Global surveillance

In todays society surveillance is something everybody knows about but doesn’t really think to much about. We have CCTV on most of the big streets in the city and in a way this makes it more safe but when you critical analyze it, “they watch your every move”. In some cities in Europe CCTV is a big thing like Side in Turkey. This city is totally surveilled by the military and they can see what everybody is doing in every single min of every day.

Another interesting fact I’ve come across living in Melbourne is that surveillance is mostly put in places where the government think certain cases can occur. In the rich part of town like the “french end” of collins street there is no surveillance at all, or at least not outside the stores. So I think this is a very interesting observation about how different social classes is thought of differently when it comes to CCTV.

It is a very important thing James Bridle did when he started to create these drone drawings in London. We are living a very digital life now but do we really think about how we are behaving online. Just to mention Google to show an example, they save everything you search for up to 10 years after, and how about Instagram and the localization option. When you look at your map in Instagram you will get a big shocked. You can basically see where you have been for the last couple of years and often where you live since this is the place you upload pictures.

The government are using the “it is for the greater good”, excuse to check up on what we are really doing online, But is this ok? I don’t think we could ever get completely free from surveillance but it’s important to know about how it works even though we don’t think about it every day.