ABSTRACT
Technological surveillance is often criticized as being antithetical to democratic principles, and with good reason. At its core, surveillance is about control; it tends to produce conditions of constraint, wherein human and technical action is regulated and limited. The degree and kind of constraint vary according to the values and assumptions that are embedded in respective surveillance apparatuses and generated by surveillance practices. Although control could be exercised with surveillance systems for purposes of care or protection, such systems are most often characterized by coercion and repression, and offer few avenues for accountability or oversight. Airport security systems, for example, require people to submit to elaborate surveillance rituals of conformity and exposure, making people more open to external scrutiny and manipulation even while the rights of citizens and others are left intentionally vague. Commercial surveillance of people for marketing purposes betrays a similar trend: it encourages (or requires) people to reveal their shopping preferences and habits so that companies can target their products more profitably or sell their customer data to others; meanwhile, individuals know little about what data are being collected about them, by whom, or for what purposes. Similarly, state surveillance of those accessing social services, such as welfare, has become much more fine-grained since automated data systems have been implemented to distribute and manage “benefits;” at the same time, the disclosure of information to welfare recipients about how their data are used or even about policies for disciplining or rewarding recipients based on their spending habits has been restricted. These disparate examples, which represent commonplace rather than
exceptional surveillance practices, share a set of characteristics that are clearly non-democratic. They each open people up to examination and control, while constraining individual autonomy. They each rely upon opacity instead of transparency; most people under surveillance have little knowledge of the inner workings of the systems or their rights as citizens, consumers, or others. Finally, because these systems are closed, they resist opportunities for democratic participation in how they are designed, used, critiqued or regulated.
