Question

whats are the advantage and disadvantage of our new online "surveillance sociery"? in other words , are we moving towards a digital dystopid or upopia?

Answer 1

Answer:-- A surveillance society is not a totally bad concept as it has its advantages and disadvantages. Its advantages include provision of security and protection of people from computer hackers, terrorists, threats to public security, provides speed and enhances co-ordination [6] .

Consequent upon the pros of a surveillance society, the greatest negative effect of a surveillance society is the threat to privacy of individuals, though we seem to be more concerned with our fears and in the process over look the possibility that being fully dependent on surveillance technologies for safety could end up being of more harm to us than good. Surveillance creates lack of trust and raises suspicion between citizens, citizens and the state, thereby heightening the need for us to control and monitor our activities.

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Living In A Surveillance Society Information Technology Essay

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Published: 23rd March, 2015

Disclaimer: This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers. You can view samples of our professional work here.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.

To say we are consciously or unconsciously sleep walking into surveillance society is a question of fact because frankly speaking individuals in society go through some form of surveillance. The security attached to surveillance allows individuals embrace it and sometimes with the knowledge of risks that come with being watched meanwhile others walk into a surveillance society without any knowledge of such dangers.

1.2 Judging from past and present events reported in several cases, journals and articles about the benefits and dangers that accompany a surveillance society, I am of the opinion that there is a need to analyse the concept of a surveillance society to ascertain if the concerns of the Information Commissioner are justified or not.

1.3 This essay would surround different issues in relation to a surveillance society such as individual privacy, data protection, laws that provide for data protection, different forms of surveillance and surveillance technologies with a view to providing some clarity regarding the concerns of the commissioner on the concept of a surveillance society.

2.0 Surveillance
2.1 Definition of surveillance

Surveillance is viewed 'as having information about one's movement and activities recorded by technologies on behalf of the organisations and governments that structured our society'. [1] Surveillance was also defined as 'a purposeful routine, systematic and focused attention paid to personal details for the sake of control, entitlement, management, influence or protection'. [2]

In my opinion, to be under surveillance means that almost every aspect of an individual's life is been watched, monitored and controlled by others who consider themselves superior and thereby deny people of their right to privacy and control of different aspects of their lives.

Professor Ian J.Lloyd, referring to Alan Westin's seminar work on 'Information Technology in a Democracy' identified three types of surveillance as:

"physical, psychological and data surveillance" [3]

Physical surveillance involves the watching and monitoring of acts of individuals in a society and can be carried out with or without the use of surveillance technologies. The use of spies, spooks and acts of security agencies fall within the above and is applied to limited individuals.

Psychological surveillance involves the use of surveillance technologies to monitor the activities of individuals in a society by the use of interrogations.

Furthermore, data surveillance involves the use of one's personal information to monitor their activities. Due to technology compliance by countries, 'dataveillance' is the most prominent form of surveillance used which is supported by electronic devices.

2.2 Living in a surveillance society

The idea of a surveillance society springs from the fears of the government and people as regards the reoccurring threats to lives of individuals based on past events like terrorism, fraud, armed robbery and shop lifting. In finding solutions to these problems, certain measures and forms of surveillance were introduced to provide security, and whether these solutions are appropriate, remains a question as there might be more invasive answers which result to an individual's right to privacy and anonymity being infringed. Focus should reflect the attainment of social goals rather than living in the shadow of the consequence of a surveillance society. [4]

The United Kingdom (UK)is an example of a country that is fully compliant with the idea of a surveillance society because almost every aspect of their lives starting from taking a walk on the streets, driving their cars, going shopping in the supermarkets, going to the hospital and even in their work place they are under surveillance and this is so because the UK is a highly technologically developed country with access to lots of surveillance technologies used to monitor the activities in the life of their citizens and the UK has been described as the most surveyed country with more CCTV cameras but the irony is that it still has loose laws on privacy and data protection.

In Britain there are about 4.2 million CCTV cameras, one for every fourteen people, meaning that an individual's activities can be captured by over three hundred cameras a day. Reporters claim Britain has the biggest DNA data base with over a million innocent peoples data on, with some being aware and others in the dark and with the advent of new and improved modern surveillance technologies being introduced individuals will be subjected to even more surveillance than they are going through today. [5]

A surveillance society is not a totally bad concept as it has its advantages and disadvantages. Its advantages include provision of security and protection of people from computer hackers, terrorists, threats to public security, provides speed and enhances co-ordination [6] .

Consequent upon the pros of a surveillance society, the greatest negative effect of a surveillance society is the threat to privacy of individuals, though we seem to be more concerned with our fears and in the process over look the possibility that being fully dependent on surveillance technologies for safety could end up being of more harm to us than good. Surveillance creates lack of trust and raises suspicion between citizens, citizens and the state, thereby heightening the need for us to control and monitor our activities.

2.3 Surveillance Technologies

There are different kinds of surveillance technologies that are used in our society today which can also be summarized under the different forms of surveillance. Some examples of surveillance technologies includes as follows:

(a) Video surveillance i.e. the use of Closed-circuit Televisions (CCTV)

(b) Telecommunications surveillance

(c) Biometrics

(d) Shop Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags

(e) Loyalty cards

(f) Internet cookies

(g) Data Flows

(h) Locating, Tracking Tagging Technologies

(I) London Oyster Cards e.t.c

The Negative and Positive Impact of Surveillance on our society.

A surveillance society has its negative and positive impacts on our lives as individuals in the society but the negatives impacts are greater than the positive ones. Surveillance society has a way of setting traps for individuals in a society and this trap includes:

(a)Thinking that surveillance is a product of new technologies and

(b)Thinking of surveillance as a malign plot hatched by evil powers. [13]

Ones an individual's looks at the concept of a surveillance society in this light then it is easy for one to fall into the trap of a surveillance society and the dangers that it poses to how lives.

Apart from a sense of security, safety, minimum amount of risks, swift flow of goods, people and information which we as individuals believe are the positive effects of surveillance on our lives, what other way can we really say that a surveillance society has improved our lives or limited the risks and dangers we go through every day because irrespective of all the different forms of surveillance both technological and non-technological, It has not kept us out of harm's way. The presence of CCTV cameras in the UK has not reduced the level of crime as terrorist still find means of operating and planning attacks. More so, individual personal data are still being used against them and all thanks to surveillance.