15th Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy: Panopticon

Abstract

Its ominous-sounding subtitle, Panopticon, refers to the prison designed by Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century to facilitate the constant observation of prisoners without their awareness of when they were being observed. Although the design was never constructed, the term has come to be applied to societies practicing widespread surveillance. The homepage of the conference (www.cfp2005.org), provides the following information on how Panopticon came to be the theme:`O ver time, and particularly recently, surveillance of ordinary citizens has increased to dramatic levels. Not only are governments watching more aspects of their citizens' lives, but those in the private sector are increasing surveillance of people as well. Often lost in the race to`increase intelligence' are discussions about different approaches to address problems like the threat of terrorism that are equally or more effective, but do not involve extensive and constant surveillance.'' Audio recordings of the 14 plenary sessions are available on the conference web site. This article covers nine plenaries.