Welcome to the home of the Countermeasures project – a research project based at the Royal College of Art, London. Our aim is to find creative ways to increase awareness of, and agency over, the sensors embedded in everyday objects.

Digital devices such as phones, tablets, TVs, headphones, and games consoles, contain dozens of sensors to measure everything from your movements to your blood pressure. Although we can’t see these sensors, they can observe many of our actions and behaviours in surprising detail. 

To counteract the risks of surveillance which arise from these sensors, this project aims to help people identify ways of deceiving their devices by first understanding what sensors they contain, and then improvising methods of blocking or subverting their use.

To find out more about the background of the project please see the About page. To see some of the outcomes so far, click on the Book and Tool Kit links above.

Project News

  • Countermeasures Network Event
    We will be holding our first Network Event for the HDI funded Countermeasures project “Giving children better control over how they’re observed by digital sensors” on Friday 5th February. This event will be a chance for members of our project network, including Royal College of Art, University College London, Glasgow School of Art, Dubit, Technology Will Save Us, Projects by If, Kids Know Best, BBC, and Glück Workshops, to meet and discuss the key themes of Kids, Technology, and Data Ethics.
  • HDI Network Funding
    We’re pleased to announce that we have won funding for the project from the Human Data Interaction Network to continue research for the Countermeasures project. The HDI Network is a UK EPSRC Network Plus, focused on research which increases understanding and control over how our data is used by applications and systems. More information on the network can be found on their website here. The Countermeasures […]
  • CHI 2019 Paper
    On the 9th May I presented my paper “Countermeasures: Learning to Lie to Objects” at CHI 2019, as part of the Alt.CHI series – the part of the conference for critical, artistic, and avant garde approaches to Human Computer Interaction. The abstract for the paper is:  Ubiquitous computing is leading to ubiquitous sensing. Sensor components such as motion, proximity, and biometric sensors are increasingly common features […]