iSchool Ph.D. student Bryce Newell will spend the summer at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), which is housed at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.

Established in 2008 and offered to fewer than 30 students each year, Google Policy Fellows are selected based on a candidate's passion for technology and their academic achievements, research and writing skills. iSchool Ph.D. student Lassana Magassa was a Google Policy Fellow in 2012.

Google Fellows spend the summer working on Internet and technology policy issues at select public interest organizations which are "at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more." They receive a stipend from Google to support their Fellowship work.

“I’m excited about the Google Policy Fellowship and the opportunity to work with CIPPIC because my research interests are primarily focused on the legal, ethical, and political implications of information and technology in society,” said Newell. “I’m very interested in online privacy, digital copyright, government surveillance, and understanding how police officers and law enforcement agencies are responding to citizens filming police officers in public spaces and posting the resulting videos and related information online.”

Most of Newell’s Fellowship will be spent participating in CIPPIC’s policy efforts. He anticipates that the work will inform and be relevant to his research on the role of surveillance and privacy, free speech online and in physical public spaces and how law and policy should or should not regulate these areas.

He is particularly interested in the fact that the Fellowship is in Canada.

“I have a significant interest in taking an international and comparative approach to these issues in my research.  I’ve done research on comparative copyright law where I’ve looked at copyright provisions in the US, Canada and the UK. This fellowship will give me an opportunity to expand my understanding and knowledge of international legal issues related to privacy, copyright and surveillance, which is really exciting.”

Newell, who has his J.D. from University of California, Davis School of Law, is also a lawyer and documentary filmmaker. He is currently producing, directing, and editing a documentary film about humanitarian and artistic response to migrant deaths and illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The film fits within the scope of his current research agenda, part of which is to determine how human rights issues fit into an electronic context: how issues of global human rights play into electronic surveillance and moving the human rights discussion into the digital space. 

The fact that he is interested in surveillance issues and is also a documentary filmmaker does not escape him. He hopes to incorporate visual methodology into his dissertation as a way to support and supplement his written work.

Newell’s doctoral advisor is Adam D. Moore, whose work examines the ethical, legal, and policy issues surrounding intellectual property, privacy, and information control. In the past six months, Newell has presented papers at the 2013 Information Ethics Roundtable, iConference, and the 46th annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).  He is also working with fellow doctoral student David Randall in an ongoing empirical study of the impact of video surveillance policies in large public libraries in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.