Leveraging the ‘power’ of big data in the production of ‘responsible gamblers’: a Foucauldian perspective

This article examines the big data practices employed by the online gambling industry to illustrate the wider societal power structures involved. As well as using data for commercial ends, gambling operators in the UK market are obligated by law to utilise gamblers’ data to protect problem gamblers. This paper argues that the use of data in this way can be interpreted as a form of social control when observed through a Foucauldian lens. Contrary to the dominant narrative of free and informed choice, gamblers’ behaviour is arguably being governed both at an individual level through disciplinary mechanisms of surveillance and correction, and at the level of the population through governmentality techniques applied to the gambling environment. Through big data practices and industry discourse, these mechanisms of power are used to frame the choices of individuals and shape them into a productive population of ‘responsible gamblers’

Big data in the production of ‘Safe Gamblers’ and a sustainable gambling industry: a genealogy of gambling regulation in Great Britain

For hundreds of years in Great Britain, the state has been concerned with the regulation of commercial gambling. The methods of regulation, however, have varied significantly from prohibition under the criminal law to a free market approach allowing the natural laws of competition to operate. In recent years, advances in technology and big data analytics, originally developed by the industry for the maximisation of profits, have been welcomed as a novel approach to protecting gamblers from harm. Despite the disparate nature of the various approaches to the regulation of gambling during the course of history, this thesis aims to show that there is a common thread which runs throughout. Applying a Foucauldian lens, in particular using Michel Foucault’s later work on governmentality, this study argues that gambling regulation in Great Britain has, since the earliest official attempts to legislate on the activity, been concerned with the formation of a particular type of subject, who ‘knows’ certain ‘truths’ about gambling and behaves in accordance with those ‘truths’. Whilst this subject naturally varies in form across different periods in time, it is well-illustrated by Sir Frederick Flood during a House of Commons debate in 1818, when gambling was regarded as a vice to be suppressed: […] nothing could be more injurious to property, reputation, and life than the vice of gaming. It had brought many individuals to ruin, had produced great private misery, and had deprived the country of many persons who might otherwise have been useful and valuable members of society.1 Applying a genealogical approach, this research illuminates the ways in which gambling regulation has operated to create subjects who hold particular views about gambling and conduct their own behaviour in accordance with those views, so that they become ‘useful and valuable members of society’. Each chapter examines one of the discrete approaches to gambling regulation since 1541, defined in this thesis as a ‘regime’ of government. Over time, the techniques used in this process of subjection have evolved into a complex framework of mechanisms, which uses gamblers’ ‘freedom’ as a resource in the production of useful and valuable subjects. In this way, it is argued that notwithstanding the underlying ‘liberal’ ethos of the present statutory framework under the Gambling Act 2005, examined in Part II, gamblers today are subject to greater levels of regulation than when commercial gambling was unlawful. This is particularly true for online gamblers, whose conduct is regulated in increasingly intimate and pervasive ways through the application of continuous surveillance and big data analytics to facilitate a ‘safer’ form of gambling and protect ‘at risk’ gamblers from harm. The present regime, as examined in Chapter Four, thus operates to produce gambling subjects who autonomously gamble in a way which is considered ‘safe’. It also produces responsible operators who employ their data-driven technological capabilities to protect those gamblers who may be ‘at risk’, for example of spending more than they can afford. Though on the face of it, this appears to be a particularly caring, benevolent approach to regulation, this thesis seeks to problematise the apparently taken-for-granted assumption that the data-driven technologies, originally developed for commercial purposes, should be repurposed in this way. Instead, it is argued that in ‘protecting’ gamblers, these technologies also play a central role in their subjection. Thus, on closer examination of the present regime, this thesis identifies an inherent perversity whereby gamblers have effectively become a resource to be utilised in a safe, sustainable way in order to secure a sustainable gambling economy

Editorial: BILETA 2021 Special Issue

This editorial introduces the BILETA conference 2021 and the papers in the edition

“The internet: to regulate or not to regulate?” Submission to House of Lords Select Committee on Communications' inquiry

In early 2018 The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications' began an inquiry into how regulation of the internet should be improved, taking into consideration how the internet has transformed global interaction, information gathering and educational/entertainment consumption, and how it opens up new opportunities but also presents challenges. This is the written submission of University of Cumbria Lecturer in Law Ann Thanaraj (along with other members of NINSO, Northumbria Internet & Society Research Interest Group), in response to the invitation to submit written evidence to the inquiry

