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| Editorial |
| Clive
Norris, Mike McCahill and David Wood — The Growth of CCTV:
a global perspective on the international diffusion of video surveillance
in publicly accessible space |
This
editorial surveys the growth of video surveillance or Closed-Circuit
Television (CCTV) throughout the world, setting the scene for
this special double issue of Surveillance & Society,
on the politics and practice of CCTV, and provides a brief introduction
to the contents of the issue. |
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| Conceptualising
CCTV |
Heather
Cameron —
CCTV and (In)dividuation |
This
essay draws on work of Freud and Foucault to understand emerging
converging aspects of visual surveillance and tracking technology.
It discusses some of the general problems with video surveillance
– due to its reliance on a flattened version of the visual
realm, its partial view, and assumptions about human vision. It
then moves on to show how CCTV has changed from the monitoring
of flows to identifying individuals and functioning as the human
interface for new databank applications, using Foucault’s
reflections on governmentality. The essay ends by detailing a
controversial test of video surveillance and RFID tags which point
out some new dangers for us to consider, and argues that we should
resist the ‘flat fantasy’ offered by video surveillance. |
Francisco
Klauser —
A Comparison of the Impact of Protective and Preservative Video
Surveillance on Urban Territoriality: the case of Switzerland
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This
paper focuses on a comparison between two forms of video-surveillance
and their consequences for the territoriality of public space
users: the preservative, which aims to preserve public order and
to prevent ‘anti-social’ behaviour; and the protective,
which protect specific risk-points like buildings or objects.
The fundamental difference between preservative and protective
surveillance is linked to the spatial logic of its functioning,
that can be deduced both from the position of the cameras and
the general orientation of its view. Following Lefebvre and Raffestin,
it argues that these socio-spatial relationships of social players
may be considered as an inherent part of public space. In consequence,
their transformation directly affects the qualities of public
space. These theoretical explored are illustrated with a cartographical
study of the cameras within the city centre of Geneva and a study
of public sensitivity and perception of video surveillance in
the Swiss city of Olten. |
Christoph
Müller and Daniel Boos —
Zurich Main Railway Station: A Typology of Public CCTV Systems
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Railway
stations have become places between ‘public’ and ‘private’.
In this exploratory case study, we are looking at the CCTV system
at the Zurich main station, the largest railway station in Switzerland.
This railway station is used by train passengers, by customers
frequenting the station's shopping area, and by persons trespassing
in the station. Looking at different types of CCTV systems, we
examine the motivations that have been leading to the installation
of the cameras, about their functionality and their effects on
passengers and customers. Based on our observations, we are going
to present a typology of different uses of CCTV systems: (1) access
control, (2) conduct control, (3) registering evidence, (4) flow
control and the planning of deployment. As a conclusion, we will
have a look at some future trends in the use of CCTV in railway
stations, focussing on (a) individualization, (b) automation,
and (c) commodification. In the last part of our presentation,
we are going to ask about the limits of the spreading of CCTV
systems in railway stations, focussing on the efficiency on one
hand and on several possibilities for opposition on the other
hand. |
| Lucas
Introna and David Wood — Picturing Algorithmic Surveillance:
The Politics of Facial Recognition Systems |
This
paper opens up for scrutiny the politics of algorithmic surveillance
through an examination of Facial Recognition Systems (FRSs) in
video surveillance, showing that seemingly mundane design decisions
may have important political consequences that ought to be subject
to scrutiny. It first focuses on the politics of technology and
algorithmic surveillance systems in particular: considering the
broad politics of technology; the nature of algorithmic surveillance
and biometrics, claiming that software algorithms are a particularly
important domain of techno-politics; and finally considering both
the growth of algorithmic biometric surveillance and the potential
problems with such systems. Secondly, it gives an account of FRS’s,
the algorithms upon which they are based, and the biases embedded
therein. In the third part, the ways in which these biases may
manifest itself in real world implementation of FRS’s are
outlined. Finally, some policy suggestions for the future development
of FRS’s are made; it is noted that the most common critiques
of such systems are based on notions of privacy which seem increasingly
at odds with the world of automated systems. |
Hille
Koskela — Webcams, TV Shows and Mobile phones:
Empowering Exhibitionism |
| The
roles of visual representations have been multiplied. In contrast
of being targets of the ever-increasing surveillance, people seek
to play an active role in the production of images, thus, reclaiming
the copyright of their own lives. In this article, three examples
of this development are examined. ‘Reality shows’ in
TV aim to create an impression of the viewer participating in crime
control. Mobile phones with cameras enable individuals to become
active subjects in circulating images and to participate in ‘counter-surveillance’.
