Video Surveillance & Identification Technologies Flashcards
The Proliferation of Video Surveillance
Ever expanding growth of CCTV as a global phenomena.
Signpost event: Kidnapping & murder of Jamie Bulger.
CCTV as ‘Anti-Policy’ in the risk society (Hier 2010).
The Diffusion of CCTV Into Our Lifeworld
Four Stage Diffusion of CCTV into our Lifeworld (Norris, Cahill & Wood)
Private Diffusion;
Institutional Diffusion Into the Public Realm;
Limited Diffusion Into Public Spaces; and
Ubiquity
Contextual Variables Contributing to the Rise of CCTV
The extent to which a region or country will progress from one stage to another in CCTV diffusion depends on a complex interplay of contexts and factors:
The Socio-Economic Context;
The Legal Context;
The Fiscal Context; and
The Political Context
Is CCTV Effective? Research suggests not particularly.
Then, why its proliferation?
Symbolic politics.
Politicians and police are seen to be addressing imagined ‘crime problems’ through concerted ‘actuarial’ risk management.
To cleanse and reclaim urban space.
Contextual Variables Contributing to the Rise of CCTV
The extent to which a region or country will progress from one stage to another in CCTV diffusion depends on a complex interplay of contexts and factors:
The Socio-Economic Context;
The Legal Context;
The Fiscal Context; and
The Political Context
Is CCTV Effective? Research suggests not particularly.
Then, why its proliferation?
Symbolic politics.
Politicians and police are seen to be addressing imagined ‘crime problems’ through concerted ‘actuarial’ risk management.
To cleanse and reclaim urban space.
The City as Power-Space
Cities vs. Panopticon: Differences
People in cities are not imprisoned;
A city is not a cite of punishment;
People in cities are not isolated;
A city is full of diversity; and
The forces that maintain discipline in the city are not exclusively state run.
Cities vs. Panopticon: Similarities
Both embody the power of the visual (i.e. visibility);
Unverifiable visibility;
Anonymity;
Absence of force; and
Normalization
Race & Video Surveillance
John Fiske: surveillance is a ‘technology of whiteness’ that racially zones the city
Surveillance priorities
The ‘normal’ vs. the ‘out of place’ (abnormal/suspicious)
CCTV operators target their surveillance through the production of categories of suspicion (Norris and Armstrong)
Racialized structure of surveillance work.
Black people were disproportionately targeted for surveillance.
‘No obvious reason’: blacks 2.5x as likely to be target when compared to whites.
Gender & Video Surveillance
Space is gendered (in the city as power-space)
Koskella suggests that women traditionally occupy the spaces of surveillance, while men operate and control the apparatuses of surveillance.
CCTV reduces everything to the visual (space as a container of objects).
Most serious criminogenic situations women will encounter may look visually ‘normal’ as context isn’t seen in space as a container.
Women do not come to rely on the camera for safety and security.
Gendered spaces (as well as racialized spaces) create emotional spaces defined by ambivalence for those being watched.
The experience of surveillance for those not meeting the hegemonic ideal is governed by ambivalent emotions related to the gendered or racialized experience of being watched in urban spaces, not by the imagined ideals of safety and purported by proponents of CCTV.
Resisting the Urban Panoptic Dream
Two Strategies:
Anti-Surveillance Strategies, like iSee in NYC.
Countersurveillance: Sousveillance and Synoptiscism
Stripping For The State: The Politics of Whole-Body Imaging Technologies
Whole-Body Imaging Technology is purported to be objective and neutral, thereby eliminating discrimination in airport searches.
But, are they neutral? What politics do these whole-body imaging artifacts have?
Magnet and Rodgers frame their use as ‘state-sponsored sexual assault.’
Transgendered bodies are disproportionately impacted.
Religious Bodies are disproportionately impacted.
Disabled and different sized bodies are disproportionately impacted.
