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The WATCH Symposium brings together a diverse community of researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and industry experts to examine the rapidly evolving landscape of web tracking and algorithmic user profiling. In today’s digital ecosystem, online platforms increasingly depend on behavioral data collected from users to drive personalisation, recommendation systems, targeted advertising, and automated decision-making. As a result, it has become essential to develop a deeper understanding of not only the technical mechanisms underlying these systems but also their broader social, ethical, and regulatory implications.
Web tracking and algorithmic profiling now form the backbone of modern digital infrastructure, shaping how information is delivered, how users interact with platforms, and how decisions are made at scale. From personalized content feeds and product recommendations to political messaging and targeted campaigns, these technologies influence a wide range of societal processes. At the same time, their pervasive use raises critical concerns regarding user autonomy, privacy, transparency, and fairness. Questions around who controls user data, how profiles are constructed, and whether these systems reinforce existing biases or inequalities are becoming increasingly important in both academic and policy discussions.
In this context, the WATCH Symposium aims to investigate the full lifecycle of web tracking and user profiling—from data collection to algorithmic decision-making—while emphasizing ethical, legal, and societal considerations. By integrating insights from multiple disciplines, the Symposium seeks to enable a more holistic understanding of the societal impact of web tracking and algorithmic profiling. It emphasizes the need to critically examine these technologies not only as computational systems but also as socio-technical constructs embedded within legal frameworks, economic incentives, and cultural contexts.
To achieve this, the Symposium fosters dialogue and collaboration across fields including computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, social sciences, law, and public policy. By bringing together these perspectives, WATCH aims to address key challenges related to privacy, transparency, accountability, and fairness in the digital ecosystem, and to contribute toward the development of more responsible, trustworthy, and human-centered data-driven technologies.
The Symposium will have two components:
1. Public Symposium: 15-16 June, 2026
2. Consoritum Meeting (Invitation Only): 16-17 June, 2026
The primary goals of the WATCH Symposium are:
Understand the ecosystem
Analyze how web tracking technologies collect, process, and utilize user data across platforms.
Examine algorithmic profiling
Study how user profiles are constructed and used for personalization, recommendation, and decision-making.
Address privacy and fairness concerns
Identify risks related to surveillance, bias, and lack of transparency in current systems.
Bridge disciplines
Foster collaboration between technical, legal, and social science communities to develop holistic solutions.
Explore regulatory and policy frameworks
Discuss the impact of regulations such as GDPR, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act.
Shape future research directions
Identify open challenges and define research priorities for responsible and trustworthy profiling systems.
Web tracking technologies
Algorithmic user profiling
Privacy-preserving AI methods
Biases in profiling systems
Transparency and accountability
Regulatory and governance frameworks
Detection and analysis of tracking ecosystems
Interdisciplinary collaboration and network building
Identification of key research challenges and opportunities
Increased awareness of ethical and societal implications
Contributions to workshop paper
Inputs toward future grant proposals
This Symposium is designed for:
Researchers in AI, data science, network science, and web technologies
Social scientists and media scholars
Legal and policy experts
Industry practitioners and technology developers
Students, early-career, and senior researchers