Camera Surveillance and Privacy in the Netherlands

2004

This paper examines data from an observation study of four CCTV control rooms in Norway and Denmark. The paper asks whether issues other than privacy might be at stake when public spaces are placed under video surveillance. Starting with a discussion of what values public spaces produce for society and for citizens and then examining CCTV practices in terms of those values, we find that video surveillance might have both positive and negative effects on key 'products' of public spaces. We are especially concerned with potential effects on social cohesion. If CCTV encourages broad participation and interaction in public spaces, for instance by increasing citizens' sense of safety, then CCTV may enhance social cohesion. But the discriminatory practices we observed may have the opposite effect by excluding whole categories of the populace from public spaces, thus ghettoizing those spaces and hampering social interactions. Though tentative due to limited data, our analysis indicates that structural properties of CCTV operations may affect the extent of discriminatory practices that occur. We suggest that these properties may therefore present 'handles' by which CCTV practices can be regulated to avoid negative effects on social cohesion.

Contents p. 10 p. 24 Urban Geography p. 32 Science and Technology Studies p. 38 Surveillance Studies p. 54 Conceptual framework p. 56 Research questions p. 58 Research methods and outline p. 68 Chapter 2 Observations in Dutch nightscapes p. 70 Introduction: Three Dutch nightscapes p. 72 Methods of mapping and observing p. 78 Three nightscapes p. 98 Conclusions p. Chapter 3 Mobile cameras as new technologies of surveillance? p. Introduction: Nightlife and technologies of safety p. Participation and surveillance: New questions for the public nightscape p. Theoretical framework p. Methods p. Script analysis of a mobile camera p. On users and mobile phone camera practice p. Conclusions CONTENTS P. 11 p. Chapter 5 Policy, design and use of police-worn bodycams p. Introduction p. Theoretical starting points p. Methods of inquiry p. The bodycamera according to policy makers p. The bodycamera according to designers p. The bodycamera according to users p. Conclusions p. Discussion: the bodycamera as standard equipment? p. Chapter 6 Engaging stakeholders in a debate around Dutch surveillance technology p. Introduction: Responsible Innovation in surveillance p. On methods p. Technology mapping p. The influence of technology in the nightscape p. Assessing scenarios on surveillance futures p. An analysis of stakeholders' views of the Dutch surveillance landscape p. Reflections on CTA p. 246 Chapter 7 Conclusions, reflections and recommendations p. 247 Revisiting the research questions p. 250 Summary of findings and answering the subquestion p. 260 Reflections on theory p. 268 Notes on methods and approaches p. 272 Recommendations for the governance of Dutch surveillance practices p. 276 References p. 290 List of Figures p. 294 Appendices p. 295 Appendix A: Description of observation protocol and the developed method booklets (static and dynamic) p. 300 Appendix B: list of facilities p. 301 Appendix C: Intervention protocol p. 304 Appendix D: Semi-structured interview question list p. 306

The functioning of the public sector gives rise to considerable debate. Not only the efficiency and efficacy of the sector are at stake, but also its legitimacy. At the same time we see that in the public sector all kinds of innovations are taking place. These innovations are not only technological, which enable the redesign of all kinds of processes, like service delivery. The emphasis can also be put on more organizational and conceptual innovations. In this series we will try to understand the nature of a wide variety of innovations taking place in the public sector of the 21st century and try to evaluate their outcomes. How do they take place? What are relevant triggers? And, how are their outcomes being shaped by all kinds of actors and influences? And, do public innovations differ from innovations in the private sector? Moreover we try to assess the actual effects of these innovations, not only from an instrumental point of view, but also from a more institutional point of view. Do these innovations not only contribute to a better functioning of the public sector, but do they also challenge grown practices and vested interests? And what does this imply for the management of public sector innovations?

2012

Information Polity, 2011

F. Comunello et al. (eds.), What People Leave Behind, Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research 7, 2022

Since the end of the last century, the number of video surveillance cameras installed in public spaces has increasingly grown worldwide. Although the installation of video surveillance should allegedly deter crime and improve the fear of crime and the perception of insecurity, the technology collects a vast number of traces of all the members of a population, regardless of their criminal intentions. In the academic literature, two main theoretical approaches have been formed to comprehend the role of video surveillance in public spaces: surveillance society and security state. Interestingly, both of them find their roots in Foucault’s ideas. The first one, surveillance society, is based on Foucault’s perspective on disciplinary power. The latter, security state, draws on the notions of apparatus of security and governmentality. This chapter is undertaken with the aim of an overview of the key features of the two approaches and their comparison. Furthermore, it discusses the possibility of applying both theories to analyze video surveillance in public spaces as it could offer a deeper understanding of a complex interplay of different logics behind an ever-increasing data collection on members of society.

