Surveillance Technologies

Surveillance Technology is the use of computer equipment to monitor people’s behaviors and actions. It is often implemented by companies and organizations with the goal of increasing safety, efficiency, or cost-effectiveness. These technologies becoming more universal and changing rapidly in the 21st century. This presents issues because policy regarding surveillance technology is unable to keep up with its growth. Subjects of surveillance technologies are often unaware and unconsenting, and technologies themselves are subject to misuse such as targeting, voyerism, and violation of privacy.

Types of Surveillance Technologies

There are many types of surveillance technologies, which are often used in combination with one another to conduct comprehensive monitoring of an area either in the real world or in the infosphere. These technologies can be used to monitor people in public places, employees in a workplace, criminal suspects, and more.

Video Surveillance

Video surveillance is one of the most commonly used and well-known surveillance technologies. Its uses vary from monitoring of high risk areas (i.e. government buildings) to monitoring personal property and everything in between. Video surveillance is meant to keep a watchful eye over an area to keep it safe. Video cameras allow many areas to be monitored at once by the same person, and eliminate physical barriers that often obscure the view of human security guards. Problems arise when public spaces become “blanketed” with video cameras. Many public spaces, such as subways in NYC have hidden cameras, which is problematic because when individuals don't know they are being watched their privacy is violated. Video surveillance technology is easily misused as a tool for voyeurism, especially because it has become so accessible in recent years.

Police body cameras are a form of video surveillance. They are used to oversee police actions and have been implemented in recent years in order to combat police violence. Similar to security cameras, they present an issue of people being unaware their actions are recorded.

Big Data

Corporations collect big data about individuals, some of whom even construct profiles about individuals (see data brokers). This information about people's online habits and behaviors is collected to be sold to other businesses who want to know about consumers. Data mining is a violation privacy, even if the information is public, because there is no context for their actions. This violation can lead to targeting of vulnerable populations by large corporations and others who obtain such data.

Biometrics

Biometrics are ways to identify someone based on their physical characteristics such as fingerprints, DNA, retinas, voice, face, etc. Many technologies have been developed to recognize these characteristics. The FBI has a “Next Generation Identification” (NGI) system which is a bank of biometric information about individuals that allows them to use someone's physical characteristics to identify them. For example, if someone is caught on a surveillance camera, facial recognition technology can be used alongside their NGI database to identify the subject. Social media companies and other technology companies have also been developing and implementing these tools to increase legitimacy in authentication. The consequences of these new technologies cannot be predicted, but they increase the ability to identify and track individuals based on their physical identity. Because aspects of one's physical identity (i.e. fingerprint) do not change like other identifying characteristics (i.e. phone number), this locks people into their identity permanently. This is a violation of peoples autonomy and therefore their privacy.

Domestic Drones

Domestic drones are used in combination with other technologies to surveil people without their knowledge. Drones can be equipped with microphones, GPS tracking, infrared detection, and facial recognition to detect and track people in many different circumstances with great discretion, usually going unnoticed by the subject. This is a violation of contextual privacy because even if someone is acting a certain way in a public space, there is no context of their life included in the surveillance.

Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) Chips

RFID chips are placed on or on physical objects to allow for contactless authentication. Examples include electronic toll collection passes, passports, and contactless entry keys, and they allow for users to be identified and tracked without their knowledge.

Stingray Tracking Devices

Stingray tracking devices are cell phone surveillance devices that act like cell towers and send out signals to cell phones to get their location and identifying information. They are often used by law enforcement in crime solving.

Benefits

Surveillance technologies aid in solving crimes and can even deter criminals. They are more effective than traditional surveillance methods because they are not disrupted by distance or physical barriers and they are less labor intensive and therefore less expensive than old surveillance technologies. Data generated by surveillance technology can be shared easily, and a reduced informational friction allows for this information to be used effectively by multiple people in a time of need.

Detriments

Misuse

There have been incidents of security cameras being used as a tool for voyeurism, a misuse of technology implemented to protect people. Many organizations who use surveillance technology are facing legal issues. Often times, it is because subjects being monitored are completely unaware they are being tracked and watched, and they have not consented to it. Organizations often put these systems into place before they know whether they will be appropriate or useful. Agencies using these technologies must be open about their use to protect the rights of the people they are surveilling.

Effect on society

People now have the potential to be tracked online and in person, but can never be sure if they are being tracked. Because the act of turning people’s experiences into data modifies human behavior . People might be more careful about what they search online, purchase, or what they do in public spaces.

Privacy

Humans have control over how we present ourselves based on the context we are in and what we know about our surroundings. The possibility of constant surveillance without the subject’s knowledge violates the subject’s privacy because you take away their control over how they are portrayed . The limitation theory of privacy states that privacy is the area that others cannot get to , but if you’re have the potential of being constantly watched, you will never have any privacy.