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Department of Sociology

Midori Ogasawara

Profile photo of Midori Ogasawara

Assistant Professor

Sociology

Contact:
Office: COR A365 250-721-7581
Credentials:
PhD (Queens)
Area(s) of expertise:
Surveillance, technology, identification, biometrics, colonialism, data justice

Midori Ogasawara joined the Department of Sociology as an assistant professor in January 2021. Before joining the University of Victoria, Dr. Ogasawara was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa.

Her academic interests focus on social consequences of surveillance, identification, personal data, biometrics and other information communication technologies, including media and memory.

Her postdoctoral project investigates collaborative relationship between security intelligence agencies and big data corporations and analyzes how the collaboration has been redrawing the legal boundary of mass surveillance in Canada, by legalizing previously illegal surveillance. The research proposal for the 2018-2019 Banting competition was ranked second out of the 181 applications reviewed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Dr. Ogasawara completed her PhD in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University in 2018, under the supervision of Dr. David Lyon, the Director of Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s. Her PhD dissertation “Bodies as Risky Resources: The Japanese Identification Systems as Surveillance, Population Control and Colonial Violence in Occupied Northeast China” explores a historical trajectory of today’s biometric technologies.

Japan implemented fingerprinting, the forerunner of biometrics, when it occupied Northeast China in 1931-1945. Ogasawara conducted archival and ethnographical research in China and interviewed the colonial survivors and their family members who faced violent acts of Japan’s intensive policing and surveillance. A summary of this research was published in Making Surveillance States: Transnational Histories, edited by Robert Heynen and Emily van der Meulen (2019, University of Toronto Press).

Obtaining her first degree in law, Dr. Ogasawara was a staff writer for Japan’s national newspaper The Asahi Shimbun, and was engaged in investigative journalism on surveillance technologies, Japan’s sex slavery during the Second World War, and the US military bases in Okinawa. She was awarded the Fulbright Journalist Scholarship and John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University in 2004-2005.

In 2016, she became the first Japanese researcher who interviewed the US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden via a video channel, which resulted in publishing two books (2016, 2019) on the NSA’s secret activities in Japan and Japan’s involvement in global surveillance systems.

She is also an author of 3 other books, 6 book chapters and 2 peer-reviewed journal articles (Surveillance & Society, The Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia). She is currently writing a monthly column “Data, Surveillance and Me” for The Asahi Shimbun web magazine GLOBE+.

Publications

Prasad, Dominica and Midori Ogasawara. Forthcoming. “Biometric Emigration Passes: The Health Surveillance and Labour Control in the Indian Indenture Program”, Surveillance & Society, in production.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2025. “In the Heart of Liberal Democracy: Whitewashing Authoritarian Surveillance a Decade After the Snowden Revelations”, Surveillance & Society 23 (1): 133-139.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2025. “Protective Abandonment: Risk, Data, and Surveillance of Nuclear Workers post Fukushima”, Current Sociology 73(1): 46-63. (Online First, 2023)

Ogasawara, Midori. 2022. “Legalizing Illegal Mass Surveillance: A Transnational Perspective on Canada’s Legislative Response to the Expansion of Security Intelligence”, Canadian Journal of Law and Society 37(2): 317-338.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2019. “The daily us (vs. them) from online to offline: Japan’s media manipulation and cultural transcoding of collective memories,” The Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia 18(2): 49-67.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2019. “Mainstreaming colonial experiences in surveillance studies.”Surveillance and Society 17(5): 726-729.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2017. “Surveillance at the roots of everyday interactions: Japan’s conspiracy bill and its totalitarian effects.” Surveillance & Society 15(3/4): 477- 485.

Ogasawara, Midori. Forthcoming. “How Would Intelligence Agencies Use Digital Data Collected From People?”, in Shigeaki Iida, Kyoko Oe, Yuji Nakatani (eds.) Understanding the Anti-Spy Act: Thirty Ways to Control Information and Citizens, Japan: Godo-shuppan.

Ogasawara, Midori. Forthcoming. “What Are Activities of Intelligence Agencies Such As ‘Five Eyes’? What Would Japanese Spying Agencies Do?”, in Shigeaki Iida, Kyoko Oe, Yuji Nakatani (eds.) Understanding the Anti-Spy Act: Thirty Ways to Control Information and Citizens, Japan: Godo-shuppan.

Ogasawara, Midori, P. Arun, Smith Oduro-Marfo, Sahr Malalla, and Mohammad Hossein Badamchi. Forthcoming. “Colonial Surveillance Mechanisms: Past and Present”, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Society, Oxford University Press, in production.

