This paper suggests a direction in the development of Surveillance Studies that goes beyond current attention for the caring, productive and enabling aspects of surveillance practices. That is, surveillance could be considered not just as positively protective, but even as a comical, playful, amusing, enjoyable practice. A number of recent trends suggest that there is a potential for unmistakable entertainment in the operation of a number of contemporary surveillance practices that merit further empirical and theoretical study. The paper discusses several examples that are illustrative of these trends, such as computer games and artistic presentations. Although this analysis does not downplay the problematic and negative features of current surveillance practices, it aims to accentuate some of the ways in which surveillance-enabling technologies are able to perform entertainment functions.
At the most mundane level, CCTV observes bodies, and as such attaches great importance to the specific features of the human body. At the same time, however, bodies tend to disappear, as they are represented electronically by the camera monitors and, in the case of image recording, by the computer systems processing data. The roles of bodies (either as targets of surveillance or as translations into flows of disembodied information), however, are not unimportant or inconsequential, but may in fact give rise to a number of tangible ethical dilemmas. Firstly, the virtual representation of the embodied actor is not a neutral, unproblematic process. Body representation techniques such as CCTV produce constructions of the subject that involve judgmental, discriminatory processes of categorisation and are based on asymmetrical relations between observers and observed. Secondly, the 'data doubles' are not inconsequential: the representations of the body produced by CCTV can have palpable consequences for the embodied self and its life chances. The widespread use of CCTV could therefore give rise to individual as well as social issues, and possibly in a different manner than previous surveillance technologies. This fact signals the need for (re-)conceptualisations of moral values (such as privacy) applicable to the case of CCTV which take into account the importance of bodily protections.
This paper explores in which ways privacy (in particular, data protection principles) comes to the fore in the day-to-day operation of a public video surveillance system. Starting from current European legal perspectives on data protection, and building on an empirical case study, the meanings and management of privacy in the practice of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) will be discussed in order to identify the ways in which data protection is addressed in the operation of a video surveillance system. The case study suggests that views expressed by actors involved in the use of CCTV and the organisational and technical measures that have been employed, are related to a number of data protection issues, in particular principles regarding data quality. In addition, the case shows that while regulations (consisting in particular of organisational procedures) pertaining to the permissibility of data processing can be discerned in the practice of centralised CCTV, few indications exist that mechanisms taking into account data subjects' rights were established. Therefore, the system of video surveillance discussed in this paper suggests that different elements of data protection feature in different ways in the context of CCTV. This finding gives clues as to future research on privacy and camera surveillance.
C CO OV VE ER RA AG GE EPublic video surveillance tends to be discussed in either utopian or dystopian terms: proponents maintain that camera surveillance is the perfect tool in the fight against crime, while critics argue that the use of security cameras is central to the development of a panoptic, Orwellian surveillance society. This paper provides an alternative, more nuanced view. On the basis of an empirical case study, the paper explores how camera surveillance applications do not simply augment surveillance capacities, but rather have to deal with considerable uncertainties in the process of producing a continuous, effective, all-seeing gaze. The case study shows that the actions of human operators and the operation of camera technologies each place limits on the execution of electronic visual surveillance, instead of efficiently enhancing the powers of the surveilling gaze. The analysis suggests that the effects of video surveillance are rather ambivalent and uncertain, thus showing that public camera systems are not simply beneficial or malign.
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