bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From surveillant text to surveilling device: The face in urban transit spaces
Authors: Negishi Kaima
Published: July 2018

This paper considers the power, the significance and the operation of the human face as it transitions from being a mere object for defining dispositions to an agency for transmitting control in contemporary transit spaces. Seen as the most idiosyncratic surface of the body, the face has become a critical object for the measurement of truthfulness in recent years. CCTV and facial recognition technologies have increasingly been deployed in various transit spaces such as airports and railway stations to scan, detect and recognise particular facial characteristics of the target face so as to identify risky situations and intervene before they become hazardous events. However, this paper shows that in addition to these techniques of control-at-a-distance, the face is becoming an important site for a different technique of control as well. Specifically, the face is becoming a key site for circulating a particular range of affects to modulate individuals and to maintain security in transit space. A growing number of transport operators are now supplementing ‘detached’ infrastructures such as CCTV and security personnel, with more ‘affective’ infrastructures of social control such as friendly smiling platform staff and welcoming station concierges at information desks. By taking a closer look at one Japanese railway operator, Keikyu Corporation, and its implementation of the ‘Smile Scan technology’, this paper investigates how the face of the passenger is modulated, made receptive and thus turned into an agent of social control in urban transit spaces.
From Silence to Surveillance: Examining the Aftermath of a Canadian University Doping Scandal
Authors: Teetzel Sarah , Weaving Charlene
Published: July 2018

This paper examines a football doping incident that occurred at the University of Waterloo (UW) in Canada, and critically analyzes the doping policy recommendations for intercollegiate sport sparked by the scandal. In March 2010 a police raid led to the discovery of a large quantity of performance-enhancing drugs at a home linked to a former student-athlete, which resulted in an entire football team being subjected to mandatory drug testing. After the release of the test results, a task force was formed by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) to investigate doping in Canadian sport. Using a triangulation approach, which includes a case study of the UW doping scandal, semistructured interviews with student-athletes, and policy analysis of the reports that transpired, we critically examine the potential effects and scope of applicability of the new recommendations put forward by the task force. In critiquing the resulting recommendations, this paper cautions that replacing a culture of silence with a culture of surveillance can have detrimental effects in the fight against doping in sport.
Leprosy and the Plague: State Surveillance of Low-Income Fathers
Authors: Myers Monika Jean Ulrich , Wilson Michael
Published: July 2018

Foucault’s theory of state social control contrasts societal responses to leprosy, where deviants are exiled from society but promised freedom from social demands, and the plague, where deviants are controlled and surveyed within society but receive some state assistance in exchange for their cooperation.In this paper, I analyze how low-income fathers in the United States simultaneously experience social control consistent with leprosy and social control consistent with the plague but do not receive the social benefits that Foucault associates with either status.Through interviews with 57 low-income fathers, I investigate the role of state surveillance in their family lives through child support enforcement, the criminal justice system, and child protective services.Because they did not receive any benefits from compliance with this surveillance, they resisted it, primarily by dropping “off the radar.”Men justified their resistance in four ways: they had their own material needs, they did not want the child, they did not want to separate from their child’s mother or compliance was unnecessary.This resistance is consistent with Foucault’s distinction between leprosy and the plague.They believed that they did not receive the social benefits accorded to plague victims, so they attempted to be treated like lepers, excluded from social benefits but with no social demands or surveillance.
Just Surveillance? Towards a Normative Theory of Surveillance
Authors: Macnish Kevin
Published: July 2018

Despite recent growth in surveillance capabilities there has been little discussion regarding the ethics of surveillance.  Much of the research that has been carried out has tended to lack a coherent structure or fails to address key concerns.  I argue that the just war tradition should be used as an ethical framework which is applicable to surveillance, providing the questions which should be asked of any surveillance operation.  In this manner, when considering whether to employ surveillance, one should take into account the reason for the surveillance, the authority of the surveillant, whether or not there has been a declaration of intent, whether surveillance is an act of last resort, what is the likelihood of success of the operation and whether surveillance is a proportionate response.  Once underway, the methods of surveillance should be proportionate to the occasion and seek to target appropriate people while limiting surveillance of those deemed inappropriate.  By drawing on the just war tradition, ethical questions regarding surveillance can draw on a long and considered discourse while gaining a framework which, I argue, raises all the key concerns and misses none.
Enclosures at Play: Surveillance in the Code and Culture of Videogames
Authors: Cybulski Alex Dean
Published: July 2018

