ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role that geospatial technologies play in surveillance regimes, and in particular how they enable forms of geosurveillance. Contemporary geospatial technologies produce rich streams of detailed, georeferenced location and movement data, as well as enabling georeferenced data produced through other means to be made sense of and acted upon. Consequently, they facilitate the fine-grained, exhaustive monitoring and tracking of places and spatial behaviour for large populations. Intensive geosurveillance is having pronounced transformative effects on three key aspects of society. First, they are actively reshaping the practices of governance and governmentality. Second, they are producing new expressions of capitalism, creating new markets and means to accumulate profit. Third, they are eroding the right to privacy and challenging civil liberties. The chapter details these transformative effects, providing an illustrative discussion of their intersection in the response to the covid-19 pandemic.
