CHAPTER - 7

Control and surveillance

1
Definitions
Surveillance

 Pervasive monitoring of daily life

 The act of observing or the condition of being
observed
 Close observation of a person or group,
especially one under suspicion
 Surveillance emerges as a problematic issue
because of its relationship to privacy and
social power.
2
Definitions

Privacy

 The quality or condition of being secluded

from the presence or view of others

 The state of being free from unsanctioned

intrusion: a person's right to privacy

 The state of being concealed; secrecy

3
Internet Technology and Surveillance

4
Internet, as a new paradigm
Internet
 media for freedom

 symbol of a new age of Liberty

5
Technologies of Control
 Identification
 password, “cookies”, authentication
procedure…
 Surveillance
 intercepting messages, tracking of
communication flow…
 Investigation * Encryption
 building of databases

 Derived from intertwined interest of

6 commerce and governments.
Basic assumption of these
technologies
 Controller know the codes of the network

 Controls are exercised on the space defined

on the net

∴Internet
→ Global network BUT local submission

7
Privacy on a precipice
 Liberty VS Authoritarian, Surveillance

Gathering data Selling for marketing

(personal info)
Potential E-commerce Client
Customer company
(by clicking the website)

8
Privacy on a precipice

Vicious Circle:

9
Privacy on a precipice
 Internet firms wearing masks

⇒ Irony:
to make interests
by selling customer’s info
Curtailing Privacy Liberty
Breaking Anonymity

10
When Privacy Fades Away
Problems in Cyberspace

 Cybercrime

 Hacking and Cracking

 From anywhere to anywhere in global network
 Revealing powerlessness of traditional forms of
policing

11
When Privacy Fades Away

Repossession of cyberspace by
governments
 Wiretapping
 Interception of data traffic
 Pressure company to set traceability technology for
their users

∴ Internet will be..

internet → intranet
space of freedom → glasshouse
12
When Privacy Fades Away

Victims and Problems

 Victims
 Sovereignty itself
 Liberty(right to do as one pleases)

 Problems
 Confusion of jurisdiction
 Structuring of everyday behavior by dominant
dorms of society
13
Internet Freedom Barricades
 Encryption technology for privacy

 Ability of society and their institutions

Internet society cannot be controlled but be

shaped
(by laws, courts, public opinion, the media…)

14
 Internet at branch of the road
 One

try to control cyberspace

and recover sovereignity
Governmen
Citizens
t try to protect privacy and
liberty

15
 Internet at branch of the road
 Another
protect people(another
meaning of GLASS
Governmen HOUSE)
Citizens
t watch government, act
their right as a citizen

16
The idea of surveillance, privacy and control
 As concepts in academic literature, surveillance and
control if often linked to Michel Foucault (Discipline
and Punish)

 Foucault uses “Panopticon” (all + seeing) as a

metaphor to explain state/institutional power and
control over the public

 Anthony Giddens – Surveillance as natural part of

modern societies

 And this idea goes back to the architect Jeremy

Bentham and his blueprint of a prison design in the
1700s.
17
Bentham’s Blueprint

18
PANOPTICON

19
The idea of panoptic society involves
 Panoptical/ panopticon are used as metaphors in media
studies to explain the role of media technologies in
surveillance.

 Society controlled through fear of ‘Big Brother’

 The idea/belief that we are monitored
 Watching each other and the self (self-policing)

20
Surveillance in Public Spaces
 A Typical UK resident in urban areas is filmed about 300
times a day

 Estimated 200,000 cameras in the city of Shenzhen in

China

 Getting widespread in other countries as well

 Other instances of surveillance we can think of?

21
Privacy, Surveillance and New
Media/Cyberspace

 New technologies, particularly new media tech. are

changing the dynamics between surveillance and privacy

 With ICTs, much more than just physical space and public
action can be monitored

 Data is digital, so almost everything we do leaves a mark

 information society = panoptic society?

22
Privacy and surveillance at home?

 Most people consider “home” to be a private space

 But, with ICTs and new media, the notion of “home as
private space” is becoming very contested
 Our Internet use
 TV consumption
 Electricity use (with smart metering)
 Even food consumption

Can be traced

23
Who is surveilling us in a new media
environment?

 Government (Carnivore, wiretapping)

 Crackers/Hackers (Theft)
 Private businesses/companies

 And others can

 ‘Google-stalk’ us
 Trace other electronic data

24
So our privacy is protected and
invaded…through

 Satellites, airwaves, wires, networks, databases, search

engines and,

 ICTs and new media change/alter what is private and what

is public space

 Again, we can think of these as

 Technologies of freedom
 Technologies of invasion

25
Cont. . .

 Our reaction depends on whether:

 we care,
 how much we care and
 what we do about it

 There is constant contestation on issues of privacy and

surveillance between different interest groups in the
society.

26
Some people and groups in the society
believe…

 “They can give up essential liberty to obtain a little

temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

 Some others believe sacrificing a little privacy is worth

the security we get from being surveilled.

27
Cont. . .

28
Cont. . .

 How much of social networking online is actual social

networking?

 And to what degree do you consider it to be surveillance

(or do you)? Why/why not?

29
 don‘t forget …

30