DD208 Surveillance

Surveillance

Increasing amounts of information generated about us daily

Clearly part of a long social process

Drift towards surveillance society

Dangers of sleepwalking into a surveillance society

It is a product of a production process where something is conceived, funded, resourced and based on a need or demand

Risk of exclusion and/or being treated with suspicion

Can be used to identify & exclude those seen as being undesireable

Those who do the watching and those who are being watched

Some people might feel safer
eg older people in shopping centre

People are affected differently depending on how they are or percieve surveillance

Formal/Informal arrangements -looking our for each other

To catch perpetrators of crime, prevent crime, look after vulnerable, transform public services, ostensibly for the good

Need to strike a balance

Highlights tensions between security and fairness to all

Surveillance is not all about technology

Both a protection and a threat

Entanglements between welfare, crime and society - tensions and overlaps