Ogasawara, Midori and Sahr Malalla. “Not to Repeat Racializing Surveillance: A Historical Scope for Data Justice”, submitted, revised, and accepted by editors in August 2024 and placed under peer-review for Jacquline Quinless, June Francis, and Mathew Fleury (eds.) The Data Revolution: Justice, Rights, & Data Sovereignty Across the Digital Landscape, under contract with University of Toronto Press. Under review.

Ogasawara, Midori. Forthcoming. “Classify to Kill: Unit 731 and the Japanese Dossier of Settler Colonial Surveillance in Northeast China”, in Cristina Plamadeala and Ozgun Topak (eds.) Surveillance and the Dossier: Record Keeping, Vulnerability, and Reputational Politics, University of Toronto Press, in production.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2026. Colonial Surveillance: Technologies of Identification and Control in Japan’s Empire. California: Stanford University Press.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “Collaborative surveillance with big data corporations: interviews with Edward Snowden and Mark Klein,” in David Lyon and David Murakami Wood (eds.) Security Intelligence and Surveillance in the Big Data Age. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2019. “Bodies as risky resources: Japan’s colonial identification systems in Northeastern China,” in Robert Heynen and Emily van der Meulen (eds.) Making Surveillance States: Transnational Histories. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2019. Snowden Japan File: How Japan Has Been Involved with America’s Global Surveillance Systems. Japan: Mainichi Newspaper Publishing (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2016. Snowden Talks About the Horrors of the Surveillance Society: The Complete Record of An Exclusive Interview. Japan: Mainichi Newspaper Publishing (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori and Shiraishi, Takashi. 2012. No to the “My Number” System: For Countering the Surveillance Society and Protecting Personal Information. Japan: Koushi-sha (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2012. “Change the tone: why media has shifted to support the my number system,” in Yasuhiko Tajima, Koji Ishimura, Shiraishi Takashi and Mizunaga Seiji (eds.) The Tricks of the Common Number System: My Number Makes a Fair Society? Japan: Gendai-jimbun-sha (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2012. “The pitfall of the best match: the Korean resident registration system in the internet era,” in Yasuhiko Tajima, Koji Ishimura, Shiraishi Takashi and Mizunaga Seiji (eds.) The Tricks of the Common Number System: My Number Makes a Fair Society? Japan: Gendai-jimbun-sha (in Japanese).

Lyon, David. 2011. Surveillance Studies: The Social Theories of Watching and Being Watched, translated by Tajima Yasuhiko and Midori Ogasawara, Japan: Iwanami-shoten (from English to Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2008. “A tale of the colonial age, or the banner of new tyranny?: national ID card systems in Japan”, in David Lyon and Colin Bennett (eds.) Playing the Identity Card. NY: Routledge.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2003. “The unfair gaze: surveillance cameras looking at our everyday life,” in Toshimaru Ogura (ed.) Freedom for the Streets: Critiques of Surveillance Cameras. Japan: Impact Publishing (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2002. “The forgotten origin: a report on the resident basic registration network,” in Yasuhiko Tajima (ed.) Personal Data Protection Act and Human Rights. Japan: Akashi-shoten (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2000. Princess Sunflower: A Picture Storybook Based on the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. Japan: Poplar Publishing (in Japanese).
Korean translation, 2003. Korea: Dongyoun Child Publishing.
English translation, 2004. Japan: Kitakyushu Forum of Asian Women.

Ogasawara, Midori. Forthcoming. “Government Wanting Spying Citizens via Cellphones and People Wanting to Be Surveilled?” Nonbiru, Pal System Life Cooperative Society.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2025. “Joining the American War via the Internet: Legislative Loopholes of Cyber Attack Act and Cyber Spy Act” Chihei 16 (October 2025):148-157.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2024. “The Digital Surveillance Society that Forces You to Consent to Government Policies: MyNumber Health Card Is a National Identification Card” Osaka Medical Practitioners Magazine 698 (October 2024): 4-7.

Price, John and Midori Ogasawara. 2024. “Japan’s New Prime Minister: Dreaming of an Asian version of NATO?” rabble.ca (October 10). https://rabble.ca/politics/world-politics/japans-mew-prime-minister-dreaming-of-an-asian-version-of-nato/

Ogasawara, Midori. 2024. “Where the Peace Movement Go after the Decampment?”, Online journal News for the People in Japan (August 25).

