Surveillance Culture

With the increasing invisibility of our power structures, there have also risen invisible surveillance structures. Although we are often aware of surveillance cameras in public spaces, we have very little control over whether we are videotaped or not. Having been caught on a surveillance camera allows an organization to have visual information about an individual that that individual does not have access to. We are constantly being watched by those in power, creating a culture of fear and loss of privacy.

Steve Mann, a computer engineer currently teaching at the University of Toronto, has been working over the last 30 years on wearable camera devices that allow him to receive feedback about his environment and also send images onto his website about what he is seeing. Our privacy is constantly being invaded, so having the ability to shoot back can be an equalizer. The ideas of ownership surface when Mann asks:

“Do we own our motions? Do we have a right to know what happens to our motions and how this information is processed and used? Should we be concerned with what’s connected to an intelligent motion detector, or should we just place absolute trust in an authority? It’s hard to place absolute trust in organizations that don’t trust us” (http://wearcam.org/netcam_privacy_issues.html).

These hierarchies of surveillance place corporations and governments above the citizens in regards to trust. This hierarchy creates a system that devalues citizens and assumes that we all need to be under surveillance so no wrong acts occur against the government, the corporations, or one another. We are secure beneath the watchful eyes of our power systems, but what if those watchful eyes are the problem? It should be the corporations that are under surveillance because they are more likely to cause harm to society than an average citizen.

We should know when we are being watched and with many of the motion detectors that can be found in bathrooms, offices, and change rooms, it is difficult to tell what is behind the dark glass. “Casinos, department stories, customs offices, and other places having such monolithic Witnessing policy fall under the definition of totalitarian regimes which states that….the totalitarian government relies on secrecy for the regime but high surveillance and disclosure for all other groups” (www.wearcam.org/sousveillance.htm) .

Mann’s WebCam© and NetCam© allow the wearer to take video of what other citizens, and especially what the people in power are doing. For Mann, this device serves as an extension of our memory, because it collects information about our day-to-day interaction with the world through verifiable video. He wants cameras to become illegal unless they are wearable, so that citizens are aware of when they are being watched. The miniaturization and increasingly low cost of recording devices has turned this technology from an oppressor to an equalizer.

The popularization of personal video recording can be seen on YouTube where anyone with internet access can view an infinite number of personal videos. WebCam© and NetCam© serve to capture multiple accounts of the same event (through different wearers of the device), and this disrupts authoritarian environments in which only those in power have access to video surveillance. Mann, interestingly, on his site allows people to learn how to build their own WebCam’s or create simulation WebCam’s. This implies that a simulated camera can create the same kind of effect as a real camera, which calls to mind Jean Baudrillard’s theories about our simulated environments, in which the real no longer exists. Often, many of the black domes that hold surveillance cameras are empty, only giving the illusion of surveillance, creating once again a space in which we never know whether we are being watched.

Mann uses the term “sousveillance”, meaning watchful vigilance from below the hierarchy looking up, to refer to what his wearable recording devices do. He wants to create an equiveillance, which is a balance of sousveillance by the citizen and surveillance by the state. There is an inequality in surveillance, which can be seen in casinos which allow video surveillance of its patrons, but do not allow the patrons to take photographs or video. Mann is working with the surveillance technology that exists in order to create equal surveillance structures. Since we cannot stop the corporations and governments from watching us, we need to start watching back.