You Might be Interested In

Several Canadian universities, including Queen’s and the University of Victoria, recently launched a multi-disciplinary study on the sociological and cultural impacts of surveillance. “The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting” received $2.5 million from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We all know surveillance is a part of our everyday life.  With our dependence on computers, the widespread sharing of our personal information with individuals and institutions, and the heightened concern about security by governments, every one is a potential candidate for some form of surveillance – on the street, at work, while at play, or even at home.

The New Transparency has proposed a series of lofty goals – to make “visible the identities of individuals, workings of institutions and flows of information never before seen” – using surveillance as the key to gather this data. The project intends to focus on “three vitally important questions”:

1) What factors contribute to the general expansion of surveillance as a technology of governance in late modern societies?
2) What are the underlying principles, technological infrastructures and institutional frameworks that support surveillance practice?
3) What are the social consequences of such surveillance both for institutions and for ordinary people?

In the past week, we have seen the government announce over $60 million for a new home for the Communications Security Establishment – Canada’s leading electronic surveillance agency. On a more practical level, more and more police forces are arguing for the proliferation of video surveillance, whether to increase security in our local park, to guarantee the safety of transit workers, or to prepare for the Olympic Games in Vancouver.

As a society, we have to consistently question any demand for increased surveillance. The OPC has set guidelines for the imposition of video surveillance by law enforcement agencies: these are also a useful series of questions to be posed whenever an organization proposes to place us under a stronger microscope.

They are, according to one of London’s top police officers. In an interview with The Guardian, Mick Neville, head of New Scotland Yard’s Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office, says that even though Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe, CCTV cameras have, so far, helped solve just three per cent of street robberies in London.

Don’t expect the cameras to disappear, however. According to The Register, the comments “appear to be a thinly veiled plea for more cash to be poured into the country’s favourite surveillance technology”.

Last week, Al Kamen of the Washington Post published an ironic article lightly criticizing his Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff about his statement that fingerprints aren’t personal information.

Any thoughts?

Last week, the Seattle Times reported on an experiment the University of Washington is conducting with radio frequency identification, or RFID. The university, responsible for one of the largest experiments using wireless tags in a social setting, has effectively created a futuristic atmosphere where RFID is everywhere. With this in place, they hope to uncover problems before the technology becomes widely adopted.

The use of RFID and its implications on privacy is an issue that has been discussed previously on this blog and the use of RFID in the workplace is a topic we are looking for feedback on. Having recently prepared a consultation paper with recommendations on privacy practices for organizations considering implementing RFID technologies, we are inviting people affected by RFID in the workplace to answer a series of consultation questions. To share your thoughts, visit our resource center to read Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the Workplace: Recommendations for Good Practices and complete the consultation questions.

Last month, a correspondent with Popular Science conducted his own privacy experiment – to be as anonymous as possible while still living a normal life. His conclusion? That it’s nearly impossible. 

The experiment – and the conclusion – is not a first. In 2006, another American author, working on a book about privacy, set out to see how much he could find out about himself, using resources available to the public. He found so much information that his publisher became concerned about his privacy and wouldn’t let him include it all in the book.

If these stories aren’t disturbing enough, the Popular Science article contains recent statistics that are sure to freak you out – like when the British government admitted to losing personal data for 25 million people, almost half the country’s population.

All of this doesn’t say much for the state of our privacy. The article does, however, make an interesting point about the state of anonymity in the past. Think about how people used to share party phone lines with their neighbors – with an operator listening in. And how, in the past, you had to be very careful about handing out personal information – because if you left underwear hanging on the line, or forgot to mow your lawn, disclosing your address could have embarrassing consequences!

Day to day, our actions are being captured, and increasingly, it’s being done by surveillance cameras. This technology – like RFID tags – is being used by more organizations everyday to improve security and deter thieves. And while that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to employ cameras, organizations should also be ensuring their surveillance activities minimize the impact on people’s privacy.

With that in mind, we released new video surveillance guidelines earlier this month, setting out how organizations should evaluate the use of video surveillance and how to respect privacy rights and comply with the law.

And if our guidelines can be considered the Top Ten list on what to do when considering video surveillance, think of this video as the Top Ten list on what not to do.

While there are certainly some novel uses for RFID technology out there (like studying the secret life of bees), RFID systems are increasingly being used for the more practical purposes of improving productivity and enhancing security.

The increasing appetite among companies to use this technology to track their employees is a worrisome trend for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. While we certainly recognize the business benefits of RFID systems, we believe they can also be used as surveillance tools, which raises important privacy concerns for employees.

Our office has just released a discussion paper outlining the steps organizations could consider, and questions that could be asked, before proceeding with RFID applications in the workplace. The paper includes some broad questions on the use of RFID technology, to which we invite stakeholders to submit their responses. We hope this paper will spark discussion on a growing trend with some serious implications.

BBC Radio 4 has a series of radio documentaries on Britain’s control rooms and surveillance systems…with a twist. In “Invisible People”, urban historian Joe Kerr interviews the people who work in these control centres about their jobs, tapping into the human side of Britain’s surveillance society.