‘Home webcams’ present daily lives of individuals in
the Internet, generating new subjectivities. They change the conventional
code of what can or cannot be shown, and thus, expose cultural tensions
surrounding epistemological conceptions of vision, gender, identities,
and moralities. By revealing their intimate lives, people are liberated
from shame and the ‘need’ to hide, which leads to something
called ‘empowering exhibitionism’. These deliberately
produced images contest many of the conventional ways of thinking
how visibility and transparency connote with power and control.
To be (more) seen is not always to be less powerful. By rebelling
against the shame embedded in the conception of the private, people
refuse to be humble. They may gain power, but it does not head for
control over others but, rather, blur and mix the lines of control.
Televisualisation, cyberspace presentation, and mobile phone counter
observation also raise new questions considering ‘traditional’
surveillance. Images can be played with, and can work as a form
of resistance. Sometimes it is more radical to reveal than to hide. |
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| Governance
and Regulation |
|
Marianne L. Gras — The Legal Regulation of CCTV in Europe |
This
paper explores the recent history of CCTV system regulation in
England and Wales questioning whether recent additions to the
law can be regarded as providing for effective regulation, in
particular, of camera numbers. It goes on to explore the legal
landscape relating to public and private use of CCTV to subject
publicly accessible space to surveillance in Germany as well as
giving an overview of the regulatory systems in France, the Netherlands
and Sweden. Drawing from this analysis, minimum standards for
effective regulation are explored in terms of fulfilling both
the letter and the spirit of laws across Europe. |
| William
R. Webster — The Diffusion, Regulation and Governance of Closed-Circuit
Television in the UK |
This
article explores the introduction and diffusion of Closed Circuit
Television (CCTV) surveillance systems in public places across
the UK. In particular, it seeks to examine the diffusion of CCTV
alongside the emergence of regulation and governance structures
associated with its provision. By doing so, it is argued here,
that the processes of diffusion, regulation and governance are
inherently intertwined, that they have evolved together over time,
and that we must place CCTV within its institutional and policy
setting in order to have a good understanding of the reasons for
its diffusion. Initially, it appears that the CCTV policy arena
is relatively unregulated. This is surprising given the nature
of the technology and its potential to be used as a tool for surveillance
and control. However, a closer examination of its diffusion points
to a variety of regulatory mechanisms emerging from within the
CCTV policy environment and evolving alongside the development
of policy networks. It is argued here, that whilst it may appear
that regulation has emerged from within these networks, government,
despite limited legislative intervention, remains the dominant
actor in the policy process through its ability to shape and influence
networks. |
Pete
Fussey — New Labour and New Surveillance:
Theoretical and Political Ramifications of CCTV Implementation in
the UK |
This
paper examines the implications of New Labour’s approaches
to crime and disorder on CCTV implementation. It concentrates
on the usage of CCTV as one of the government's many initiatives,
which are intended to address crime and disorder, including the
fear of crime. In particular, the impact of the 1998 Crime and
Disorder Act (CDA) - the cornerstone of this government’s
approach to crime reduction - on the generation of such strategies
is examined. The paper revisits neo-Marxist and Foucauldian analyses
of the so-called surveillance society through an appraisal of
the complex relationship between structure and agency in the formulation
and implementation of anti-crime and disorder strategies. Drawing
on fieldwork data the paper considers the activities of practitioners
at a local level by focusing on the influence of central government,
local communities and ‘common sense’ thinking based
on certain criminological theories. It is argued that a myriad
of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial
concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues),
structures and agency - as well as the indirect influence of central
government - shape CCTV policy. Ultimately, the creation of new
local policy contexts under the CDA emphasise the need to consider
incremental and malleable processes concerning the formulation
of CCTV policy. In turn, this allows a re-examination of theoretical
accounts of surveillance, and their attendant assumptions of sovereign
or disciplinary power. |
| Caoilfhionn
Gallagher — CCTV and Human Rights: the Fish and the Bicycle?
