surveillance society
The UK apparently has over 5 million CCTV surveillance cameras, one fifth of the world’s total. Walking around London, the average person is potentially monitored by 300 CCTV cameras a day.
Examples of technological advances turning old-circuit surveillance cameras into smart systems are manifold, e.g. facial recognition CCTV systems, gait recognition, cameras with ears etc.
Philip Johnston of the Telegraph wonders about the threats and opportunities of the surveillance society taking shape.
Furthermore, he writes:
“[...] the committee can do one thing and that is alert the country to the potential dangers of putting all this surveillance together – the CCTV, DNA, ID card, radio-frequency identification, citizens’ database – and linking it up with the rest of the information held on us. Whatever can be said for the value of any one of these, it is the combination that makes me feel uneasy.”
Real power, hence also real danger does indeed lurk on the crossroads where datasets meet. The convergence of technologies (bio, info, nano, etc.), as much good as it will bring, also poses privacy challenges far greater than anything we have seen now (see also this for example).
Acting upon information is what we do and also in the case of technology-enhanced surveillance, action lies only an interpretation away (man or machine), an interpretation that is subject to the intricate, complex process of deriving meaning from information.
Knowledge discovery and data mining techniques are used on both sides of the fence, also to preserve privacy (see also here).
Via Slashdot
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March 27th, 2007 at 21:26
It’s really a double-edged sword. On the one hand, camera’s and surveillance call forth issues of privacy and power, although you have to ask yourself how many of these camera’s are operational and being monitored (e.g. Bentham’s Panopticon – the thought of being watched is more powerful than the act itself).
And on the other hand we’re seeking the attention, the audience and the subsequent feeling of being real, by participating in reality tv and sharing lots of private information, photo’s and video’s via Web 2.0 websites such as Flickr, YouTube and MySpace.
The question of privacy and surveillance has changed almost 360 degrees into a question of having audience as a measure for social status (also see http://jeroencoumans.nl/journal/age-of-the-audience). Or perhaps such a point of view is the real danger lurking here.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:13
[...] as the 4million CCTV-camera nation is turning into a classic example of the trend of security and control obsession by now. A few days [...]