Surveillance and Privacy — What does it mean to society?
There is an increasing risk in today’s society of the surveillance and privacy of the public. More and more we see surveillance cameras such as CCTV being installed in public areas and wit is becoming increasingly impossible to not leave a digital trace anywhere we go. This leaves me asking two questions;
- Is CCTV really a bad thing to have in public spaces?
- What are they doing with our digital traces ad data that we are leaving everywhere?
The motivations behind CCTV in public spaces are usually with good intentions. Our society has become one that is unsafe and needs the added level of safety to warn off any dangers. Some have described it as a risk society where we need surveillance to feel safe. With the rise of criminal activity I know that I feel safer knowing that there are surveillance devices in place to help protect me when I walk to and from the train station. It was only a few weeks ago that there was an incident involving police right next to the train station I use. This alone provides evidence of our now risk society. Singapore is a country who has implemented surveillance cameras in all public areas such as CCTV throughout their whole country. Australia’s crime rate is four times greater then Singapore’s according to Nation Master. I visited Singapore last year for a few days and from this experience I can say that it was eye opening how safe I felt in a foreign country compared to my own. I witnessed people leaving their belongings on a public table in a food court for ten or so minutes before returning with their food and their belongings were untouched. This was the normal for them.
Privacy on the other hand is shifting in it’s definition as it increasingly becomes impossible to not leave a digital trace or foot step where ever you go. There is a rise of what they are calling a smart city. These are cities with digital technologies helping urban governance and management. We live in a data driven society. Where ever we go some how we leave a digital trace, whether that be from tapping our opal cards on and off to using our MasterCard for pay pass. Everything we interact with collects our data, stores it and gets curated. Who is looking at our data and what it is being used for? A quote from ACLU states ‘the government’s collection of this sensitive information is itself an invasion of privacy’. I believe that there is now a blurred line as to what privacy actually means and to what extent should government be allowed to collect without our consent.
Even though I feel surveillance cameras are a good idea to be placed in public spaces, I also feel that our private data constantly being collected without our knowledge is becoming an invasion of our privacy. However, I don’t see it improving anytime soon.