Conference: Biodata, Surveillance and Society

The conference 'Biodata, Surveillance and Society' will gather international scholars from the social sciences, law, humanities and the natural sciences who have an interest in exploring the landscape of biodata, surveillance and computation in a wide range of domains.

Time and place: Nov. 20, 2025 9:00 AM–5:00 PM, Domus Juridica, 2nd-4th and 8th floor, Kristian Augusts gt. 17, Oslo

Illustration: Paul Topinard, Craniology. Elements d'anthropologie generale, CC BY 4.0.Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk Paul Topinard, Craniology. Elements d'anthropologie generale, CC BY 4.0.

About the conference

Biometric technologies, synthetic DNA, biobanks and genomic predictions – the rapid proliferation of biodata has major implications for the present and future of surveillance and society.

What is the next-level biometric technology and how will it impact surveillance practices and security politics? What happens when genetic predictions are part of sentencing? What does it mean that DNA profiles have become part of administrative processes, for example asylum applications? To what extent is the forensic use of biodata based on discriminatory datasets? How do molecular computing and genome analysis services render DNA into a new type of asset?

This conference aims to critically examine the connections between biodata, surveillance and computation in a wide range of domains, from law enforcement and forensic science to biology, bio-informatics and related technologies. Across these contexts, processes of commercialization, digitalization and complexification are at play that demand greater scrutiny and clarity. This conference creates an arena for discussions and insights that can help to update the map of this rapidly shifting landscape centred on the perils and promises of biodata, as well as its scientific and societal impacts.

Biodata, Surveillance and Society will collect international scholars from the social sciences, law, humanities and the natural sciences who have an interest in exploring this landscape better.

Artistic intervention

Humanity: Box unchecked

A live performance sharing the experience of Texas death row inmate Amos Wells and the “violence gene” which forms part of the backstory of his sentencing.

Work-in-progress. By Heather Dewey-Hagborg in collaboration with Amos Wells. Starring Yusuf Toosh Ibra. Created with support from Digital DNA.

Registration for the performances is mandatory. See program.

Key notes

Erin Murphy, former White House Policy Advisor and Professor of Civil Liberties, New York University
Sabina Leonelli, philosopher of science and Professor at Technische Universität München