Price, John and Midori Ogasawara. 2024. “The Hogue Commission: Inquiry or Inquisition?” rabble.ca (July 11). https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/the-hogue-commission-inquiry-or-inquisition/

Price, John and Midori Ogasawara. 2024. “Racialized Communities Caught in a Maelstrom”, rabble.ca (July 5). https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/racialized-communities-caught-in-a-maelstrom/

Price, John and Midori Ogasawara. 2024. “Rushed Passage of C-70: An Urgent Wake-Up Call”, rabble.ca (July 2). https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/rushed-passage-of-c-70-an-urgent-wake-up-call/

Ogasawara, Midori. 2024. “The Expansion of Encampment in North American Universities: How to End Complicity in the Gaza Attack”, Online journal News for the People in Japan (May 9). http://www.news-pj.net/news/149043

Price, John and Midori Ogasawara. 2024. “Is CSIS embroiling Canadian universities in US Cold War with China?”, rabble.ca (March 25). https://rabble.ca/politics/canadian-politics/is-csis-embroiling-canadian-universities-in-us-cold-war-with-china/

Ogasawara, Midori. 2023. “Intelligence Agency, Academic Freedom, and Researchers in Target” Online journal News for the People in Japan (September 22).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2023. “Is Intelligence Agency Trustworthy as a News Source?” Online journal News for the People in Japan (August 14). http://www.news-pj.net/news/148977

Ogasawara, Midori. 2023. “Why Were the Canadian Japanese ‘Uprooted’ During the War?” News for the People in Japan (July 6). http://www.news-pj.net/news/148948

Ogasawara, Midori. 2023. “Hassan Diab and the Kafkaesque Islamophobia” News for the People in Japan (April 19). http://www.news-pj.net/news/148906

Ogasawara, Midori. 2023. “Generation Z Worries About the Digital Future: Youth and ‘Big Tech’”, Visions BC’s Mental Health and Substance Use Journal 18 (1): 7-5. https://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/visions/growing-up-in-a-digital-world-vol18/generation-z-worries-about-the-digital-future

Ogasawara, Midori. 2022. “What the State Funeral for the Murdered Prime Minister Conceals—Or What Is Considered as Crimes” News for the People in Japan (September 14). http://www.news-pj.net/news/142987

Ogasawara, Midori. 2022. “Homecoming after the Three-Year Pandemic” News for the People in Japan (September 5). http://www.news-pj.net/news/142383

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “The Children’s Bodies Discovered in the Residential School and the Crime of Colonial State: Book Review of Seven Fallen Feathers”, Sekai 949 (October): 260-263.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “The Rise of Pandemic Surveillance Capitalism: The Digital Net can Incarcerate Us without Wall”, Sekai 943 (April): 96-104.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “National Pride, Questioned by the Children’s Bodies Found in the Former Indian Residential School Sites” News for the People in Japan (July 9). http://www.news-pj.net/news/115127

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “Pandemic Politics and Social Imagination” News for the People in Japan (January 22). http://www.news-pj.net/news/106185

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “Is Spying Fair Game among States?” Asahi Shimbun Magazine GLOBE+(February 26). https://globe.asahi.com/article/14219502

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “Journalists Targeted by Spywares: Corporations that Help to Erase Inconvenient Truth” Asahi Shimbun Magazine GLOBE+ (January 29). https://globe.asahi.com/article/14142629 

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “The bodies discovered in the residential school and the crime of colonial state: book review of Seven Fallen Feathers.” Sekai 949 (October): 260-263.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2021. “The rise of pandemic surveillance capitalism: the digital net can incarcerate us without wall”, Sekai 943 (April): 96-104.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2020-present. “Data, surveillance and me.” Monthly column for Asahi Shimbun Magazine GLOBE+.  

Ogasawara, Midori. 2017. “Invisible surveillance and media manipulation: the effects of conspiracy law from Snowden’s perspective.” Journalism (academic journal by Japan’s national newspaper Asahi Shimbun) 329 (October): 82-89 (in Japanese). Republished by online journal Webronza.

Ogasawara, Midori. 2016. “The emergence of state surveillance by new technologies and the question of humanity”, 2 articles, The Sekai (academic journal by Iwanami-shoten), 888: 126-135, 889: 178-186 (in Japanese).

Ogasawara, Midori. 2012. “Identify and classify the entire population: politics of surveillance in the common number system, new alien card system and secrecy act.” Buraku Kaiho (academic journal by Buraku Kaiho Domei) 666: 64-73 (in Japanese).