Surveillance Capitalism

The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) held a discussion with Shoshana Zuboff (professor emerita, Harvard Business School, and author) and Jim Balsillie (Canadian business leader and philanthropist) on the concept of surveillance capitalism and its implications for an information civilization.

The conversation explored issues concerning governance and public policy challenges in a marketplace of intangibles, where power is based on who controls and owns data and intellectual property. Offering both research and practitioner perspectives, the speakers highlighted the ways in which surveillance capitalism challenges democratic norms and departs in key ways from the centuries-long evolution of market capitalism.