Program


08:15	Registration opens Lobby
09:00	Welcome by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Marianne Jenum Hotvedt Auditorium 2
09:15	Keynote Erin Murphy: Convenient Bodies: Biodata and the Frictionless State Auditorium 2
10:00	Coffee break 3rd floor atrium
10:15	1. Power and Regulation (parallel sessions) 1.1 Justice – for whom? Chair: Maja Vestad Room 3112 Understanding validation as valuation: Governing genetics technologies for security and criminal justice – Matthias Wienroth AI and Biodata in Policing and Criminal Justice: Lessons from the Use of DNA and the Polygraph in the UK and Australia – Temitope Lawal, Angela Paul, Marion Oswald Safeguarding justice for the subalterns: Navigating the intersection of colonial biopiracy and the datafication of biosciences – Joy Y. Zhang 1.2 Biodata, AI and Insecurity Chair: Mareile Kaufmann Room 4111 Does AI create new vulnerabilities, in whom and how? – Mavis Machirori Reflective Villainy: Safeguarding Biodata Research in the Age of AI – Courtney Schiebout and Carly A. Bobak Biometric AI: algorithmic identification and classification of bodies – Dr Diana Miranda 1.3 Governing biometric subjects Chair: Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel Auditorium 2 Biometrics through the lens of the EU AI Act – Saša Krajnc "I am acutely aware we are doing our suspects a huge disservice at the moment": Fear of contamination and the divergent approaches to forensic sampling in sexual offences in England. – Gethin Rees The collection, analysis and uses of forensic DNA: an empirical analysis of actorial strategies in the Belgian context – Bertrand Renard and Margaux Coquet 1.4 Surveillance Industries Chair: Silje A. Bakken Room 3248 The dark side of genomic commercialisation: bankruptcy, acquisitions and novel data protection violations – Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Naomi Lintvedt ‘Big Genetics’ companies: From Private to Power – Nina de Groot Health Data in the Hands of Law Enforcement: Investigating the Reusing in Policy and Practice – Vittoria Porta
11:15	Coffee break 3rd floor atrium
11:30	2. Discrimination (parallel sessions) 2.1 Present bodies – absent bodies Chair: Mareile Kaufmann Room 4111 Flickers of Discovery: AI, the Streetlight Effect, and Biodata – Carly A. Bobak and Jacqueline Wernimont Inalienable Attributes. The Perils of Biodata and Digital Passing – Beata Paragi Absent genetic subjects: Missing persons in post-war Bosnia – Victor Toom 2.2 The profile and beyond Chair: Maja Vestad Room 3112 “Democratising Forensic DNA Profiling… (with an Espresso Machine)” – Carole McCartney Policing data bodies: The governance of individuals and collectives in digital societies – Barbara Prainsack Detection beyond profiling: Towards a nomadic ontology of risk – Rita Augestad Knudsen and Claudia Emilie Aanonsen 2.3 Sur/Faces Chair: Silje A. Bakken Room 3248 Legible (sur)faces: examining the application and contestation of facial recognition in asylum litigation – Simon Roland Birkvad Biometric Fictions and Speculative Facial Governance: The Politics of Operational Plausibility – Helena Machado 2.4 Race – to which ends? Chair: Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel Auditorium 2 Race, identity and identification in the era of big DNA – David Skinner The Swedes and their fathers: Genetic genealogy, race, and the politics of ancestry in popular science – Anna Bredström and Shai Mulinari
12:30	Lunch 3rd floor atrium
13:30	3. Science and Data (parallel sessions) 3.1 Making science, making humans Chair: Camilla Løvschall Langeland Room 4111 Making DNA evidence: More than genes and technology – Corinna Kruse How US military and policing cooperation and cooption of scientific research have helped shape forensic genetics – Mark Munsterhjelm 3.2 Forensic imaginaries and stories Chair: Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel Auditorium 2 (Big) DNA, investigative practices and criminology: Forensic imaginaries in policing in England and Wales – Dana Wilson-Kovacs From Prüm to Prüm II: Sociotechnical imaginaries of forensic geneticists about national and EU orders of data exchange across forensic DNA database – Nina Amelung Beyond DNA: stories and peace in forensic practice for victim identification in Colombia – Maria Fernanda Olarte-Sierra 3.3 DNA and the future of investigation Chair: Silje A. Bakken Room 3248 DNA-based avatars – commercially led bio-virtual self and future harms – Silje Anderdal Bakken Forensic investigative genetic genealogy: Emerging visions and practices of governing genetic subjects in contemporary societies – Rafaela Granja The Legal Landscape of Investigative Genetic Genealogy in Europe: Current Status and Future Outlook – Taner Kuru 3.4 Data archives – data flows Chair: Maja Vestad Room 3112 ‘A human being close to not being one’: Crime, Media, and the Ideal Genetic Suspect – Maja Vestad Challenging “Spit and Acquit”: Litigation as intervention in a “consensual” genetic surveillance database – Simon A. Cole The Politics of Annotation: Situated Practices of Generative AI in Authority Settings – Klara Källström, Marie Eneman and Jan Ljungberg Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Humanity: Box unchecked Nils Christie Corner 8113 Please register here
14:30	Coffee break 3rd floor atrium
14:45	4. Perils (parallel sessions) 4.1 Surveillance going molecular Chair: Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel Auditorium 2 Governing digital genetic subjects: Molecular biotechnologies and the future of crime control – Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel Wastewater and its afterlife as surveillance data – Heta Tarkkala and Aura Savolainen What Genetic Data Means: Between Scientific Promise and Social Risk – Rosa Cheesman and Margie Cheesman 4.2 Un/Desired bodies Chair: Mareile Kaufmann Room 4111 Biodata and the Normate: The View from Disability Studies – Jan Grue The Regulatory negotiation of UK forensic DNA imaginaries – Dr Christopher Lawless From trait to treatment: The genetic subject and crime prevention – Mareile Kaufmann and Vilde Bergmann Winge 4.3 Vulnerability and the machine Chair: Silje A. Bakken Room 3248 The Double Helix of Suspicion: DNA, Crime and the Politics of Security – Joëlle Vailly Digital ID Systems: The Genesis of Data Harm – Silvia Masiero Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Humanity: Box unchecked Nils Christie Corner 8113 Please register here
16:00	Keynote Sabina Leonelli: From Bioveillance to Environmental Intelligence Auditorium 2 Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Humanity: Box unchecked Nils Christie Corner 8113 Please register here

