New Technologies Of Surveillance example essay topic

2. Do new technologies of surveillance encourage self-regulation? Discuss A fundamental dimension of modernity is the emergence of coordinated administrative power. The nation state is the prime site if such power but is also a part of modern organisations in general. Administrative power is based upon the control of information.

Administrative power is enforced through surveillance where information is routinely used to monitor the activities of a subject population. No less than capitalism or industrialism, surveillance is a tool in levering the modern social world further away from traditional modes of socialisation. Over the last twenty years the progress in the technologies which handle information have appeared very dramatic and has therefore posed a threat to information privacy. Analysis of this progress reveals that this progress is not in terms of new technologies being invented but those technologies already known have increased dramatically in their power while also falling dramatically in their prices.

This has happened to such a degree that the market penetration could only have been dreamed about by the most optimistic of market analysts a decade ago. The countries that are predominately concerned are those of the developed first world but as a result of the tremendous market penetration of these products their prices have now fallen to such a level that it cannot be long before the technology spreads progressively through the developed world also. From the moment we leave the privacy of our own homes we are almost under constant surveillance by cameras. Closed circuit television (C.C.T. V) are deployed and monitored in town centres, shopping centres, railways and tube networks.

Traffic cameras monitor car speeds and drivers compliance with red lights. Leisure centres, hospitals and universities are increasingly under the spotlight. A combination of modern video, powerful computers and telecommunication systems are capable of turning our cities into electronic grids which allow information which includes images to be passed around a multiplicity of social actors who are separated in the forms of time and space. The direct supervision of the subject population no longer requires the physical presence of an observer and images can be lifted out at any required time with authoritative interventions made at some future time and place.

Since the installation of Britain's first street based closed circuit television system in Bournemouth initiated by vandalism on the seafront the local council and police decided to install eight C.C.T. V cameras. Sixteen years later there are now 203 cameras situated around the town centre, beaches and car parks. The argument for such a level of surveillance has won the peoples support in Bournemouth as the police have recorded a noticeable drop in vandalism and street crime. All major cities in the U. K now have C.C.T. V surveillance with London having one of the most advanced systems in the world.

To advance their system further the metropolitan police want the information that could be available to them through the 1250 commercial cameras creating a coalition between state and private security. This extra surveillance would dramatically increase their databases that have now become digital allowing more data to be stored. Police databases already include car licence plate numbers which are recorded at several strategic points around the capital and faces of 6000 people who have been linked with football hooliganism according to a BBC documentary "surveillance society". The databases also hold footage and stills from the recent May Day protests. As well as visual images Scotland Yard is allowed through the data protection registrar information from a number of sources including banks, hospitals, social workers and all government departments. With the surveillance web spreading, technology is beginning to map our daily lives, but until now data has been random and displaced with the latest technology the data can be put together.

Textract is an information management company based in Scotland outside of Glasgow. Textract is capable of linking up a vast number of databases into a single network receiving cross-referencing and adding information. The major advance in this technology is the ability to accept data from alien systems enabling for a complete dossier to be built from small snippets of information and the cross-referencing of databases. Textract boasts unrivalled access to data and claims to have improved crime clear up rates through selling the system to police forces all over the U.K. With the use of such systems both private and international companies.