Social perspectives of surveillance and democracy

Surveillance has become a crucial component of all environments informed or enabled by ICTs. Equally, almost all surveillance practices in technologically 'advanced' societies are enhanced and amplified by ICTs. Surveillance is understood as any focused attention to personal details for the purposes of influence, management, or control. Thus in addition to those who may be 'suspects' (because of alleged offences), ordinary persons in everyday lifeworkers, consumers, citizens, travellers --find that their personal data are of interest to others. Agencies process personal data in order to calculate risks or to predict opportunities, classifying and profiling their records routinely. While everyday life may thus seem less 'private', and ordinary people may feel that they are more vulnerable to intrusion, the use of searchable databases for categorizing and profiling means that deeper questions of power are involved. Life chances and choices are affected -sometimes negatively -by the judgments made on the basis of concatenated data, which means that such surveillance is implicated in basic questions of social justice, to do with access, risk distribution and freedom. There is increased need for ethics and politics of information in an era of intensifying surveillance.

Harvard Journal of Law & Technology , 2017

Today, everyone is watched. While surveillance is not new, “mass surveillance” is a relatively recent phenomenon. The mainstreaming of surveillance has helped spark an antisurveillance, pro-privacy movement that extends across legal scholarship, policy debates, civil rights advocacy, political discourse, and public consciousness. There is much to praise in this burgeoning privacy movement, but also much to criticize. Privacy’s popularity hit this peak only when elites and members of mainstream society were targeted for surveillance, which means that this popularity is in many ways driven by self-interest rather than principle. If we fail to fully confront the particular convergence of interests that led to the current pro-privacy, antisurveillance movement, the result is likely to be an uneven and unjust distribution of privacy protections. The current movement does too little to acknowledge the long, dark history of surveillance of marginalized populations and gives too little thought to what that history means for the future of privacy. The fact that surveillance has been made democratic provides a unique opportunity to make privacy democratic, but this revolutionary possibility can only be realized by addressing longstanding race, gender, and class inequalities in the theory and practice of privacy.

Surveillance, Privacy and Security, 2017

This volume examines the relationship between privacy, surveillance and security, and the alleged privacy-security trade-off, focusing on the citizen's perspective. Recent revelations of mass surveillance programmes clearly demonstrate the everincreasing capabilities of surveillance technologies. The lack of serious reactions to these activities shows that the political will to implement them appears to be an unbroken trend. The resulting move into a surveillance society is, however, contested for many reasons. Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with democratic societies? Is security necessarily depending on surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Is it possible to gain in security by giving up civil liberties, or is it even necessary to do so, and do citizens adopt this trade-off? This volume contributes to a better and deeper understanding of the relation between privacy, surveillance and security, comprising in-depth investigations and studies of the common narrative that more security can only come at the expense of sacrifice of privacy. The book combines theoretical research with a wide range of empirical studies focusing on the citizen's perspective. It presents empirical research exploring factors and criteria relevant for the assessment of surveillance technologies. The book also deals with the governance of surveillance technologies. New approaches and instruments for the regulation of security technologies and measures are presented, and recommendations for security policies in line with ethics and fundamental rights are discussed. This book will be of much interest to students of surveillance studies, critical security studies, intelligence studies, EU politics and IR in general.

2010

While the UN introduced the paradigm of ‘human security’ in the 1990s, the post 9/11-legislation has returned to the paradigm of national security, in the name of ‘homeland’ security. The paper explores the ramifications of this reorientation in view of new and emerging security and surveillance technologies. It argues that a culture of surveillance has emerged that contradicts the vision and values of the human security concept. Regarding the intersection of political and private security and surveillance technologies, the ubiquity and entanglement of surveillance technologies with everyday life goes far beyond the purpose of security. Therefore, the paper argues for a reorientation that is backed by moral and political theory, and a (new) social contract that is based on the concept of social freedom, deliberative democracy, and a human rights-oriented concept of justice. From: Journal of Political Science and Public Affairs 3/1: 145, 2015, 1-6. Available: http://www.esciencecentral.org/journals/political-sciences-public-affairs-abstract.php?abstract_id=48774

2018

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2022

This chapter explores the ethics of surveillance in the digital age by assessing its lights and shadows. After assessing the consequences of surveillance for freedom and democracy, it argues that we should resist the surveillance delusion: the assumption that surveillance has no significant moral costs. Under the surveillance delusion, only the benefits of surveillance are considered, and, as a result, surveillance is taken to be a convenient solution to problems that could be solved through less intrusive means—all without realizing that surveillance itself may be creating more weighty problems in the long run than the ones it is solving.

Surveillance and Society

Despite recent growth in surveillance capabilities there has been little discussion regarding the ethics of surveillance. Much of the research that has been carried out has tended to lack a coherent structure or fails to address key concerns. I argue that the just war tradition should be used as an ethical framework which is applicable to surveillance, providing the questions which should be asked of any surveillance operation. In this manner, when considering whether to employ surveillance, one should take into account the reason for the surveillance, the authority of the surveillant, whether or not there has been a declaration of intent, whether surveillance is an act of last resort, what is the likelihood of success of the operation and whether surveillance is a proportionate response. Once underway, the methods of surveillance should be proportionate to the occasion and seek to target appropriate people while limiting surveillance of those deemed inappropriate. By drawing on the just war tradition, ethical questions regarding surveillance can draw on a long and considered discourse while gaining a framework which, I argue, raises all the key concerns and misses none.

