Computer based surveillance in social sorting
Today surveillance practices around the world involve filling public and private databases with citizen’s personal information as surveillance technologies take center stage. Surveillance was basically a security measure during its inception but today's it plays roles that go beyond security and safety. There is growing public and private databases and unregulated forms of surveillance (Hier & Greenberg, 2009). This does not consider increasing volumes of private and sensitive information on the public. This essay explores the moral issues in surveillance as a social sorting tool.
Role of surveillance
Surveillance has been in uses as people keep watching over each other for moral caution, mutual
…show more content…
‘Big Brother' from George Orwell's dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) describes the far reaching impacts of surveillance in a dictatorial society. In the novel, George Orwell discussed a territory whose citizens were constantly watched by party leader, "big brother". As a form of caution, the big brother had posters that read "the big brother is watching". The action of citizens were closely monitored and manipulated willfully. This description of surveillance is misinformed because a better surveillance society is seen through the lens of modern organizational practices and not a covert conspiracy (Lyon, 2003). This means that surveillance is associated with administration efficiency. A great deal of information is collected and stored for retrieval. Police military are equipped with state of the art intelligence gathering and tracking technologies. The surveillance is therefore designed to enhance efficiency and coordination of …show more content…
Gathering information about the way we live, what we do, the home environment is creepy (Lyon, 2002). Sorting personal information influences the criteria of feeding in the system. This means that the computer systems influence decisions basing on what is fed. This system excludes some people because of programmed systems.
Individuals cannot influence the information fed on a computer and cannot therefore control purpose the information will play. For example, DNA fingerprints are sorted to match names of specific ethnic groups. People cannot gain access to their personal information. Social sorting is categorization of data basing on social status, income, citizenship, age, ethnic group or gender. This is for delineating target market or risky groups. A group is then described using this classification.
The idea of collecting data for an assumed purpose only to play a different function are taking roles by migrating databases and networks to other ones to intensify privacy invasions beyond the intended purposes (Lyon, 2002). They do this discretely which is facilitated by data interchange. The function of creeping is always unclear or ignored. Even the police using the data at crime scene or the DNA data does not assure of moral
“With surveillance technology like closed-circuit television cameras and digital cameras now linked to the Internet, we now have the means to implement Bentham's inspection principle on a much vaster scale”(Singer) Bentham's inspection principle is a system that allows the collection, storing and dissemination of data on individuals, corporations, and the government. This collection of data has large implications in regard to privacy and security. “There is always danger that the information collected will be misused - whether by regimes seeking to silence opposition or by corporations seeking to profit from more detailed knowledge of their potential customers.”(Singer) What is done with the information collected is the main issue in terms of privacy. We do not want to be marketed to, or inundated with spam from third-party sources. We also do not want our private social circles and experiences to appear that they are being monetized or subjected to surveillance outside our control. In addition, surveillance has a large effect on the government that can beneficial or detrimental to democracy. Exposure of government secrets may make officials tread carefully when making decisions, ensuring that politicians are nothing but just and fair.“The crucial step in preventing a repressive government from
According to the Oxford Dictionary, Big Brother is “A person or organization exercising total control over people's lives.” Not only is Big Brother featured in George Orwell's 1984 novel, the concept of a “Big Brother” is also seen everywhere around us in our everyday lives. Our modern-day form of Big Brother is our own government and the way it keeps surveillance over us. The way the United States and many other modern-day countries govern these days, with all their new advanced technology, we citizens are never truly alone. Our every move is constantly being watched.
“For every 32 people in London, there is one surveillance camera.” Today one uses technology numerous times throughout the duration of the day without even realizing it. In an Orwellian type society, technology such as surveillance cameras and television screens dictate the majority of people’s life. Modern day surveillance cameras are typically put in by local governments to watch for crime. If Big Brother, the political icon in George Orwell’s 1984, truly does watch over the citizens, there are some precautions the citizens could take to prevent this. Today’s society shows many of the key characteristics that an Orwellian society shows.
The government is always watching to ensure safety of their country, including everything and everyone in it. Camera surveillance has become an accepted and almost expected addition to modern safety and crime prevention (“Where” para 1). Many people willingly give authorization to companies like Google and Facebook to make billions selling their personal preferences, interests, and data. Canada participates with the United States and other countries in monitoring national and even global communications (“Where” para 2). Many question the usefulness of this kind of surveillance (Hier, Let, and Walby 1).However, surveillance, used non-discriminatorily, is, arguably, the key technology to preventing terrorist plots (Eijkman 1). Government surveillance is a rising global controversy; and, although minimal coverage could possibly result in safer communities, too much surveillance will result in the violation of citizen’s privacy.
...ailed as a system of government. Perhaps in Orwell's socialist commentary he failed to take notice of the trends being embraced by capitalism. Behavioral psychology states that reward is a far greater incentive than punishment is a deterrent. In society today thought control is much more pleasant, subtle, and diverse than it was in Orwell's vision.The media, television, the internet, computer games, and movies serve to indoctrinate us into the norms of society in a way which is much more complex than Big Brother's propaganda. We are depoliticized, kept away from the real issues by superficial diversions, much like the proles. Big Brother may not exist, but his name is everywhere. Perhaps Aldus Huxley's Brave New World would have better served as a predictor of modern society's fall. Orwell predicted that the truth would be concealed and that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley thought that the truth would be drowned in irrelevance and that what we love will ruin us. Orwell's political commentary and philosophical issues are still relevant, but we live in a world far more complex than he could have ever predicted. Big Brother isn't watching. He doesn't need to. We're watching him.