An Examination of Peck V. United Kingdom (2003) 36 E.H.R.R. 41 |
| This
paper analyses and considers the impact of a landmark decision by
the European Court of Human Rights in January 2003 which highlighted
the inadequacy of U.K. law in protecting the privacy of individuals
captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public places.
The domestic and Strasbourg decisions in the Peck case are assessed.
Analysis of the subsequent responses of Government, the Courts and
the media demonstrates that the lessons of Peck have yet to be learnt,
and the Human Rights Act 1998 has failed to ‘bring rights
home’ when it comes to Article 8 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the citizen the right to
respect for private life. Privacy in the U.K. is now at best a residual
right: what’s left after each of an array of competing concerns
have their say. |
| Roy
Coleman — Reclaiming the Streets: Closed Circuit Television,
Neoliberalism and the Mystification of Social Divisions in Liverpool,
UK |
| The
normalisation of camera surveillance on the streets of the UK raises
profound questions about the strategies of contemporary urban political
rule and the material and ideological re-mapping of urban space.
Firstly, this paper will argue that an understanding of street camera
surveillance requires a consideration of the operation of neoliberalism
at the local level [in this case Liverpool on the north west coast
of England] through a myriad of ‘partnership’ arrangements
that have shifted the terrain of local democracy and the meanings
of both the public interest and social justice. Secondly, in using
case material from a paradigmatic neoliberalising city, the paper
argues that surveillance cameras are part of a social control strategy
that seeks to hide the consequences of neoliberalisation in creating
a particular ambience and exclusivity regarding ‘public’
spaces. Thirdly, the paper critically considers whether we can understand
visual surveillance as a technique for the ‘exclusion of difference’
in urban space or as a tool that suppresses the reality of social
divisions. |
| Adam
Sutton and Dean Wilson — Open-Street CCTV in Australia: The
Politics of Resistance and Expansion |
| This
paper summarizes the first systematic attempt to document and assess
the extent of open-street CCTV systems in Australia. In addition
to providing empirical data, this paper argues that it is tempting
for Australian scholars, and those elsewhere, to view the UK ‘surveillance
revolution’ as the harbinger of inevitable global trends sweeping
across jurisdictions. However analysis of the Australian data suggests
that the deployment of CCTV in other national contexts may follow
substantially divergent patterns. While the Australian CCTV experience
follows many trends exhibited in other nations, it is nevertheless
significant that the diffusion of CCTV in Australia has been more
restrained than in the UK. We suggest that the divergence between
the UK and Australian experiences resides in contrasting political
structures and the consequent variation in the strength of debate
and resistance at the local level. |
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| Case
Studies |
| Frank
Helten and Bernd Fischer — Reactive Attention: Video Surveillance
in Berlin Shopping Malls |
The
paper examines the practice of use of video-surveillance in Berlin
Shopping Malls. The video systems observed here do not seem to
be an efficient instrument of social control and exclusion. They
are used more on demand for various purposes such as the monitoring
of daily tasks and the co-ordination of persons working inside
the mall. The objectives publicly claimed by management –
crime prevention and the like – could not be achieved because
the everyday practice presents other tasks to the operators. The
workplace, the personnel, their multiple tasks, their qualifications
support more a reactive use of video surveillance than a proactive
targeted observation of individuals, even if the equipment would
allow for that. It may turn out that the CCTV infrastructure of
Berlin shopping malls can be characterised best as test-beds –
open for various applications. There are, however, obstacles to
this in the form of data protection concerns and the lack of political
and economic support to go further (tied of course to financial
constraints). Finally, as shown in our study, the social practice
in everyday life continues to resist one-dimensional expectations
of the technological possibilities of CCTV. |
| Heidi
Mork Lomell — Targeting
the Unwanted: Video Surveillance and Categorical Exclusion in Oslo,
Norway |
| The
rise of video surveillance in the United Kingdom, in the form of
the public installation of closed circuit television (CCTV), has
been seen by several scholars as a contributing factor to the increasing
exclusion of unwanted categories of people from city centers, a
development often referred to as the ‘commercialization’
or ‘purification’ of the city. Drawing from field observations
over three years in control rooms in Oslo, Norway, this article
discusses whether CCTV systems in Oslo contribute to a similar process
of exclusion. To do so, I compare the open street video surveillance
system with two other CCTV systems - a shopping mall and a major
transport center. The introduction of open street CCTV in Oslo in
1999 did not create social exclusion, but recent developments show
the possibility remains. Although drug addicts and young people
were the primary targets of surveillance in all three sites studied,
ejections varied considerably from site to site. The shopping mall
system had a higher ejection rate than the open street system, and
was therefore the system with the clearest exclusionary effects.