In dealing with surveillance, scholars have widely agreed to refute privacy as an analytical concept and defining theme. Nonetheless, in public debates, surveillance technologies are still confronted with issues of privacy, and privacy therefore endures as an empirical subject of research on surveillance. Drawing from our analysis of public discourse of so-called “smart” closed-circuit television (CCTV) in Germany, we propose to use a sociology of knowledge perspective to analyze privacy in order to understand how it is socially constructed and negotiated. Our data comprise 117 documents, covering all publicly available documents between 2006 and 2010 that we were able to obtain. We found privacy to be the only form of critique in the struggle for the legitimate definition of smart CCTV. In this paper, we discuss the implications our preliminary findings have for the relationship between privacy issues and surveillance technology and conclude with suggestions of how this relationship might be further investigated as paradoxical, yet constitutive.

2008

In researching CCTV, it must be examined how people assess CCTV measures against the background of their individual knowledge about the technology in question. Research on visual surveillance needs to ask how they sense and perceive cameras. As cameras impact on spatial images and social perceptions, such as security, people's confidence will not be explained solely by showing that cameras do or do not work in reducing crime. For that it is necessary to look at what expectations people have regarding CCTV and its possible shortcomings. These assumptions provided the research frame for a qualitative study that focused on the assessment of visual surveillance in an urban environment. The study examined what knowledge people actually had about the technology and what meaning was ascribed to the cameras themselves. It seems that knowledge does not inform the meaning, but that the ascribed meaning is generated independently of this knowledge or the lack thereof. The results permit t...

International Review of Law, Computers & …, 2011

2004

This paper focuses on the relations between different types of actors involved in both conceiving and using video-surveillance systems. More specifically, it deals with the reasons that support the growing use of video-surveillance systems, and the organisation structures and implementation schemes that are designed to cope with them. The analysis raises issues linked to the complexity of social and spatial relations that CCTV tends to produce.

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.

This paper considers the role of CCTV (closed circuit television) in the surveillance, policing and control of public space in urban and rural locations, specifically in relation to the use of public space by young people. The use of CCTV technology in public spaces is now an established and largely uncontested feature of everyday life in a number of countries and the assertion that they are essentially there for the protection of law abiding and consuming citizens has broadly gone unchallenged. With little or no debate in the U.K. to critique the claims made by the burgeoning security industry that CCTV protects people in the form of a ‘Big Friend’, the state at both central and local levels has endorsed the installation of CCTV apparatus across the nation. Some areas assert in their promotional material that the centre of the shopping and leisure zone is fully surveilled by cameras in order to reassure visitors that their personal safety is a matter of civic concern, with even sma...

Video surveillance is an integral part of the contemporary world. Its use increases the sense of security but also generates certain risks. Laws do not always clearly and comprehensively define the rules for installing and using video surveillance and different rules are adopted in different countries to address these issues. This article presents an analysis of statistical data concerning urban video surveillance as a tool to improve the security of public spaces in the city of Katowice using the example of the operation of the Katowice Smart Surveillance and Analysis System. By presenting the operation of video surveillance in two different time periods, it was possible to assess the effectiveness of urban video surveillance for the security of public spaces in terms of particularly onerous crimes. The technical and organizational solutions applied, as in the case of the Katowice Smart Surveillance and Analysis System, made it possible to assess the impact of the operation of the system on offenses and the number of legal proceedings.

Airports are places that are heavily surveilled by different (technical) means, including CCTV (Closed Circuit Television). So far, the literature on CCTV has not paid much attention to the practices behind the screens of the CCTV monitors at airports. In this article, we present an in-depth, ethnographic study of the use of CCTV in the Military Police's control room at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. We find that, since nobody is 'at home' at Schiphol, surveillance through CCTV is a challenge for the police. The operators in the control room are constantly struggling with the question how to spot deviance in a situation where they believe normal behavior does not exist. Our study shows that the categories for singling out the abnormal identified by Norris and Goold are rarely used by the Military Police at Schiphol. Instead, they heavily rely on routine, transmitted, and retrospective surveillance.