Rosamunde Van Brakel
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rosamundevb.bsky.social
Rosamunde Van Brakel
@rosamundevb.bsky.social
4.5K followers 1.3K following 1.3K posts
assistant prof criminology teaching legal, ethical & social issues AI/sociology of law @VUB research: digital & more-than-human criminology, surveillance & AI, youth justice, human rights

https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/rosamunde-elise-van-brakel
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rosamundevb.bsky.social
Rosamunde Van Brakel @rosamundevb.bsky.social · Feb 20
Our article on rhizomatic harms of algorithmic policing is now published in print in a great new issue of @theoreticalcrim.bsky.social 😊 #criminology #surveillance #digitalcriminology journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
screenshot first page article theoretical criminology
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
bildoperationen.bsky.social
The largest infrastructure projects currently being built in the US appear to be data centers and detention centers. The AI boom has coincided with ICE becoming the most heavily funded government agency. It's hard not to see a connection: This is the architectures of digital fascism
ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US
Plans for such centers and jails in nearly two dozen communities have sparked protests over suitability, proximity to homes and schools.
www.bloomberg.com
January 30, 2026 at 8:17 AM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Prosecutors have been told they cannot rely on intercept evidence from the Sky ECC encrypted phone network in the absence of other evidence, unless they disclose the raw intercept data to defendants www.computerweekly.com/news/3666377...
Spanish court acquits suspects denied access to ‘raw’ Sky ECC intercepts in landmark decision | Computer Weekly
A Spanish court has raised questions about the validity and reliability of intercepted phone data, acquitting multiple defendants of drug trafficking charges in a case that relied solely on intercepte...
www.computerweekly.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:35 AM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Het Vast Comité van Toezicht op de politiediensten – beter bekend als het Comité P – heeft door een verouderd informaticasysteem geen zicht op meer dan 5.000 klachten die jaarlijks rechtstreeks bij politiezones worden ingediend. www.demorgen.be/nieuws/comit...
Comité P blijkt waakhond met blinde vlek: jaarlijks blijven meer dan 5.000 klachten buiten beeld
Meer dan 5.000 klachten per jaar tegen de politie verdwijnen van de radar. Niet omdat ze ongegrond zijn, maar omdat het systeem faalt. Dat blijkt uit een verslag van het Comité P dat HLN kon inkijken....
www.demorgen.be
January 30, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
mguariglia.bsky.social
I wrote this piece in 2020--but given ICE's use of face recognition and Pam Bondi posting mugshots on X, I'll share that since the 1890s, there has been concerns about the constitutionality of mugshots taken before conviction. Police retaining your photo erodes your presumption of innocence.
Facial Recognition Technology Is the New Rogues’ Gallery
The problem with facial recognition technology isn’t just that you could be mistaken for a suspect—it’s that it means your government doesn’t trust you.
slate.com
January 30, 2026 at 3:22 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
“The connections that matter to our humanity are not only to each other. They’re with the whole natural and social world. Animals, wild and domestic, should be counted as part of the irreplaceable companionship that makes our lives meaningful and sometimes joyful“ #morethanhuman
January 30, 2026 at 3:50 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Resisting the annexation of our hearts & minds by Silicon Valley requires us not just to set boundaries on our engagement with what they offer, but to cherish the alternatives. Joy in ordinary things, in each other, in embodied life …👏
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
What technology takes from us – and how to take it back | Rebecca Solnit
The long read: Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collectiv...
www.theguardian.com
January 30, 2026 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Very excited and proud to share that our FWO-Weave INFRASEC (The Infrastructuring of Algorithmic Passenger Security: A comparative analysis of infrastructural processes at the national and international level) proposal has been funded! @ikkibop.bsky.social @matthiasleese.bsky.social #AI #PNR
December 19, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
justinhendrix.bsky.social
A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.
How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are
www.nytimes.com
January 30, 2026 at 11:55 AM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Yay done marking !
a cartoon of snoopy , lucy and linus dancing in a field with the words `` hooray ! ''
ALT: a cartoon of snoopy , lucy and linus dancing in a field with the words `` hooray ! ''
media.tenor.com
January 30, 2026 at 2:57 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Yourself as a cartoon
January 30, 2026 at 7:21 AM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
I AM DRAGGING MY ANCHOR
pdfmerchant.bsky.social Old Sam @pdfmerchant.bsky.social · 2d
tag yourself i’m I AM MANOEUVRING WITH DIFFICULTY
January 30, 2026 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
matociquala.bsky.social
Fairly chilling article detailing the surveillance state we already live in. (Gift link)

