I remember being in High School and reading George Orwell’s infamous novel, 1984. Back then, the concept of a surveillance society did seem a little far-fetched to me, especially because the internet and digital technologies of today were in their very early stages (virtually non-existent, actually). Even when Big Brother hit our television screens in Australia for the very first time, it was still difficult to fathom this largely anti-democratic idea that one day my every move would give life to this Orwellian notion that ‘big brother is watching you’ (Orwell 1949, p. 1).
Here I sit, in 2021, with CCTV cameras installed outside my house on street lamp poles, a smart phone in my hand, a smart TV in my house, GPS navigation system in my car, drones hovering and satellites towering in the sky (amongst thousands of other examples) and it becomes increasingly eerie how a book published in 1949 could have so accurately foretold a society that was to come and one which I would live to see.
The surveillance society has many people up in arms because it essentially strips individuals of their ‘secrets’ and ‘privacy’ (Lyon 2013, p. 11). The Guardian’s (2016) Power of Privacy documentary https://youtu.be/KGX-c5BJNFk demonstrates that in our 21st century such notions are illusory at best. There is no doubt that the terrorist attacks against America on September, 11 2001 licensed every nation to endorse a surveillance society as a necessary evil to safeguard our ‘risk society’ against an unsolicited evil (that is, terrorists and the associated threats to national security and sovereignty (Webb 2007, p. 56). Contrary to popular thought, we are in fact living in a society that is safer, more peaceful, prosperous and advanced than that of our predecessors. Thanks to widespread CCTV footage and digital footprints, missing persons are more readily located, identifying and retracing the steps of criminals (like the Boston Marathon bombers in 2014) is swift and criminal activity like drug smuggling and terror plots can be intercepted before harm is done, to name a few (Wester & Giesecki 2019).
Ironically, despite the fact that the internet and innovative technologies are increasingly dispossessing us of our data I still post images on social media sites, forfeit credit-card details when shopping online, download data-preying apps to my phone and register personal information with various online organisations, media outlets and businesses. I willingly expand my digital footprint and add to ‘metadata’ and ‘big data’ all-too-aware that the surveillance society itself is not immune to the threat of cyber-attacks like identity theft, stalking and hacking (Rawat, Doku & Garuba 2019, p. 1). Yet, and as affirmed by Wortmann & Flutcher (2015, p. 39), the fact that the ‘internet of things’ has made my personal and vocational life undoubtedly easier, allowed me to connect with people all over the world and allowed for progression of society, I believe the risks that come with a surveillance society are superseded by its advantages.
In exemplification, if it were not for the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS) then it would have been impossible to suppress the transmission of COVID-19 in Australia and effectively track and respond to cluster outbreaks (Vitak & Zimmer 2020). The importance of the internet and associated technologies at the height of the pandemic was also demonstrated in the form of web-based education, work, shopping, banking, religious sermons, general communication and social interaction, amongst others (Vitak & Zimmer 2020). So, while there are definitely elements of social control and invasions of privacy within our surveillance society I do consider it a necessary evil. To be quite frank, I can no longer envision my life without the internet and modern-day technologies. Do you believe the surveillance society is a necessary evil? Would you be prepared to give up the internet, CCTV, GPS devices, smart phones and so forth in the interest of privacy?
REFERENCES:
Fuchs, C 2010, ‘Social networking in the surveillance society’, Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 171–185, viewed 30 May 2021, SpringerLink database, DOI 10.1007/s10676–010–9220-z.
Lyon, D 2013, The electronic eye: the rise of surveillance society — computers and social control in context, Polity Press, United Kingdom.
Orwell, G 1949, 1984, Secker & Warburg, United Kingdom.
Rawat, DB, Doku, R & Garuba, M 2019, ‘Cybersecurity in big data era: from securing big data to data-driven security’, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 1–6, viewed 30 May 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1109/TSC.2019.2907247.
The Guardian 2016, The Power of Privacy, 28 January, online video, viewed 30 May 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGX-c5BJNFk>.
Vitak, J & Zimmer, M 2020, ‘More than just privacy: using contextual integrity to evaluate the long-term risks from COVID-19 surveillance technologies’, Social Media & Society, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 110–114, viewed 30 May 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1177/2056305120948250.
Webb, M 2007, Illusions of security: global surveillance and democracy in the post-9/11 world, City Lights, San Francisco.
Wester, M & Giesecke, J 2019, ‘Accepting surveillance: an increased sense of security after terror strikes?’, Safety Science, vol. 120, no. 1, pp. 383-387, viewed 30 May 2021, SAGE Journals database, DOI 10.1016/j.ssci.2019.07.013.
