Contact details
About me
Mariana Canto is a Lecturer and PhD Candidate at the University of Stirling where she is part of the interdisciplinary cluster on Democracy, Human Rights and Communication/Advocacy in the Digital Age and is supervised by Dr. Damian Etone, Dr. Professor William Webster, Professor Rowan Cruft, and Dr Edit Freyo. Her research examines the power dynamics shaping the international regulation of commercial spyware and their implications for human rights.
She was previously an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation German Chancellor Fellow and a member of the Politics of Digitalization Unit (POLDI) at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, Germany. Mariana also serves as Director of the Law and Technology Research Institute of Recife (IP.rec), Brazil. She is affiliated with the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) and the Surveillance in the Majority World Network.
Her work has been cited by leading institutions including the Council of Europe, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and the Brazilian Supreme Court
Mariana Canto is a legal scholar with a interdisciplinary focus on the intersections of law, science and technology studies (STS), and social sciences. Her academic work engages with critical questions around privacy, digital surveillance, state and corporate accountability. She brings a critical, decolonial and feminist perspective to issues such as surveillance technologies and data governance. She has experience across civil society, academia, and international organisations and is committed to research-led teaching that bridges theory and practice in contemporary legal challenges.
Teaching
Mariana is a Seminar Tutor for 'Wicked Problems, Sustainable Solutions' (UNIU9A1), 'Law in the 21st Century' (LAWU9A1), and 'Approaches to Human Rights' (HUMPR03), with responsibility for the design and delivery of seminars and formative assessments.
She is also currently supervising undergraduate students in Law dissertations.