Event Details

The theme of this year's Online Forensics Summer School will be protection, privacy, and proactive synthesis.

Welcome to the annual FACTOR summer school, running Thu 11th to Fri 12th June 2026.

Each even year (2026, 2028, etc.) is an online partial rerun of the previous, in-person, odd-numbered year (2025, 2027, etc.). In different words, if you attended the 2025 Summer School, you will find that we recap some of those same basic concepts, but also, because things in this field are moving so quickly, we introduce new topics, developments, and results too.

What might that new content be?

2026 theme: protection, privacy, and proactive synthesis

In different words, we’re looking at questions like: is it possible to protect our voices from malicious actors who might want to clone us whilst still being recognisable to people around us? Further along the scale, can AI keep our identities fully withheld in sensitive contexts such as when we’re giving anonymous tip-offs, providing evidence in risky criminal proceedings, or even working undercover? And how much of our linguistic output do we need to think about when attempting this? We’ll start the summer school with interactive experiments (you can, of course, opt out of any of these) and we'll bring you back the results by the end. What will those experiments be? Well, you’ll have to attend to find out more. See the timetable for more.

Registration

Tickets for the FACTOR Summer School 2026 are £40 each. This includes access to all sessions and materials across both days. This Summer School is aimed at complete beginners. You do not need any knowledge of forensic linguistics or forensic speech science. However, you do need to be aged 16 or above. To take part:

1. Purchase a ticket. Note that last year, tickets sold out several weeks before the event.
2. Register for the webinar. To ensure speedy access on the day, use the same name and email address for purchase, registering, and joining.

Getting here

That’s the great thing – you don’t need to. In even years, the Summer School runs on Teams. You could always just come to Lancaster anyway because it’s beautiful and worth the trip, but if you’re right round the globe, on a budget, and/or fitting this into a busy schedule, we’ve got you covered.