Surveillance
Increasing amounts of information generated about us daily
Clearly part of a long social process
Drift towards surveillance society
Dangers of sleepwalking into a surveillance society
It is a product of a production process where something is conceived, funded, resourced and based on a need or demand
Risk of exclusion and/or being treated with suspicion
Can be used to identify & exclude those seen as being undesireable
Those who do the watching and those who are being watched
Some people might feel safer
eg older people in shopping centre
People are affected differently depending on how they are or percieve surveillance
Formal/Informal arrangements -looking our for each other
To catch perpetrators of crime, prevent crime, look after vulnerable, transform public services, ostensibly for the good
Need to strike a balance
Highlights tensions between security and fairness to all
Surveillance is not all about technology
Both a protection and a threat
Entanglements between welfare, crime and society - tensions and overlaps