The internet: to regulate or not regulate

This submission was prepared in response to a call for evidence launched on 29 March 2018 by the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications entitled “The Internet: To Regulate or Not to Regulate?”. The broad inquiry sought evidence to explore how the regulation of the internet should be improved, and to consider whether online platforms which mediate individuals’ use of the internet have sufficient accountability and transparency, and whether they use fair and effective processes to moderate content. This collaborative response, prepared on behalf of NINSO (The Northumbria Internet & Society Research Interest Group), provides recommendations in relation to the wide range of issues raised by the Committee. The key themes that are highlighted by NINSO to be addressed by any reform are effective user education and the power imbalance between the platform and user. NINSO recommends that an empirical, holistic, evidence-based approach should be applied which is tailored appropriately to the size and resources of the platform as well as the context of the situation

Observing Data-Driven Approaches to Covid-19: Reflections from a Distributed, Remote, Interdisciplinary Research Project

The Observatory for Monitoring Data-Driven Approaches to Covid-19 (OMDDAC) is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project investigating data-driven approaches to Covid-19, focused upon legal, ethical, policy and operational challenges. The project is a collaboration between Northumbria University (Law School, Department of Computing and Information Sciences, Department of Mathematics) and the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security think-tank, and aims to carry out integrated interdisciplinary research, regarded as the most challenging type of interdisciplinarity but where the outputs can be the most impactful. Due to the constraints of the pandemic, the project has been carried out in a fully distributed and remote manner, with some team members never having met in person. The subject of the research is continually changing and developing, creating unique project management issues, with the impact of the pandemic pervasive in the lives of the researchers. This article takes the form of a series of reflections from the points of view of individual project researchers – the specialist legal researcher, the think-tank Co-Investigator, the post-doctoral researcher, statistical and data science researchers, and the Principal Investigator – and organised under two main themes - project management and internal communication; and methodologies/interdisciplinary research. We thus draw out lessons for future remote and distributed research, focused upon interdisciplinarity, the benefits and challenges of remote research methodologies, and issues of collegiality. Finally, we warn that it will be a false economy for universities and funders to assume that research projects can continue to be conducted in a mainly remote manner and therefore, that budgetary savings can be made by reducing time allocations, travel and academic networking

Risk of Injury in Royal Air Force Training: Does Sex Really Matter?

IntroductionMusculoskeletal injuries are common during military and other occupational physical training programs. Employers have a duty of care to reduce employees’ injury risk, where females tend to be at greater risk than males. However, quantification of principle co-factors influencing the sex–injury association, and their relative importance, remain poorly defined. Injury risk co-factors were investigated during Royal Air Force (RAF) recruit training to inform the strategic prioritization of mitigation strategies.Material and MethodsA cohort of 1,193 (males n = 990 (83%); females n = 203 (17%)) recruits, undertaking Phase-1 military training, were prospectively monitored for injury occurrence. The primary independent variable was sex, and potential confounders (fitness, smoking, anthropometric measures, education attainment) were assessed pre-training. Generalized linear models were used to assess associations between sex and injury.ResultsIn total, 31% of recruits (28% males; 49% females) presented at least one injury during training. Females had a two-fold greater unadjusted risk of injury during training than males (RR = 1.77; 95% CI 1.49–2.10). After anthropometric, lifestyle and education measures were included in the model, the excess risk decreased by 34%, but the associations continued to be statistically significant. In contrast, when aerobic fitness was adjusted, an inverse association was identified; the injury risk was 40% lower in females compared with males (RR = 0.59; 95% CI: 0.42–0.83).ConclusionsPhysical fitness was the most important confounder with respect to differences in males’ and females’ injury risk, rather than sex alone. Mitigation to reduce this risk should, therefore, focus upon physical training, complemented by healthy lifestyle interventions

OMDDAC Snapshot Report 2: Tech-driven approaches to Public Health

This Snapshot Report incorporates OMDDAC’s findings from interviews with key stakeholders, together with published research, to capture the experiences and lessons learned throughout the pandemic in relation to technology-driven approaches to public health. This Report examines three case studies: digital proximity and exposure notification; risk scoring algorithms; and Covid-status certification

OMDDAC Snapshot Report 3: Policing and Public Safety

Policing during a pandemic brings novel data-driven challenges. Solving them requires significant coordination and clear communication both within forces and across public sector agencies. This report presents three case studies demonstrating the range of opportunities and difficulties facing the police in this period: police access to NHS Test and Trace data; monitoring of crime and enforcement trends; and monitoring of police resourcing and wellbeing

OMDDAC Snapshot Report 1: Data-driven Public Policy

‘Data-driven’ decision-making has been at the heart of the response to Covid-19 in the UK. Data-driven approaches include: sharing, linkage and analysis of different datasets from various sources; predictive modelling to anticipate and understand transmission and inform policy; and data-driven profiling to identify and support vulnerable individuals. This Snapshot Report incorporates OMDDAC’s findings from interviews with stakeholders, together with published research, to capture the lessons learned throughout the pandemic across these three case studies