ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the application of IT to the surveillance of people through their data. Some of the key risks it entails are identified, and actual and potential control mechanisms are discussed, in order to ensure that organisations practices do not sacrifice humanity in the search for resource efficiency. It discusses a class of applications of information technology referred to as dataveillance. Although the techniques are as applicable to goods proceeding along a production line as to people, this chapter restricts its attention to the surveillance of humans. If dataveillance is burgeoning, controls are needed to ensure that its use is not excessive or unfair. It is essential that governments consider each dataveillance technique and decide whether it should be permitted under any circumstances at all; if so, what those circumstances are, what the safeguards should be and what control mechanisms will ensure that each of these safeguards operates effectively and efficiently.