By analyzing the software used on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to monitor and track player’s behavior in videogames, this paper demonstrates that the platform has appropriated elements of visibility related to the code and culture of videogames to create a surveillant videogame console.  Analyzing elements common to the code of videogames we can understand that certain components of games have always relied on surveillant elements which facilitate interactive play. Similarly the early history of videogames in arcades has afforded a culture of visibility to videogames which has persisted in their design at the level of code.  This paper demonstrates how these sociotechnical artifacts common to videogames have been deployed in systems of datamining, tracking and play on the Xbox 360 and in doing so, offers perspectives for critiquing these systems.
Coerced to Leave: Punishment and the Surveillance of Foreign-National Offenders in the UK
Authors: Hasselberg Ines
Published: July 2018

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in London among foreign-national offenders facing deportation from the United Kingdom, this paper seeks to examine how foreign-national offenders experience and understand state policies of control. Worldwide, foreign-nationals are increasingly subject to forms of state surveillance, not just when crossing borders but also during their stay within a given state’s territory. Detention centres, weekly or monthly reporting requirements, and electronic monitoring are already common migrant surveillance strategies allied to deportation policies in many countries across the globe. These forms of state control are conceived legally as administrative practices necessary to control foreign-nationals whose status is still being adjudicated and to enforce the removal of unwanted foreign-nationals. Consequently, these strategies are not inflicted through a judicial process, even though these same practices are used within the context of penal incarceration and supervision. The lived experience of deportability and associated state surveillance highlights the punitive and coercive effects of detention and related conditions of bail. Ironically, but perhaps not unintentionally, those who are deemed a risk and subject to surveillance and banishment are therefore constantly feeling vulnerable and in need of protection. Because they do not consider themselves a risk to society, the foreign-national offenders interviewed for this study understand state surveillance not as a measure of control, but rather as punishment for wanting to stay. In their eyes, it is designed to coerce them to leave. An examination of the experiences of detention and bail reveals how such forms of surveillance work to discipline deportable bodies.
Making Up Soldiers: The Role of Statistical Oversight and Reactive Path Dependence in the Effectiveness of Canada’s WWII Mobilization Program 1940-1943
Authors: Thompson Scott N
Published: July 2018

This paper demonstrates the relationship between specific surveillance technologies and state actors’ capacity to assert governmentally ascribed social categories, and their associated performances, onto individuals and populations. During the Second World War in Canada, the government passed legislation to conscript individuals into the Armed Forces. The program commenced in 1940, mandating a registration of all those over the age of sixteen. The conscription of men classified to be “mobilized” began soon after, however, the effectiveness of the National Registration and mobilization system to conscript these identified individuals increased dramatically with the adoption of a new set of surveillance technologies in March 1942. These changes led to significant increases in the number of men that were conscripted per month after 1942, pointing to the capacity of these new policies and technologies to assert greater statistical oversight over system staff and its targeted populations. These surveillant practices and technologies also prompted the development of a form of reactive path dependence. Together, these two points served as key factors which worked to alter the observable performances of individuals classified for conscription.
Doing Surveillance Studies in Latin America: Social sorting in contexts of violence
Authors: Arteaga Nelson
Published: July 2018

The article argues that Surveillance Studies in Latin America should analyze violence and insecurity as the central elements in the dynamics of surveillance, but also demonstrates how surveillance acts as a major component on the dynamic of violence in the region. Taking Mexico as a point of reference, the article explores three surveillance regimes: state, social and criminal surveillance in order to identify how the dynamics of insecurity and violence have impacted each. The features of these surveillance regimes implies a particular way to collect information and data, while also suggesting methodological challenges and the need for a specific manner in which to do Surveillance Studies in Latin America.
Work and play at the threshold of legibility: theatre as method and pedagogy in surveillance research
Authors: Phillips David J
Published: July 2018

In May 2013, six collaborators and I produced and presented “Work and Play at the Threshold of Visibility.”  For my part, the intent of this collaboration was to use the skills of performers and the craft of theatre to explore poorly understood aspects of life within the modern surveillance apparatus. This article describes and critiques that work, placing it in the context of other artistic and theatrical explorations of surveillance, describing its successes and failures, and suggesting avenues for further research.
Thinking about Law and Surveillance
Authors: Lippert Randy K.
Published: July 2018

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Undercover Research: Corporate and police spying on activists. An introduction to activist intelligence as a new field of surveillance.
Authors: Lubbers Eveline
Published: July 2018

Building on previous research published in Secret Manoeuvres in the Dark, corporate and police spying on activists (2012), the author proposes a new field of research called Activist intelligence and covert strategy.Using exclusive access to previously confidential sources, Secret Manoeuvres showed how companies such as Nestlé, Shell and McDonald’s use covert methods to evade accountability. The author concluded that corporate intelligence gathering has shifted from being reactive to proactive, and identified a seriously under-researched area: the state’s concern with corporate interests, their close cooperation in collecting intelligence on campaigners, and a shared agenda in dealing with dissent. This paper encompasses an introduction to the published case studies, a definition of the proposed research field, and an exploration of its positioning in a multidisciplinary area as well as its theoretical embedding. The discussion under Methods: Hybrid Projects makes a case for the fusion of journalistic and social scientific approaches to the subject matter.
Trends in Voter Surveillance in Western Societies: Privacy Intrusions and Democratic Implications
Authors: Bennett Colin J
Published: July 2018

This paper surveys the various voter surveillance practices recently observed in the United States, assesses the extent to which they have been adopted in other democratic countries, and discusses the broad implications for privacy and democracy. Four broad trends are discussed:  the move from voter management databases to integrated voter management platforms; the shift from mass-messaging to micro-targeting employing personal data from commercial data brokerage firms; the analysis of social media and the social graph; and the decentralization of data to local campaigns through mobile applications. The de-alignment of the electorate in most Western societies has placed pressures on parties to target voters outside their traditional bases, and to find new, cheaper, and potentially more intrusive, ways to influence their political behavior. This paper builds on previous research to consider the theoretical tensions between concerns for excessive surveillance, and the broad democratic responsibility of parties to mobilize voters and increase political engagement. These issues have been insufficiently studied in the surveillance literature. They are not just confined to the privacy of the individual voter, but relate to broader dynamics in democratic politics.
Presentation of the Surveillance Studies Network Outstanding Achievement Award
Authors: Marx Gary T , Lyon David , Ball Kirstie S
Published: July 2018

A transcript of the presentation of the Surveillance Studies Network Outstanding Achievement Award to Gary T. Marx at the Surveillance & Society Biennial Conference, Barcelona, April 2014.
Performing Diabetes: Surveillance and Self-Management
Authors: Lucherini Mark
Published: July 2018

Sustaining the diabetic body involves visible practices of expert self-management: injecting insulin and testing blood sugar levels. Drawing form qualitative interviews I consider how people with diabetes manage the visibility of these practices relative to space. For many, the practices of diabetes are configured as ‘to be hidden’, and micro-spatial strategies are frequently deployed to conceal injections and tests from possible observing others. Diabetes then, is often a performance, one influenced by the performativity in space and place in which bodies are felt to be monitored. People with diabetes internalise self-disciplinary practices – keeping their diabetes discreet – especially in public. In this paper I contend that because of this performed discretion of diabetes self-management practices, there is a barrier to knowing diabetic bodies and lifeworlds. I suggest that, through increasing awareness of this subtle performance and surveillance, people with diabetes may feel less restricted in their self-management when in public space.
The “Vigilante Spirit”: Surveillance and Racial Violence in 1980s New York
Authors: Mann Justin Louis
Published: July 2018

This article details the "vigilante spirit", a term used by New York Governor Maria Cuomo to describe the seizure and execuation of state power by Bernhard Goetz in his attack on four black teenagers in December of 1984.  It argues that the vigilante spirit is an expression of thoughts, feelings, and practices that produce threats and then assemble the tools it deems necessary to combat them.  It further argues that the vigilante spirit, expressed by Goetz in his attack, was also encoded in various cultural texts produced in the 1980s and uses Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns as an example.  By reading these two case studies together, it seeks to explain the cultural politics that underpinned racial violence in the 1980s.
Surveillance and the Formation of Public Policy
Authors: Gandy, Jr. Oscar H.
Published: July 2018

SSN Outstanding Achievement Award 2016Surveillance & Society Biennial Conference, Barcelona.  This article is based upon a keynote lecture delivered at the Surveillance Studies Network Conference in Barcelona, April 22nd, and a public lecture delivered at The London School of Economics and Political Science, May 19th, 2016.
Surveillance and Anti-Communist Authoritarianism in South Korea
Authors: Sung Minkyu
Published: July 2018

In this essay, I argue that anti-communist authoritarianism has still survived into the 21st century South Korean public sphere, having been intensified in the idea of jongbuk. Jongbuk combines jong (to follow) and buk (North Korea) ideologically labeling people who are presumed to blindly follow, or be willfully serve North Korea’s totalitarian regime. People who are labeled jongbuk, pro-North Korea followers, are not only stigmatized and marginalized socially, but they are also subject to legal sanctions in their civic participation under the National Security Law. Especially under Park Geun-hye, daughter of military dictator and former President Park Chung-hee (1961-1979), I present how jongbuk has served as continued politicized commitments to national security and public safety used to justify the illegitimate and indiscriminate online surveillance and censorship of civilians and artists, as well as Park’s political opponents, to safeguard her regime.
Neoliberal governance or digitalized autocracy? The rising market for online opinion surveillance in China
Authors: Hou Rui
Published: July 2018

Much recent attention referring to surveillance practice in China has been paid to Chinese authorities’ authoritarian strategies like hiring online inspectors and building the Internet Firewall. While this focus meets the conventional imagination of a non-democratic regime, it neglects the underlying policy changes and structural arrangements with which the Chinese government conducts its governance in the era of big data. My ongoing study demonstrates, there has appeared a market through which various for-profit institutions are selling data services to help the governments conduct domestic governance in China. Through purchasing the Internet information surveillance system which is based on technologies like data mining, sentiment analysis and cloud computing, most Chinese local governments have incorporated the surveillance of public online opinion into their daily work. This phenomenon implies that a neolibral form of governance which aims at monitoring and guiding public sentiment is taking shape in authoritarian China.
Surveillance and Drones at Greek Borderzones: Challenging Human Rights and Democracy
Authors: Loukinas Panagiotis
Published: July 2018

The planned intensification of surveillance, including the use of drones, at the Greek borders will increase uncertainty at Greek borderzones as regards the protection of human rights, which are already under threat due to the existing high levels of surveillance. This includes both the human rights of migrants and refugees as well as the right to privacy of the populations already resident in these areas. The curtailment of these rights constitutes a threat to individuals’ liberties and democratic values. This further problematizes the situation in Greece, where the popularity of far-right has risen, while anti-immigrant rhetoric has been diffused in the practices and policies of border surveillance.
No-go zones: Ethical geographies of the surveillance industry
Authors: Lauterbach Claire Helen
Published: July 2018

In an industry as opaque as the surveillance technology industry, any effort to put in place safeguards to prevent human rights abuses using these technologies should be recognised and encouraged. But what happens when those systems fail?

For surveillance technology companies, deciding where not to sell in a world full of eager government clients has important ethical and financial implications. The surveillance industry favours a country-agnostic framework that hews to sanctions and export laws. Advocacy and media groups argue to extend the no-sell zone beyond sanctioned governments to ‘authoritarian’ ones.

Yet legal compliance is not the only factor influencing surveillance companies’ choices, this article argues. Based on original investigation, this article examines the social responsibility policies of communications surveillance technology vendors and the legal, reputational and normative concerns these demonstrate.

The article explores the use of country rankings related to ‘authoritarianism’ and ‘good governance’ by examining the inner workings of a specific company in crisis, Procera Networks. As the cases featured demonstrate, closer attention to be paid processes of corporate responsibility norm-making within companies.
Technology, Law, and the Formation of (il)Liberal Democracy?
Authors: Molnar Adam
Published: July 2018

This article argues that the politics of surveillance and (il)liberalism in Australia is conditioned by the dynamic interplay between technological development and law. Applying criminologist Richard Ericson’s concept of ‘counter-law’, the article illustrates how rapidly advancing capacities for surveillance and Australia's legal infrastructure collide. In this view, even regulatory safeguards can be instrumental in the broader drift toward (il)liberal democracy. Drawing on the Australian context to illustrate a broader global trend, this article conveys how such an apparatus of control reflective of (il)liberal democracy might be more accurately understood as a form of socio-technical rule-with-law.
'The Last Human Rights Defender in the United Arab Emirates'
Authors: Mansoor Ahmed , Luksch Manu
Published: July 2018

In May 2016, artist, researcher and activist, Manu Luksch, travelled to the United Arab Emirates (USE) to conduct research on ‘smart city’ initiatives in the region, and also to interview renowned human rights defender, Ahmed Mansoor. In March 2017, Mansoor was re-arrested, and on May 28th 2017, he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. Organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many others are campaigning for his release and #FreeAhmed has become a call online and on the streets in the form of graffiti and posters. Meanwhile the UAE has been one of 4 Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, who have extended their authoritarian campaign against dissidence beyond their borders to target other states who they regard as threatening the status quo, in particular the small but very wealthy state of Qatar, home of the Al-Jazeera news network that has, like Mansoor, championed opposition movements in the Middle-East. In this context, Surveillance & Society decided it was important to publish this interview almost in full as it gives unique insight into the personal and professional experience of a human rights defender in an authoritarian state that is at the same time extremely wealthy, technologically advanced and highly integrated into global capitalism.
Protesters’ Reactions to Video Surveillance of Demonstrations: Counter-Moves, Security Cultures, and the Spiral of Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance
Authors: Ullrich Peter , Knopp Philipp
Published: July 2018

This article analyses protesters’ reactions to police video surveillance of demonstrations in Germany. Theoretically, we draw on the concept of a “spiral of surveillance and counter-surveillance” to understand the interaction processes which—intentionally or not—contribute to the deepening of the “surveillant assemblage” in the field of protest policing. After introducing video surveillance and its importance for selective protest policing, we discuss concepts of counter-surveillance. Widening the individualist scope of former research on “neutralisation techniques,” collective and interactive dimensions are added to cover the full counter-surveillance repertoire. We identified six basic categories of counter-surveillance moves: consider cameras, disguise, attack, hide, sousveillance, and cooperation. They can be classified along the axes of (a) degree of cooperation with the police, and (b) directedness (inwards/outward). It becomes obvious that activists are not predominantly deterred by video surveillance but adapt to the situation. If and how certain counter-surveillance moves are applied depends on the degree of exposure, perceptions of conflict dynamics, political interpretations, and on how these factors are processed in the respective security cultures. Security cultures, which are grounded in the respective relations between protest groups and police, are collective sets of practices and interpretive patterns aimed at securing safety and/or anonymity of activists as well as making their claims visible. Thus, they are productive power effects, resulting from the very conditions under which protest takes place in contemporary surveillance societies. This article elaborates on these ambiguities and unintended effects with regard to sousveillance and disguise techniques, such as masking or uniform clothing. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected between 2011 and 2016 consisting of group discussions and interviews with activists from different political spectra, journalists, politicians, and police officers, as well as observations of demonstrations and document analyses of movement literature.
Surveillance Studies: understanding visibility, mobility and the phenetic fix.
Authors: Lyon David
Published: July 2018

Surveillance studies is described as a cross-disciplinary initiative to understand the rapidly increasing ways in which personal details are collected, stored, transmitted, checked, and used as means of influencing and managing people and populations. Surveillance may involve physical watching, but today it is more likely to be automated. Thus it makes personal data visible to organizations, even if persons are in transit, and it also allows for comparing and classifying data. Because this has implications for inequality and for justice, surveillance studies also has a policy and a political dimension.
Crime Control or Crime Culture TV?
Authors: Groombridge Nic
Published: July 2018

In criminological and in popular or media discourse CCTV is seen to be 'working'. Sometimes concern is raised about the civil liberties issues raised by such surveillance - for instance, in its extension from shopping malls to police cells. This paper reviews the criminological contributions to the debate but goes on to cross the borders of criminology into media and cultural studies by examining popular cultural texts which focus on or incorporate CCTV and surveillance as themes. Examples include: Big Brother, The Simpsons, J.G. Ballard's Super Cannes and Ben Elton's Dead Famous. That is, whether CCTV works or not, it has become part of the cultural repertoire. Some thoughts are offered on the efficacy / 'ethicacy' of CCTV but more on the intertwined nature of crime and media and the recognition that CCTV is a medium which has become part of our culture.
Streets into Stages: an interview with Surveillance Camera Players’ Bill Brown.
Authors: Schienke Erich W. , Brown Bill
Published: July 2018

The Surveillance Camera Players, from New York City, are a performance based activist-awareness group who openly, critically, and playfully engage various elements of public surveillance. This discussion with Bill Brown, co-founder of the Surveillance Camera Players, covers the group’s history, the strategy of their public performances and, during the winter months, their weekly walking camera tours. Furthermore, Brown critiques the growth of the surveillance society and how it continues to reify a culture of public conformity and increasingly enforces a dangerous homogeneity of behavioral display across our social ecologies.
The Surveillance of Children's Mobility.
Authors: Fotel Trine , Thomsen Thyra Uth
Published: July 2018

The increased protection of children by monitoring them is said to be a central characteristic of modern childhood. In the field of mobility, this aspect of modern childhood is reflected in the fact that children's everyday mobility is to a great extent kept under surveillance, e.g. by parents, kindergarten or school employees and through general traffic regulation. In this article, we investigate the surveillance of children's mobility – primarily bicycling, walking and car usage - from three different angles. In the first, we investigate the general power relations in mobile practice that add to the surveillance and restriction of children's mobility. In the second, we illustrate how parents monitor children's mobility by chauffeuring them. In the third, we look into how parents remote control children's mobility by means of behavioural restrictions and technology. By using statistical material and qualitative interviews, we illustrate how parents perceive and perform their own surveillance of children's mobility. In addition, we comment on how children perceive their monitored mobility and how they cope with it. Finally, we reflect on the differences in parental mobile monitoring and relate this to welfare and socio-economic structures in the families.
CCTV and Human Rights: the Fish and the Bicycle? An Examination of Peck V. United Kingdom (2003) 36 E.H.R.R. 41
Authors: Gallagher Caoilfhionn
Published: July 2018

This paper analyses and considers the impact of a landmark decision by the European Court of Human Rights in January 2003 which highlighted the inadequacy of U.K. law in protecting the privacy of individuals captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public places. The domestic and Strasbourg decisions in the Peck case are assessed. Analysis of the subsequent responses of Government, the Courts and the media demonstrates that the lessons of Peck have yet to be learnt, and the Human Rights Act 1998 has failed to 'bring rights home' when it comes to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the citizen the right to respect for private life. Privacy in the U.K. is now at best a residual right: what's left after each of an array of competing concerns have their say.
CCTV, Risk Management and Regulation Mechanisms in Publicly-Used Places: a Discussion Based on Swiss Examples
Authors: Ruegg Jean , November Valerie , Klauser Francisco
Published: July 2018

This paper focuses on the relations between different types of actors involved in both conceiving and using video-surveillance systems. More specifically, it deals with the reasons that support the growing use of video-surveillance systems, and the organisation structures and implementation schemes that are designed to cope with them. The analysis raises issues linked to the complexity of social and spatial relations that CCTV tends to produce. Based on four Swiss case studies chosen in function of different objectives (risks), different types of public spaces that are under surveillance (city centre, motorway, industrial zone, public transport), as well as different stages of completion of a CCTV project, the main results are to document new categories of actors: the definition of the relationship between CCTV-providers and end-users must be enlarged. Many more actors are playing important roles in terms of risk management and decision making while designing and implementing CCTV systems. Risks under surveillance: different types of risks are under surveillance. The study is underlining that different forms of surveillance must be distinguished, given the spatial characteristics of every risk (diffuse, located, specific and/or territorialized). The 'distancing effect': CCTV obviously creates distance between the object and the place where surveillance is actually made. To go a bit further, the paper claims that several kinds of distancing effects should be considered. These distancing effects modify both the quality of places under surveillance and the general context where mechanisms can be designed and implemented for a better public regulation of CCTV uses.
A Tagging Tale: The Work of the Monitoring Officer, Electronically Monitoring Offenders in England and Wales
Authors: Jones Adrian
Published: July 2018

This article will describe the work of Field Monitoring Officers (FMOs) employed by Premier Monitoring Services limited (PMS) one of the contract companies which provide the service of electronically monitoring offenders in England and Wales. It will explore the officer's work and the difficulties which they face on a day to day basis. The content will in general be taken from my own experiences over a three and a half year period whilst employed as a FMO with PMS working from their Birmingham office, an office which covers a geographical area which spans the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and in the early years of electronic monitoring (EM) Staffordshire. My own reflection will be reinforced with the experiences of both male and female, former and current officers from predominately Birmingham but, also four of the other areas.
People Watching People Watchers: 'The Law Enforcement Company' for watching over those who come to see and be seen on the 'Urban Beach'
Authors: Mann Steve
Published: July 2018

This article presents my own personal narrative, in the existemology of a new but mostly deserted 'urban beach' right at downtown Toronto's epicenter. The new public space called 'Dundas Square', designed as 'Times Square North', forms Toronto's new civic center, around an urban beach theme with waterplay fountains, that rise and fall continuously, to create a beautiful and restful atmosphere of pounding surf. The space is policed by Intelligarde-International, which describes itself as 'The Law Enforcement Company'. The use of private security guards in an allegedly public space creates some unique problems in accountability and reciprocity in visibility. Unlike the lifeguards of a traditional beach, who are themselves young, playful, and part of the swimming community, Intelligarde alienates itself from the community through an authoritarian desire to be free of accountability. Citizens who go to the urbeach to see and be seen, can be thought of as 'people watching people'. But unlike lifeguards at a traditional beach, who often help novice swimmers be comfortable in the water, Intelligardes are 'people watching people watchers' from a distance. The problem of private security in public space is twofold: (1) a private 'law enforcement company' is not subject to the same checks and balances as public lifeguards; (2) the double entendre of the words 'private security' is fulfilled. Not only is law enforcement of life in the public square privatized, but also the security guards enjoy a privacy (i.e. lack of accountability) that their 'citizens' (the surveilled) do not. This article describes my attempts at using "Times Square North" for its intended purpose, and the resulting problems that point to a need for participatory equiveillance.
Data Quality, Database Fragmentation and Information Privacy
Authors: Gibbs Martin R. , Shanks Graeme , Lederman Reeva
Published: July 2018

In this paper we use an Information Systems (informatics) perspective to critically examine legislation designed to regulate the way private sector organizations collect, store, use, and disclose personal information. We focus on The Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 (Cth), which has recently been enacted in Australia. We argue that the ability of organizations to respond to the requirements of this legislation is affected by the data quality of the personal information they possess. In particular, this paper examines one problem associated with data quality that erodes an organization's ability to comply with legislation designed to protect the information privacy of individuals – the fragmentation of customer data across multiple databases owned and maintained by separate functional units within an organization. Given the ubiquity of these kinds of data quality problems we conclude that current legislative regimes to regulate private sector use of personal information in countries such as Australia and European Union member states can lead to contrary outcomes resulting in legislation that is either unenforceable or acts to encourage the development of high-quality, integrated customer databases that have the potential to erode information privacy. We believe that new models able to grapple with management of personal information in distributed, mobile and ubiquitous computing environments need to be developed.
Digital Technology and the Market for Political Surveillance
Authors: Howard Philip N. , Carr John N. , Milstein Tema J.
Published: July 2018

Many new media technologies, such as the internet, serve both as a tool for organizing public commons and as a tool for surveilling private lives. This paper addresses the manner in which such technological innovations have enabled a dramatically expanded market for public policy opinion data, and explores the potential role of that market in facilitating panoptic regimes of both private and state surveillance. Whereas information about public policy opinion used to be highly reductive, expensive to collect, and restricted to a limited number of powerful political actors, today it is much less expensive, highly nuanced, and widely available. Pollsters now also have the ability to extrapolate political information from our commercial and noncommercial activities. We investigate the work of two organizations, a public policy polling firm named Grapevine Polling, and an advocacy consulting firm named United Campaigns. We find that both the increased sophistication of these firms' methods and the reduced cost of increasingly personalized data together have the potential to undermine the very public sphere that digital media were hoped to reinvigorate. Moreover, overlapping state and private demand for the products of such pollsters reflects the extent to which politics and the marketplace are increasingly intertwined and inseparable under the current articulation of democracy in the US.
The Public Politics of Opinion Research on Surveillance and Privacy
Authors: Haggerty Kevin D. , Gazso Amber
Published: July 2018

This paper examines the political implications of methodological issues related to the now ubiquitous production of surveys dealing with issues of privacy and surveillance. It concentrates on how the distinctive attributes of a survey's response rate can skew the findings of such studies. The conclusion offers suggestions for how academics and activists might respond to this issue.
The Plays and Arts of Surveillance: Studying Surveillance as Entertainment
Authors: Albrechtslund Anders , Dubbeld Lynsey
Published: July 2018

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.
Community life in Colombia under the surveillance of extreme right paramilitary organizations
Authors: Perault Dominique
Published: July 2018

This article examines the ways in which surveillance mechanisms implemented by the paramilitaries (AUC) in certain regions of Colombia have contributed to the establishment of specific forms of social interactions. The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which the permanent surveillance to which the population is subjected, conditions the ways that people establish contact and communicate with one another, and undermines the construction of the stable references necessary for community life.
Somatic Surveillance: Corporeal Control through Information Networks
Authors: Monahan Torin , Wall Tyler
Published: July 2018

Somatic surveillance is the increasingly invasive technological monitoring of and intervention into body functions. Within this type of surveillance regime, bodies are recast as nodes on vast information networks, enabling corporeal control through remote network commands, automated responses, or self-management practices. In this paper, we investigate three developments in somatic surveillance: nanotechnology systems for soldiers on the battlefield, commercial body-monitoring systems for health purposes, and radio-frequency identification (RFID) implants for identification of hospital patients. The argument is that in present and projected forms, somatic surveillance systems abstract bodies and physiological systems from social contexts, facilitating hyper-individualized control and the commodification of life functions.
Drug Detection Dogs and the Growth of Olfactory Surveillance: Beyond the Rule of Law?
Authors: Marks Amber
Published: July 2018

Since the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the United Kingdom, a significant expansion in the use of drug detection dogs, the most common tool of olfactory surveillance, has taken place with relatively little debate, without specific legislative authority and in the absence of a code of practice. In contrast, the use of the dogs in New South Wales, Australia and in the United States has been the subject of Supreme Court decisions, and in New South Wales, of parliamentary legislation and an independent review by the New South Wales Ombudsman. This paper will argue that the difficult legal issues raised by olfactory surveillance are similar to those raised by other forms of 'new surveillance' in the criminal justice system and that the failure of the legal system to deal with these issues in the case of olfactory surveillance could amount to a dangerous precedent for the regulation of other surveillance technologies.
Mobile Identities and the Socio-spatial Relations of Air Travel
Authors: Codourey Monika
Published: July 2018

This paper results from the field research investigating border conditions and their socio-spatial implications at the Frankfurt Main Airport. The field research was done at Frankfurt Main Airport, and it is largely based on interviews with border control officials (BGS and ZOLL), Fraport AG, Lufthansa and Caritas employees. The results of the research were the point of departure for the creation of maps of the diverse transit conditions of air travellers and served as the basis for production of a video devoted to the subject "Data Record of Mobile Identities" media installation. The project was initiated in co-operation with Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany and it is a collaboration with Bettina Boknecht.
"Universal Data Elements," or the Biopolitical Life of Homeless Populations
Authors: Willse Craig
Published: July 2018

This article explores the development of the Homeless Management Information Systems program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Launched in 2001, the program mandates data collection by homeless social service agencies receiving federal funds. The program is examined in terms of broader responses to the "electronic turn" in social work. The generative capacities of database management systems are understood as producing surveillance at a register other than the individual subject often presumed in political theories of social control as well as surveillance studies of information technologies. The article argues that we must move toward an understanding of homeless management as a biopolitical enterprise, rather than only a disciplinary one. A discussion of how the HMIS program produces a homeless population as an object of knowledge and plane of intervention provides an understanding of the significance of HMIS for homelessness in the U.S. as well as for surveillance studies more broadly.
Surveillance Cameras in Brazil: exclusion, mobility regulation, and the new meanings of security
Authors: Mourao Kanashiro Marta
Published: July 2018

In Brazil, over the last few decades, projects for the installation of surveillance cameras for security purposes in spaces of public circulation have multiplied. However, the issue has not been specifically studied in the country. Research on surveillance cameras in Brazil has generally focused on cities and security. The debate on urban gentrification or private security has usually included the issue of CCTVs as a built-in element. The analysis presented here, based on data coming from research work carried out between 2002 and 2005, focuses on the installation of surveillance cameras in a public park in the central region of the city of São Paulo (Brazil). A multiplicity of discursive elements circulating in the country is analyzed, following an approach influenced by the work of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Based on this case study, it is possible to notice that cameras actually take part in a process of gentrification and are also related to new knowledge about security and its privatization. Cameras are also analyzed here as a part of the mechanisms of the functioning of power, and their contemporary changes.
Producing Bodies and Borders: A review of immigrant medical examinations in Canada
Authors: Wiebe Sarah
Published: July 2018

Anxiety about our borders is not a new phenomenon. Distrust of immigrants, external threats, fraud and efforts to secure borders to deflect risky outsiders features prominently in political paranoia today and has since the fortification of state boundaries. This article is concerned with such anxiety and paranoia as it shapes Canadian political discourse, policy and practice in efforts to secure our borders and keep out potential risks. These risks – the poor, the unhealthy, the fraudulent – operate as real concerns for our political elite. Despite liberalized changes to border technologies, specifically citizenship and immigration legislation and practice, I argue that the assumptions about these ‘risks’ remain.
Networks and Resistance: Investigating online advocacy networks as a modality for resisting state surveillance
Authors: Introna Lucas D , Gibbons Amy
Published: July 2018

This paper explores the network of relationships that emerge from the online activities of privacy advocates. It argues that this advocacy network, through its linking practices, may potentially become a network of meta-surveillance that has the potential to transcend the agency of the individual actors. By reducing the degrees of separation between the actors, through their linking practices, the network can foster links between different sets of data, create links between information about incidents, corroborate information (making it more credible), direct the attention of the public and the traditional media to particular state surveillance practices, and so forth. Through these linking practices the network can draw upon the emergent positive network externalities to realise an information politics that is beyond what any single actor can achieve.  Through the use of social network analysis and a webometrics methodology (supported by web-based crawling applications) we attempt to reveal this emerging online advocacy network. Through our data collection and analysis we show that the online advocacy network seems somewhat fragmented with a relatively small but stable, and geographically biased, core. This tentative analysis and conclusion may have important implications for the way privacy advocates view their online practices.