Monday, March 3, 2008
What if...
What if everyone had some sensor implanted in them and all recording devices gave off something that set those sensors off, so you could know when you're being recorded and trace the where the image has been put if it is publicly available?
Sunday, March 2, 2008
It's not just about surveillance. It's self-surveillance.
I just read this in Sherry Turkle's "Life on Screen" (p 247):
I think we've lost sight of this in the last few weeks as we've talked more about the consequences of incorrect data, of having decontextualized data read, etc. But in health insurance data provenance, could one argue that by encouraging centralized health data, people might feel forced to live lives that are more in keeping with what they think is the norm or regulatory ideal. Smokers might quit for fear of getting the insurance company crackdown. Sinister, isn't it?
In some ways, this makes me realize that there is some strategic value for governing bodies to sporadically and unpredictably surveill, breach privacy, and let recorded data slip. Many people prefer to just modify their behavior to be more acceptable rather than go through the difficulty and stigma of wearing tin foil hats.
Which makes me also realize that it is also in the interest of governing bodies to paint those who do resist surveillance as tin-foil hat wearers, and to encourage and give life to the stigma that goes along with it. How many movies do we have like Hackers, Antitrust, and The Net, depicting security experts and people who resist surveillance as hackers so different from the everyday person? How many films are there that depict issues of surveillance in the dramatic everyday? I can't think of any.
But can I not think of any because surveillance and self-surveillance don't reveal themselves visually in the everyday, and thus might be difficult to film? Or because, again, the power of that stigma of caring and thus "having something to hide," being a "geek" detached from reality, or being "uptight?"
Culture conspiracy? :-o
Michel Foucault's work, for example, elaborates a perspective on information, communication, and power that undermines any easy links between electronic communication and freedom. He argues that power in modern society is imposed not by the personal presence and brute forece of an elite caste, but by the way each individual elarns the art of self-surveillance. Modern society must control the bodies and behaviors of large numbers of people. Force could never be sufficiently distributed. Discourse substitutes and does a more effective job.
I think we've lost sight of this in the last few weeks as we've talked more about the consequences of incorrect data, of having decontextualized data read, etc. But in health insurance data provenance, could one argue that by encouraging centralized health data, people might feel forced to live lives that are more in keeping with what they think is the norm or regulatory ideal. Smokers might quit for fear of getting the insurance company crackdown. Sinister, isn't it?
In some ways, this makes me realize that there is some strategic value for governing bodies to sporadically and unpredictably surveill, breach privacy, and let recorded data slip. Many people prefer to just modify their behavior to be more acceptable rather than go through the difficulty and stigma of wearing tin foil hats.
Which makes me also realize that it is also in the interest of governing bodies to paint those who do resist surveillance as tin-foil hat wearers, and to encourage and give life to the stigma that goes along with it. How many movies do we have like Hackers, Antitrust, and The Net, depicting security experts and people who resist surveillance as hackers so different from the everyday person? How many films are there that depict issues of surveillance in the dramatic everyday? I can't think of any.
But can I not think of any because surveillance and self-surveillance don't reveal themselves visually in the everyday, and thus might be difficult to film? Or because, again, the power of that stigma of caring and thus "having something to hide," being a "geek" detached from reality, or being "uptight?"
Culture conspiracy? :-o
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