academic – Page 3

Surveillant Landscapes

There is a fascinating little piece on Bldg Blog about ‘security geotextiles’ and other actual and speculative surveillance systems that are built in to, underlie or encompass whole landscapes. The argument seems to support what I have been writing and speaking about recently on ‘vanishing surveillance’ (I’ll be speaking about it again in Copenhagen a the first Negotiating (In)visibilities conference in February): the way in which, as surveillance spreads and becomes more intense, moving towards ubiquitous, pervasive or ambient surveillance, that its material manifestations have a tendency to disappear.

There is a standards kind of alarmism that the piece starts with and the assumption that such things are malevolent does strike one as an initial impression, perhaps not surprising given that the piece is inspired by yet another security tech developement – this time a concealed perimeter surveillance system from Israeli firm, GMax. Perhaps if it had begun with urban ubiquitous sensory systems in a universal design context, it might have taken a very different direction. However, what’s particularly interesting about the piece is that it doesn’t stop there, but highlights the possibilities for resistance and subversion using the very same ubiquitous technologies.

But whether hegemonic or subversive, the overall trajectory that post outlines of a move towards a machine-readable world, indeed a world reconfigured for machines, is pretty much indisputable…

geotextile2 — A buried and ultimately invisible magnetic passive perimeter security system, from Israeli security company, G-Max.

(Thanks to Torin Monahan for alerting me to this)

Negotiating (In)visibilities

There’s an interesting new research network called ‘Negotiating (In)visibilies‘, one of those fascinating interdisciplinary collaborations (or collisions) that spans architcture, urban studies, cultural studies, arts and information (and probably). I’ve been asked to be an advisor and will also be giving one of the keynotes at what looks to be a really great opening confererence in Copenhagen, February 1-2 2012. Should be fun!

CFP: RGS-IBG 2012

Royal Geographical Society-Insitute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) Annual Conference, Edinburgh UK, 3-5th July 2012.

Call for papers, sponsored by the Surveillance Studies Network / Surveillance & Society

“Surveillant Geographies”

Convened by David Murakami Wood (Queen’s University, Ontario) and Steve Graham (Newcastle University)

In this era of risk and security, surveillance is intensifying, expanding, rescaling and reterratorializing. New organisational practices, new technologies and new spaces of surveillance are replacing, adding to or overlaying existing forms. Surveillance is becoming something that is far removed from the binaries of State/Citizen, Public/Private or Self/Other. Surveillance is both being globalized and at the same time enables neoliberal economic globalization and military power projection. But beyond this there is a complex and contingent spatiality and temporality to surveillance. Nation-states and national cultures still matter, however, the most significant differences are not national. Surveillance is increasingly not only targeted at the unwilling masses, but is something embraced by a mobile global elite to ensure the predictability and safety of in the spaces in which they live and work. Specialized marketing combined with revanchist redevelopment are generating material and virtual sociospatial forms that come with surveillance ‘built in’. At the same time, globalization means a shift to more fragmented, uneven and dangerous spaces for many, where what is not seen matters as much as what is. There is an emerging geography of secure and surveilled enclaves counterposed to spaces of exclusion and disappearance, at every scale. Surveillance is also becoming a feature of everyday interpersonal practice through social media and consumer culture, and this too has complex relationships with the construction of space.

We invite submissions on any aspect of the geographies of surveillance. Key topics could include:

The globalization, reterritorialization and rescaling of surveillance
Critiques of dominant theorizations of surveillance, and new directions from / in geography
Comparative studies of surveillance
The political economy of surveillance
Surveillance, intelligence and the ‘war on terror’
Emerging geographies of surveillance, e.g. social networks, online gameworlds etc.
Historical geographies of surveillance
Surveillance and culture(s)
Reaction and resistance to surveillance
Geographies of openness, transparency and exteriority
Geographies of closure, privacy and interiority

Please send a title and short abstract (max. 250 words) by Friday 20th January 2012 to the session organisers, David Murakami Wood (dmw@queensu.ca) and Steve Graham (steve.graham@ncl.ac.uk)

Billions wasted on airport ‘security’

A new report from the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) say that the industry is wasting billions on unnecessary and ineffective security procedures which are slowing down travel and damaging the whole sector’s economic prospects, according to The Guardian. This comes only days after the German government decided not to introduce body-scanners after trials showed them to be unreliable.

The argument is not particularly surprising, but there seem to be interesting aspects of the issue (apart from the basic human rights problems which we should never forget). The first is that clearly someone is benefitting economically, even if it is not the air transport sector, and that someone is the security industry – although as it happens, a whole range of people and companies have benefitted from the aftermath of 9/11. The Guardian article mentions that UK-based scanning company, Smiths, has tripled its profits this year to near $1Bn, despite the problems with scanners. However, it isn’t all bad. In European domestic and regional markets, airlines have lost out to railway travel, and this can only be a good thing in terms of environmental concerns.

The second aspect is that IATA is using this to push the revival of integrated ‘trusted traveller’ plans coming out of the USA. Many countries have bilateral schemes, but the idea is for travellers with ‘nothing to hide’ to submit personal information to a central body that would validate them without the need for time-consuming checks on the airport. So far, such schemes have been largely restricted to business-class passengers, raising the strong possibility of confusion between really improved security and simply buying more convenience. However, there is another problem from the point of view of security here too: one of the major concerns for security is so-called ‘clean skins’, terrorist who have never triggered any suspicion because they are either entirely new converts to the cause, or have been deep undercover for years cultivating an unblemished record.

In any case, it appears that the security companies are trying to get past the criticism by producing new seamless and less intrusive scanning technologies that would not require long waits and would be integrated into the architecture of airport corridors etc. Of course, the delays and inconvenience of obvious security and surveillance procedures have a purpose and are not just by-products. There is, theoretically at least, a consciousness-raising effect of what Bruce Schneier calls ‘security theater’. If these new gadgets work, and the German trial suggests that there is often more smoke than heat in claims about effectiveness, this effect would be diminished in favour of speed and convenience for an as yet unknown proportion of travellers and much greater inconvenience for the remainder. It’s an interesting conundrum for the authorities…

Security and Surveillance session at AAG 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS

Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, 24-28 February 2012, New York

Geographies of Security and Surveillance

Convened by David Murakami Wood, Queen’s University, Ontario, and Steve Graham, Newcastle University UK.

This session will provide a space for the discussion of the growing interest in geographies of security and surveillance. We welcome submissions on any aspect of this broad area, but would particularly encourage papers on:

International comparative studies of security and surveillance
The political economy of security and surveillance
Surveillance, intelligence and the ‘war on terror’
The globalization, reterritorialization and rescaling of security and surveillance
Critiques of dominant theorizations of security and surveillance, and new directions from / in geography
Emerging geographies of surveillance and security, e.g. social networks, online gameworlds etc.
Historical geographies of security and surveillance
Security, surveillance and culture
Geographies of openness, transparency and exteriority
Geographies of closure, privacy and interiority

Potential presenters should first register for the meeting at: http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/register_to_attend

They should then send their name, affiliation, conference ID number, and a 250-word abstract to David Murakami Wood

The deadline for submission is: 21st September 2011

Successful submitters will be notified before 28th September 2011, when the full session will be submitted to the AAG

Blackberry and the London Riots

I’ve been in the papers and on radio and TV a bit in the last few days here in Canada, talking about the London Riots, both as a ