strategies

This page highlights strategies and technologies of surveillance and identification, drawing together more detailed information elsewhere on this site.

It covers -

• introduction - three bases of surveillance
• biometrics - fingerprints, face recognition, retina scans etc
• payment systems
• video and other cams
• vehicle tagging and imaging
• phone and mail systems
• Barcodes and other technological fixes such as US proposals for a subcutaneous RFID chip in every cat, dog and citizen
• eyes in the sky - satellite and other remote sensing
• public and other registers

     introduction

Authentication schemes can be summarised as falling into three categories -

• what you know (eg a password or PIN)
• what you have (eg a key, a passport, a driver's licence)
• what you are (expressed through innate and individual characteristics such as a fingerprint)

In considering surveillance mechanisms we can use a similar typology -

• what you do
• where you go
• what you have

and further differentiate by whether information is collected and analysed on individual or mass basis.

Surveillance in ancien regimes was overt, unsophisticated but often effective in achieving goals that included identifying an individual's associates, accessing private communications and deterring free expression. Being followed by a secret policeman and having letters opened tended to foster self-censorship and place the surveilled individual in a sort of quarantine. It could however be spoofed or simply evaded; pre-1900 fiction and memoirs are replete with accounts of costume changes, smuggled manuscripts or letters written in lemon juice.

The emergence of electronic networks shifted the nature of surveillance, with authorities (and other entities) gaining access to mechanisms - such as the wiretap and the bug - that were invisible and that by the late 1930s were underpinned by recording technologies.

Subsequent years have seen a proliferation of mechanisms for the capture of data and - more significantly - tools for aggregating and making sense of that data. Thoe tools include pattern recognition software, eg face and numberplate recognition. They also include datamining that integrates information held on disparate public/private sector databases to build a picture - accurate or otherwise - of the activity of specific individuals or ideal types.

In a networked economy it is difficult for individuals not to leave traces on such databases and thus remain outside what Christian Parenti characterised as the 'soft cage'. Those databases are not going to disappear. The challenge for policymakers and ordinary citizens instead lies in achievement of a modus vivendi that provides appropriate restrictions on the collection, exchange and misuse of data by government agencies, business and individuals.

    biometrics

The identification of people on the basis of innate and stable physiological or behavioural characteristics (eg fingerprint, DNA, voice or retina pattern) traces its origins to before the telegraph.

Biometric technologies and applications are discussed in a separate profile elsewhere on this site.

     payment systems

Some of the more zany conspiracy theories about RFIDs feature claims that tags in currency will allow the 'invisible' government to monitor the activity of every citizen in advanced economies, receiving reports from automatic teller machines and other devices.

Reality is more prosaic. The aspect of the soft cage embraced by most Western consumers is electronic rather than paper payments: the credit card, EFTPOS and monthly statement from a financial institution.

The data is complemented by information provided to government agencies, in particular taxation, income support and public insurance bodies.

     video and other cams

For CCTV see Surveillance, Closed Circuit Television and Social Control (London: Ashgate 1998) edited by Clive Norris and Policing, Surveillance & Social Control: CCTV and Police Monitoring of Suspects (Cullompton: Willan 2002) by Tim Newburn & Stephanie Hayman. Other pointers are here.

     vehicle tagging and imaging

[under development]

Automated number plate recognition (ANPR) systems, which convert images of vehicle registration numbers into information for real time or retrospective matching with law enforcement and other databases, are discussed in detail elsewhere on this site.

     phone and mail systems

A technological determinism has led some critics to emphasise the dangers of new technologies of surveillance. It is clear, however, that reading mail, listening to phone calls and tracking who is calling whom remain of significance.

The extent to which postal traffic is logged and audited in most countries is unclear. Many regimes publish aggregated or agency by agency statistics on the annual number of phone interceptions.

     RFIDS and other technological fixes

RFID technologies and applications are discussed in a separate profile elsewhere on this site.

     eyes in the sky

Observation by spy satellite - sometimes pictured as surveilling individuals by reading their car registration plates or peering through their windows - has been a feature of conspiracist fiction and popular film over the past thirty years, an artefact of Hollywood hyperbole and of government hype about military observation satellites.

Images from commercial satellites (eg the SPOT system) of public and private buildings regularly appear in the media and are available for purchase within the means of many consumers. Access to such images is an extension of aerial photography schemes, which fallen outside traditional privacy protection and led some public figures such as Barbra Streisand to seek restriction on overhead shots of their property.

The emergence of cheap high-resolution digital cameras and increasingly reliable drones means that such surveillance will in future be directly available to individuals rather than to specialist service providers.

     public and other registers

Much of the literature over the past fifty years has centred on licit/illicit surveillance by government agencies. There has been less attention to surveillance by the private sector, in particular by individuals. 'Stalking' is thus a newly-discovered phenomenon, although it has occurred throughout history.

One enabler of stalking - and of commercial profiling of individuals - is the transfer from paper to digital media (in particular internet access) of public registers that for example feature information about the names, addresses and property of individuals.







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