things, Kaufmann has conducted research into how children use secrets to create their own space as a response to parental surveillance.

– Secrets are an important part of friendships and social dynamics. Sharing a secret means many things. When children or adults share a secret they also create a relationship of trust, she says.

The prize committee also emphasises Kaufmann’s ability to identify and shed light on difficult topics. Ethical challenges and societal effects of new technologies, especially with a focus on vulnerable groups, are examples. 

In her ERC project, Kaufmann looks at the relationship between technology, DNA and evidence. – New technologies simplify the registration and change the analysis of  DNA, but the influence between technology and DNA does not only go one way, according to Kaufmann.

– DNA also influences technology, she points out. For example, how DNA codes can be used as models for programming is also something Kaufmann and her team conduct research on.

This project also raises many existential and ethical questions.

Kaufmann points out how registers are currently being developed that hold big DNA data, both state-owned and private. 

– One can also imagine that everyone’s DNA will be registered at birth. For some, this is a dream, for others a nightmare, she says.

According to Kaufmann, there are communities that suggest linking biological information to prevention programs.

– But what happens when behavioural genetics are linked to crime control? she asks.

– DNA registries can be misused, and it is not always easy to define what is ethically justifiable and what is misuse.

The body’s renaissance

In the Research Council of Norway project called Bodies of Evidence, Kaufmann looks at the role of the body in forensic genetics and how this role varies in different cultures.

– The project’s postdoctoral research fellow is studying how evidence was processed after the Marikana massacre in South Africa, she says.

In 2012, platinum miners in Marikana went on strike because they wanted higher wages. Six days into the strike, 34 miners were killed and even more injured in clashes with police. After the event, the police maintained that it was a matter of self-defence, but the conduct of the police, the mining company and the local authorities during and in the days leading up to the massacre has been heavily criticised.

– In the project, we are not only looking at the visible injuries that were inflicted on the dead and the injured. We also seek to understand how the physical consequences of trauma have become a form of evidence. This also involves the relatives and miners who were not directly injured in the massacre, says Kaufmann.

Kaufmann herself is conducting research on technologies that are used to identify the dead. Such technologies can be used in major accidents or in war. Kaufmann points to facial recognition and collection of DNA as possible methods.

– What kind of ethical issues does this raise? And what if the person found dead did not want to be identified? Do the deceased have a right to privacy?

According to Kaufmann, the fact that digital technology and digital information are becoming increasingly important is a fundamental trend both in society and in research, but she also sees another trend.

– If I were to predict the future, I think in the next few years we will also see a greater interest in the body and biology, says Kaufmann and adds:

– Although digital technology has become increasingly important in our lives, we are still made of flesh and blood.

– I didn’t know I was nominated

Mareile Kaufmann received the Award for Young Researchers at the university’s annual celebration on 1 September. She has not yet had time to consider how to spend the prize money.

She describes the award both as an encouragement to continue working on new issues and as a recognition of the work that lies behind the results.

– Failure is also part of the process, she says. 

Kaufmann says that the award came completely by surprise.

– I didn’t know I was nominated. It is great to have colleagues who trust your work and nominate you. Without them, I wouldn’t have gotten this award, she says.

The interview was first published on Uniforum (link). Translated by Semantix.

See also:

• University Board Awards 2023
• Digital DNA
• BODIES OF EVIDENCE
• Predictive Policing and the Politics of Patterns

Contact information:

• Mareile Kaufmann