ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at surveillance of the young and the elderly. The reason for putting these two groups together, for all their differences, is that both experience less agency than most adults, insofar as they have less ability to function autonomously. The chapter looks at how different levels of surveillance are justified at different stages of development. The advent of the internet, and particularly online social media, has introduced a range of new challenges to the young. The use of technology in this way is therefore problematic. It can lead to a sense of pervasive surveillance, which can be stultifying and invasive of privacy. The increase in technological surveillance in schools risks leading to a perceived normalisation of this sort and level of surveillance of the young. This is a difficult problem, as individual acts of surveillance may in themselves be justified, but together they may also lead to a sense that such surveillance is always acceptable.