Current advancements in technology has given the government more tools for surveillance and thus leads to growing concerns for privacy. The two main categories of surveillance technologies are the ones that allow the government to gather information where previously unavailable or harder to obtain, and the ones that allow the government to process public information more quickly and efficiently (Simmons, 2007). The first category includes technologies like eavesdropping devices and hidden cameras. These are clear offenders of privacy because they are capable of gathering information while being largely unnoticed. The second category would include technologies that are used in a public space, like cameras in a public park. While these devices
Also, "Nineteen Eighty-four depicts the horrors of a well-established totalitarian regime of whatever type with great power and skill and force of imagination." (Davis). The book 1984 was written in futuristic setting to depict what a well established totalitarian government would look like. In the book, George Orwell crafted many ways of how big brother controls society and creates fear. In the book “Big Brother is watching you” (Orwell) is a common phrase that appears throughout the book. The phrase is creating fear in the society, it gives a sense that Big Brother and other party members are watching and he or she is not alone. As well keeping the people in the society in place, so he or she does not “rebel” against big brother or the party. The quote “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (Orwell), to have freedom a person in the society has to believe that two plus two does equal four. While Big Brother and the party wants he or she to believe that two plus two equals five, the party wants the society to believe everything that they say, the party does
Taylor, James Stacey. "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance." Public Affairs Quarterly July 2005: 227-246.
Privacy is one of the severe issue in today’s Modern Technology era, tied to human right around the world. Most countries have started thinking differently regarding between the people’s right and national security, and trying to leverage on new technology to detect potential national threats without hurting people’s privacy. However, there's a blurred line between privacy violation and government surveillance. (Sánchez, Levin & Del, 2012) It would be a learning process for governments to seek an optimum balance between retain integrity of privacy right and eliminate national threats in order to make the country better.
Throughout many years in the United States, there has been controversy over whether or not government surveillance and other technology is a violation of human rights. Ever since the publication of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, there has been an increase in debates on the subject. The novel itself exemplifies what a surveillance-based society is like, providing the reader with a point of view of what could happen to their own society. Discussion over the usage of information that the government has gathered has become one of the foremost topics being analyzed to this day. The information that is being viewed by surveillance would otherwise be private, or information that people would not want to be leaked out. Therefore, surveillance executed by the government and companies has become an infringement to the right of privacy, and United States citizens should take actions upon it before the world reflects the Orwellian vision of the future.
Ever since day one, people have been developing and creating all sorts of new methods and machines to help better everyday life in one way or another. Who can forget the invention of the ever-wondrous telephone? And we can’t forget how innovative and life-changing computers have been. However, while all machines have their positive uses, there can also be many negatives depending on how one uses said machines, wiretapping in on phone conversations, using spyware to quietly survey every keystroke and click one makes, and many other methods of unwanted snooping have arisen. As a result, laws have been made to make sure these negative uses are not taken advantage of by anyone. But because of how often technology changes, how can it be known that the laws made so long ago can still uphold proper justice? With the laws that are in place now, it’s a constant struggle to balance security with privacy. Privacy laws should be revised completely in order to create a better happy medium between security and privacy. A common misconception of most is that a happy medium of privacy and security is impossible to achieve. However, as well-said by Daniel Solove, “Protecting privacy doesn’t need to mean scuttling a security measure. Most people concerned about the privacy implications of government surveillance aren’t arguing for no[sic] surveillance and absolute privacy. They’d be fine giving up some privacy as long as appropriate controls, limitations, oversight and accountability mechanisms were in place.”(“5 Myths about Privacy”)
The world erupted in outrage following revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the extent of surveillance perform by the National Security Agency. Privacy becomes one of the hottest topic of 2013 and was chosen by the world’s most popular online dictionary, Dictionary.com, as the Word of the Year. However, the government is not the only one that conduct data gathering and surveillance. Employers often monitor their employees, and businesses collect data on theirs customer. The morality of these practices is a topic that generates heated debate.
The first function mentioned by Lasswell suggests two leading tasks. When it serves the collective needs of the public, it forms “public surveillance,”
There are various kinds of definitions about what data mining is. The authors in [1] define data mining as “the process of extracting previously unknown information from (usually large quantities of) data, which can, in the right context, lead to knowledge”. Data mining is widely used in areas such as business analysis, bioinformatics analysis, medical analysis, etc. Data mining techniques bring us a lot of benefits. Business companies can use data mining tools to search potential customers and increase their profits; medical diagnosis can use data mining to predict potential disease. Although the term “data mining” itself is neutral and has no ethical implications, it is often related to the analysis of information associated with individuals. “The ethical dilemmas arise when data mining is executed over the data of an individual” [2]. For example, using a user’s data to do data mining and classifying the user into some group may result in a variety of ethical issues. In this paper, we deal with two kinds of ethical issues caused by data mining techniques: informational privacy issues in web-data mining and database security issues in data mining. We also look at these ethical issues in a societal level and a global level.
Privacy is not just a fundamental right, it is also important to maintain a truly democratic society where all citizens are able to exist with relative comfort. Therefore, “[Monitoring citizens without their knowledge] is a major threat to democracies all around the world.” (William Binney.) This is a logical opinion because without freedom of expression and privacy, every dictatorship in history has implemented some form of surveillance upon its citizens as a method of control.