Surveilled, Sold, and Stifled: Protecting People and Purpose from Surveillance Profiteering

Thursday, April 30, 2026 | 11:30AM–12:15PM PT | California Ballroom D, Second Floor
Session Type: Breakout Session
Delivery Format: Presentation/Panel
You protect your campus data and systems from theft and malicious intrusions, but do your campus folks protect themselves from the privacy threats embedded in their digital lives? Even though privacy sits at the heart of American ideals of liberty and the right to be left alone—and despite overwhelming bipartisan support for comprehensive privacy legislation—unimaginable quantities of personal data detailing our actions, behaviors, interests, and preferences continue to be amassed, sold, and shared for profit by commercial interests, and also bought and used by government entities. Some may not feel perturbed by such data collection until it is too late, when mitigations are much less effective than preventative measures: e.g., when they face doxxing for voicing an opinion, or when they observe they’ve been surveilled. Institution-centric approaches to cybersecurity and privacy do not equip the campus community to protect itself from these harms and their threat to the university’s mission of creativity and free inquiry. This session will outline surveillance capitalism’s privacy threats and offer meaningful steps to counter resignation in the face of the overwhelming scale of data collection. You will come away prepared to help your community members assess their personal threat model and design individualized privacy action plans. Throughout the session, we will draw a through line of equity’s intersection with cybersecurity.

Presenters

  • Elijah Baucom

    Director, UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic, University of California, Berkeley

  • Lisa Ho

    Chief Privacy Officer, University of California, Berkeley

Resources & Downloads

  • SurveilledSoldandStifled PresentationSlides

    Updated on 6/14/2026