A map of government surveillance in the world and EU is published in the Daily Telegraph shows the UK to be one of the leading surveillance societies in the world, with more CCTV cameras per head than any other country in the world. This short video shows the UK Information Commissioner explaining his concerns that we are sleep-walking into a surveillance society. He was referring to a major new study of the impact of electronic surveillance (pdf), issued by the UK Information Commissioner but authored by a team of surveillance scholars.
Surveillance is deeply embedded in the fabric of our societies and sometimes something we welcome. However, its efficacy and social impact are contestable. “If you’re doing no wrong, you’ve nothing to hide, and nothing to fear.” Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? (“Who watches the watchers?“) “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” These are familiar sayings that point to our confusion about it. Maybe Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.”
Most of the digital technologies we embrace have more inbuilt surveillance capability than Richelieu could ever have dreamed of. Without this they would have limited functionality. Suspect terrorists have been traced through their mobile phones, Amazon synthesizes more sources of customer information than most are aware of to provide a unique service, and Tesco is quietly building up its on archive of its shoppers’ activity. The dystopian aspects of this have been neatly satirized by the American Civil Liberties Union in this video.