Speakers and contributors

Angela Paul, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Anna Bredström, Linköping University, Sweden
Aura Savolainen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Barbara Prainsack, University of Vienna, Austria
Beata Paragi, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Bertrand Renard, National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC), Belgium
Camilla Løvschall Langeland, University of Oslo, Norway
Carly A. Bobak, Dartmouth College, United States
Carole McCartney, University of Leicester, United Kingdom
Christopher Lawless, Durham University
Claudia Emilie Aanonsen, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway
Corinna Kruse, Linköping University
Courtney Schiebout, independent, United States
Dana Wilson-Kovacs, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
David Skinner, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom
Diana Miranda, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Erin Murphy, New York University School of Law, United States
Gethin Rees, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, artist, United States
Helena Machado, Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal
Heta Tarkkala, University of Helsinki, Finland
Jacqueline Wernimont, Dartmouth College, United States
Jan Grue, University of Oslo, Norway
Jan Ljungberg, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Joëlle Vailly, French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris (CNRS), France
Joy Y. Zhang, University of Kent, United Kingdom
Klara Källström, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, University of Oslo, Norway
Maja Vestad, University of Oslo, Norway
Mareile Kaufmann, University of Oslo, Norway
Margaux Coquet, National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC), Belgium
Margie Cheesman, King's College London, United Kingdom
Maria Fernanda Olarte-Sierra, University of Vienna, Austria
Marie Eneman, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Marion Oswald, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Mark Munsterhjelm, University of Windsor, Canada
Matthias Wienroth, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Mavis Machirori, Ada Lovelace Institute, United Kingdom
Naomi Lintvedt, University of Oslo, Norway
Nina Amelung, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Nina de Groot, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
Rafaela Granja, University of Minho, Portugal
Rita Augestad Knudsen, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway
Rosa Cheesman, University of Oslo, Norway
Sabina Leonelli, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Saša Krajnc, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Shai Mulinari, Lund University, Sweden
Silje Anderdal Bakken, University of Oslo, Norway
Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo, Norway
Simon A. Cole, University of California, Irvine, United States
Simon Roland Birkvad, University of Bergen, Norway
Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel, University of Oslo, Norway
Taner Kuru, Tilburg University, Netherlands
Temitope Lawal, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Victor Toom, The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), Netherlands
Vilde Bergmann Winge, University of Oslo, Norway
Vittoria Porta, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Yusuf Toosh Ibra, actor, Norway

Abstracts

All abstracts can be found on this page, and they are also linked to the session and panel titles in the program above.

Registration

Conference registration is open.

The deadline for registration was 13 November. It is still possible to sign up for the conference, but we cannot guarantee a pre-printed name tag to those who sign up after the deadline.

There is no conference fee for participation.

This event has received funding from European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 947681).

Organiser

Digital DNA

Published Sep. 3, 2025 1:38 PM - Last modified Nov. 18, 2025 8:32 PM