surveillance

   The balance of surveillance has shifted markedly in recent years from state to civil society. With the decline of the ‘cold war’, state surveillance has declined somewhat and is now lawfully restricted only to activities that have a subversive intent. In civil society, surveillance’s prime objectives are to build credit and consumer profiles on individuals. It does this in primarily a passive way, assuming credit is good unless there are recorded defaults. Computerized means of payment, together with ‘loyalty cards’, have made active surveillance of consumption patterns readily available. A means of surveillance that falls between the active and the passive is provided in the video record, found in places such as shopping centres. Normally this record becomes active only if a crime has been committed. An increase in surveillance is probably unavoidable. It is, however, striking that such an increase has occurred largely without public debate and without clear mechanisms in place to inhibit ‘leakage’ from one area of surveillance to another. An increase in police surveillance is planned through an increased use of hidden cameras and scanning mechanisms. Initially these mechanisms will be capable of reporting car registration problems and alerting officers within four seconds. It is reasonable to assume that the system will be extended from car profiles to individual profiles. What is at issue here is the extent to which security is traded off against civil liberty. This debate has not yet been fully addressed.

   See also: libel, defamation and privacy; riots and civil disobedience; secret services

   Further reading

    Campbell, D. and Connor, S. (1986) On the Record: Surveillance, Computers and Privacy, London: Michael Joseph.

   PAUL BARRY CLARKE