Reasons for the different ejection rates are discussed, in particular
the social structure of the site under surveillance and the organizational
relationships of CCTV operators to the policing agents connected
to the surveillance system. |
| Emmanuel
Martinais and Christophe Bétin — Social
Aspects of CCTV in France: the Case of the City Centre of Lyons
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| Inaugurated
a few days after the municipal elections in spring 2001 as a result
of a campaign strongly formatted by security issues, the operation
of CCTV in the centre of Lyons can be seen today as part and parcel
of the security-oriented policies of the new socialist local government.
Through responding in part to the concerns and interests of those
social groups which are more exposed to the problems posed by crime
(particularly shopkeepers and residents), implementing such a policy
contributes to the social construction of deviance. It not only
acts to consolidate dominant social representations in the field
of security, but the ways in which it is used lead to reformulation
of the rules and social norms construing everyday practices and
deviant behaviour in public space. |
| Gavin
J.D. Smith — Behind
the Screens: Examining Constructions of Deviance and Informal Practices
among CCTV Control Room Operators in the UK |
| Hitherto,
limited empirical research has focussed on the micro-level dynamics
and social interactions forming a typical CCTV control room’s
everyday operational culture. As such, the ‘human element’
behind the monitoring of the cameras has been largely ignored in
much CCTV analysis to date. Drawing upon ethnographic observation
conducted within a privately funded CCTV control room, this paper
questions the accuracy of a central assumption made in much of the
general literature on CCTV, namely that surveillance cameras are
not only controlled and monitored constantly, but also operated
effectively and efficiently. A consideration of the types of person
monitored, and why certain individuals attracted attention from
the operatives, is also given. More specifically, and drawing on
knowledge gleaned from studies of workplace culture, the article
also identifies subtle forms of workplace resistance occurring in
the observed control room’s informal organisation. This involved
strategies such as time wasting and game playing being adopted by
the operators, largely in response to the effects of tiredness,
boredom, derision and the difficulty of effectively monitoring up
to fifteen television screens simultaneously. Indeed, the findings
from the research suggested that the operatives felt alienated from
their job, due to the imprisoning confines of the CCTV control room,
the long hours worked, the high expectation levels placed upon them
and the low pay and lack of acclamation received from their employers.
Reflecting on these findings, it is concluded that, taken together,
the above factors seriously undermine the effectiveness of CCTV
surveillance per se. |
| Ann
Rudinow Sætnan, Heidi Mork Lomell and Carsten Wiecek —
Controlling CCTV in Public Spaces: Is Privacy the (Only) Issue?
Reflections on Norwegian and Danish Observations |
| This
paper examines data from an observation study of four CCTV control
rooms in Norway and Denmark. The paper asks whether issues other
than privacy might be at stake when public spaces are placed under
video surveillance. Starting with a discussion of what values public
spaces produce for society and for citizens and then examining CCTV
practices in terms of those values, we find that video surveillance
might have both positive and negative effects on key ‘products’
of public spaces. We are especially concerned with potential effects
on social cohesion. If CCTV encourages broad participation and interaction
in public spaces, for instance by increasing citizens’ sense
of safety, then CCTV may enhance social cohesion. But the discriminatory
practices we observed may have the opposite effect by excluding
whole categories of the populace from public spaces, thus ghettoizing
those spaces and hampering social interactions. Though tentative
due to limited data, our analysis indicates that structural properties
of CCTV operations may affect the extent of discriminatory practices
that occur. We suggest that these properties may therefore present
‘handles’ by which CCTV practices can be regulated to
avoid negative effects on social cohesion. |
| Jean
Ruegg, Valérie November and Francisco Klauser — CCTV,
Risk Management and Regulation Mechanisms in Publicly-Used Places:
a Discussion Based on Swiss Examples |
| This
paper focuses on the relations between different types of actors
involved in both conceiving and using video-surveillance systems.
