Gavin John Douglas Smith

The term “surveillance society” has become something of a cliche in contemporary culture, with competing depictions routinely appearing in a range of popular domains. Indeed, the literature we read, the programmes we watch and the various products we purchase and consume, are suffused with endless examples of surveillance technologies, practices and processes. We live our lives under and through ubiquitous surveillance. Imagining an unexceptional day in your own life may help consolidate this argument:

The mobile phone awakening you from your slumber transmits a signal identifying your current location; the roadside cameras monitor your speed, while also scanning your number plate against a database of suspicious vehicles. On reaching work, you swipe your ID card to gain access and log in to your computer which subtly records arrival time, the various websites you visit and emails you receive/send, while simultaneously counting the keystrokes you make during the course of a day. A lunchtime trip to acquire a bank loan involves the clerk checking and exchanging your personal information with a plethora of organisations to ensure that you are who you say you are and that your credit history is risk averse. On returning home from work, you are caught on the high street, gym, petrol station and then supermarke CCTV systems. Even when you get into the commonly perceived “privacy” of your own home, each website you visit assigns you a unique code which helps monitor your web browsing activities.

Strategic surveillance is always intentional and never neutral in orientation, revolving around the extraction of information and the imposition of particular codes of conduct. Capturing, classifying and shaping behaviour has become the key objective of surveillance systems, but this is not necessarily a top-down, unilateral Orwellian process administered by state and commerce. Surveillance has become a central concept in scholarly understanding of contemporary social relations and organisational processes. City University London has launched the world’s first MA in surveillance studies. In September 2009, I will lead a globally orientated programme which explores topics relating to surveillance growth, theory, regulation, ethics and futures.