wapo.st/4bXee03
The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters
Biometric trackers, cellphone location databases and drones are among the surveillance technologies agents are using in their immigration enforcement campaign.
wapo.st
January 29, 2026 at 12:04 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Check out Shaun Thompson’s story here: #surveillance #rhizomaticharms m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhLE...
January 29, 2026 at 12:09 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
UK: Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch is supporting the case brought by claimant and anti-knife crime campaigner Shaun Thompson, who said that after being misidentified by LFR cameras in Croydon, police demanded he submit his fingerprints www.theregister.com/2026/01/27/h...
London cops face court over live facial recognition creep
: Victim and Big Brother Watch will argue the Met's policies are incompatible with human rights law
www.theregister.com
January 29, 2026 at 12:08 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Ambtenaren van de Dienst Toeslagen weigerden toeslagenouders uit te leggen waarom zij van fraude verdacht werden. Daarbij overtraden zij bewust de wet, blijkt uit nieuwe documenten. #rhizomaticharm www.trouw.nl/binnenland/t...
Toeslagenouders opnieuw slachtoffer: overheid houdt informatie voor hen achter en overtreedt zo de wet
Ambtenaren van de Dienst Toeslagen weigerden toeslagenouders uit te leggen waarom zij van fraude verdacht werden. Daarbij overtraden zij bewust de wet, blijkt uit nieuwe documenten.
www.trouw.nl
January 29, 2026 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
australia.theguardian.com
Thousands of lion’s mane jellyfish have washed into the shallows and on to the sand across Port Phillip Bay, from Altona in the west to Blairgowrie on the Mornington Peninsula, Australia. Photographer and ocean swimmer Rodney Dekker captured video of the incredible sight. 🪼
January 29, 2026 at 4:33 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
bildoperationen.bsky.social
«What historians call the ‹perpetrator perspective,› evident in many Nazi photos and films, simply cannot be generated by AI. Instead, these images reveal the prompt behind them: visualizations of generic descriptions.» #GenericPastness www.jpost.com/opinion/arti...
Perception of the Holocaust reshaped by AI-generated images | The Jerusalem Post
For some time now, AI-generated Holocaust images have been flooding social media.
www.jpost.com
January 28, 2026 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
brucespringsteen.net
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
kristofsmeyers.bsky.social
Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely!

*to submit an abstract before 21/3
CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven. This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife. Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance. Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage performers, eyewitnesses. This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters? We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to: - making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures - making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation - performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory) - materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects - diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality - occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists) - affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.
January 27, 2026 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
katie-drummond.bsky.social
NEW: A ton of additional details about Mobile Fortify, including the company behind the app, which is being used by ICE agents to scan the faces of countless people in the US.

The app sends that data to CBP, which uses AI to match the info with existing records.
Here's the Company That Sold DHS ICE's Notorious Face Recognition App
Immigration agents have used Mobile Fortify to scan the faces of countless people in the US—including many citizens.
www.wired.com
January 28, 2026 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
therevelator.org
Animals Are Climate Allies. So Why Are We Leaving Them Out of Climate Policy? https://therevelator.org/animals-climate-allies/
Animals Are Climate Allies. So Why Are We Leaving Them Out of Climate Policy? • The Revelator
Climate change threatens species around the world. At the same time, many animals can help us in the fight against climate change — if we let them.
therevelator.org
January 28, 2026 at 4:05 PM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
#internationalpoliticalsociology #digitalcriminology #STS
rosamundevb.bsky.social Rosamunde Van Brakel @rosamundevb.bsky.social · Dec 19
Very excited and proud to share that our FWO-Weave INFRASEC (The Infrastructuring of Algorithmic Passenger Security: A comparative analysis of infrastructural processes at the national and international level) proposal has been funded! @ikkibop.bsky.social @matthiasleese.bsky.social #AI #PNR
fwovlaanderen.bsky.social Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen (FWO) @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social · Dec 12
💡 De nieuwe onderzoeksprojecten fundamenteel onderzoek werden toegekend 👉 www.fwo.be/nl/resultate...
We wensen alle onderzoekers veel succes 👏
January 28, 2026 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Drawing from concepts and methods of International Political Sociology, Science & Technology Studies and Digital Criminology INFRASEC will study how infrastructural processes and frictions shape algorithmic passenger security on the ground and with what effects on international security practices.
December 19, 2025 at 11:36 AM
rosamundevb.bsky.social
Eyes on the water: Tackling Illegal Fishing and Human Rights Abuses through the use of onboard CCTV cameras #surveillance ejfoundation.org/reports/eyes...
Eyes on the water: Tackling illegal fishing and human rights abuses…
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) and unsustainable fishing places immense pressure on the world’s oceans. These destructive practices go hand in…
ejfoundation.org
January 28, 2026 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Rosamunde Van Brakel
biekepurnelle.bsky.social
Waarom zou je kiezen voor de fermette onder de vogels, een opschepperige adhd'er, een kneus of een herrieschopper als je ook dit toonbeeld van krachtige gratie kan kiezen. Deze tijden vragen om zorgzaamheid, moed en doortastendheid. Stem valk.
January 28, 2026 at 11:29 AM