More specifically, it deals with the reasons that support the growing
use of video-surveillance systems, and the organisation structures
and implementation schemes that are designed to cope with them.
The analysis raises issues linked to the complexity of social and
spatial relations that CCTV tends to produce. Based on four Swiss
case studies chosen in function of different objectives (risks),
different types of public spaces that are under surveillance (city
centre, motorway, industrial zone, public transport), as well as
different stages of completion of a CCTV project, the main results
are to document new categories of actors: the definition of the
relationship between CCTV-providers and end-users must be enlarged.
Many more actors are playing important roles in terms of risk management
and decision making while designing and implementing CCTV systems.
Risks under surveillance: different types of risks are under surveillance.
The study is underlining that different forms of surveillance must
be distinguished, given the spatial characteristics of every risk
(diffuse, located, specific and/or territorialized). The ‘distancing
effect’: CCTV obviously creates distance between the object
and the place where surveillance is actually made. To go a bit further,
the paper claims that several kinds of distancing effects should
be considered. These distancing effects modify both the quality
of places under surveillance and the general context where mechanisms
can be designed and implemented for a better public regulation of
CCTV uses. |
| Mark
Cole — Signage and Surveillance: Interrogating the Textual
Context of CCTV in the UK |
| The
UK is one of the most surveilled societies in the World. CCTV systems
prevail in both private and public space. Since 2000, a Code of
Practice has required that signage is clearly deployed to advise
of the existence of those systems wherever they are in use. Throughout
2002, examples of that signage were captured photographically, culminating
in an exhibition of this material in October of that year. While
arguing that the signage works closely in conjunction with the technological
systems to which it refers, this paper focuses on this textual superstructure,
using a Foucauldian approach as a means of shaping the discussion.
It concludes that the signage itself has a number of possible effects.
Most significantly, it argues that these texts, outwith the technological
structures to which they refer, actively and substantially facilitate
the ‘automatic functioning of power’. |
| Vibeke
Jørgensen — The Apple of the Eye: Parents’ Use
of Webcams in a Danish Day Nursery |
| Via webcams parents can now,
from their place of work, see what happens in the day nursery of
their child. The focus of this paper is why Danish parents of children,
aged 0- 6, use webcams, what they use them for and why some parents
refuse using the webcams. The conclusions rest on a qualitative
analysis of 3 of 11 interviewed parents. It is concluded that control
is an important, but surely not the only motive behind parents’
use of this sort of CCTV. It’s also concluded that a substantial
number of needs are connected to the use. Most prevailing are security
needs, needs of social contact and of knowledge. The use of webcams
has a clear relation to the parent’s handling of his parenting,
his relationship to the day-care institution and his situation at
work, his attitude towards the use of webcams and technical and
practical matters. It is connected with tendencies of the radicalized
modernity of today and with parents’ different ways and possibilities
of handling these tendencies. |
| Dietmar
Kammerer — Video Surveillance in Hollywood Movies |
This paper examines the representations
of CCTV in contemporary popular culture, namely Hollywood film
from the perspective of culture and film studies. It starts from
the observation that a growing number of Hollywood films are not
only using (fake) CCTV images within their narrative, but are
actually developing ‘rhetorics of surveillance’. Following
the argument of Thomas Y. Levin, contemporary Hollywood film is
increasingly fascinated with (the images of) video surveillance.
This fascination can be explained with the use of ‘real
time’ and a shift from spatial to temporal indexicality
in these movies. The paper then takes a closer look at three recent
films: Tony Scott's Enemy of the State, Steven Spielberg's Minority
Report and David Fincher's Panic Room. The role and uses of CCTV
imagery in these films are analyzed; the role of the heroine under
surveillance is examined; modes of (im-)possible resistance against
CCTV are discussed.
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