Dr. Valerie Steeves is a Faculty Member at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society and a Full Professor in the Department of Criminology of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Valerie Steeves’ main area of research focuses on the impact of new technologies on human rights. Dr. Steeves is the principal investigator of The eQuality Project, an SSHRC-funded partnership of researchers, educators, advocates, civil society groups, and policymakers interested in examining the impact of online commercial profiling on children’s identities and social relationships. As the lead researcher for MediaSmart’s Young Canadians in a Wired World research project, she has been tracking young people’s use of new media from 2004 to 2020
Dr. Steeves has appeared as an expert witness before several Parliamentary Committees regarding privacy legislation and has worked with several government departments to develop privacy education curricula and materials. Her Web-based educational game Sense and NonSense won the first annual Excellence in Race Relations Education award from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation in 1998, and her game Privacy Playground was awarded the Bronze Medal at the 2006 Summit Creative Awards Competition, an international competition involving thousands of entries from 26 countries.