Maureen Webb’s new text Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World details the post-9/11 social moment as it pertains to human rights law, through an analysis of surveillance technologies and policing within Western democracies.

2020

The increased digitalisation of society and recent developments in AI is laying the ground for surveillance capabilities of a magnitude we have not seen before. Surveillance can be conducted by several different actors in society, this project focuses on the Swedish police currently using a large ensemble of surveillance technologies. Earlier this year, significant legislative changes governing the police authorities use of digital surveillance were enacted. These changes mean that the police now have been given an extended mandate to use digital surveillance as part of their professional practice, which places demands on balanced decisions and informed responsibility. On the one hand, the police have an interest to use digital surveillance to increase efficiency and security in society; on the other hand, the police must balance their interests with citizen’s so-called integrity-interests and right to privacy. This study will therefore examine to what extent the Swedish Police Auth...

2017

This chapter explores important ethics issues regarding government surveillance on citizens. Two views are discussed regarding debates about ethics and possible model development for reconciling tensions between freedom and security. Key issues for debate are presented and these include the need to define and deliberate the meanings of privacy, abuse, proportionality, secrecy, etc. Certain propositions for debate are also offered. These are: a. It is unethical to monitor citizens who are not under any demonstrable reason of suspicion without their knowledge or permission; b. It is unethical for citizens to block necessary national security surveillance when such surveillance is proven to be needed to stop acts of crime or terrorism; c. Governments should not conceal the facts about how much they monitor citizens for national security and in what typical conditions they do so; and d. Citizens should not accuse governments who use surveillance to track criminals and terrorists as being fascists or trying to establish dictatorships. Those who surrender true liberty to a false security defend nothing worth preserving, while those who abandon real security to an illusory liberty protect nothing worth safeguarding.-Ronald Collins We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.-President Barack Obama

The aim of this article is to make suggestions that could empower different socio-political groups to question surveillance. It does so by formulating sets of questions that different stakeholders can ask of themselves, of the private sector and of government, including intelligence agencies. It is divided into three main parts. The first part provides some background on resilience in surveillance societies. It defines the terms and identifies features of resilience and today's surveillance society. The second part lays out a set of questions addressed to each of the stakeholder groups. The questions are intended to promote consideration of a proposed or existing surveillance system, technology, practice or other initiative in terms of the necessity and proportionality of the system, and of whether stakeholders are being consulted. The third part offers a list of measures that can be taken to increase resilience in a surveillance society, to restrict the scope of surveillance systems to what can be legitimately justified, and to minimise the impacts of surveillance systems on the individual, groups and society.

Criminal Justice and Security in Central and Eastern Europe (eds. Mesko Gorazd, Branko Lobnikar, Kaja Prislan, Rok Hacin) University of Maribor Press : Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security (2018) , pp 30-41, 978-961-286-176-6 , 2018

This paper highlights some questions that stand at the heart of current police policy, eg. the consequences of the transformation thesis, the militarization of police, as well as the 'pluralisation of policing'. The relentless emphasis on security, the media focus on violence, the need to find returning investment forms after the collapse of the bipolar world order, and the political necessity of making people feel safe — creates policing practice similar to the military experience. The concept of police as 'servants of the state' lacks the notion of the relative autonomy of the state and the relative autonomy of the police. There is a general disagreement on what the police are guarding, and whether the work of privately employed guards might also be considered as policing. An emerging surveillance state raises the question of whether the private security organs can be judged as a kind of refeudalization, a privilege that violates the right to equality.

2017

The Information Society allowed the interaction and distribution of information and ideasthrough the Internet and cyberspace. Information is power. However, fundamental rights, the rule oflaw and democracy must be preserved. It is therefore necessary to implement public, national,European and international cybersecurity policies. That is why there is a European cybersecuritystrategy. As for the Portuguese case we have developed a growing production of legislation tosafeguard the citizen. The EU economy is already hit by cybercrime against private individuals andthe private sector. Cybercriminals employ increasingly refined procedures to introduce themselvesin computer systems. In countries outside the EU, governments can use cyberspace in aninappropriate way for surveillance and control of their citizens. The EU can refute this position bysupporting online freedom and ensuring respect for fundamental rights online. Increasingly it isdifficult to establish boundaries in the sphere of what is private and in what is public. Constantsurveillance of individuals and not only is inevitable. (PDF) Information society based on surveillance and control.The political implications of heightened surveillance. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335728307_Information_society_based_on_surveillance_and_controlThe_political_implications_of_heightened_surveillance [accessed Oct 05 2019].

Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 2004

A critique of the dictionary definition of surveillance as "close observation, especially of a suspected person" is offered. Much surveillance is applied categorically and beyond persons to places, spaces, networks and categories of person and the distinction between self and other surveillance can be blurred. Drawing from characteristics of the technology, the data collection process and the nature of the data, this article identifies 28 dimensions that are useful in characterizing means of surveillance. These dimensions highlight the differences between the new and traditional surveillance and offer a way to capture major sources of variation relevant to contemporary social, ethical and policy considerations. There can be little doubt that major changes have occurred. However the normative implications of this are mixed and dependent on the technology in question and evaluative framework. The concept of surveillance slack is introduced. This involves the extent to which a technology is applied, rather than the absolute amount of surveillance. A historical review of the jagged development of telecommunications for Western democratic conceptions of individualism is offered. This suggests the difficulty of reaching simple conclusions about whether the protection of personal information is decreasing or increasing.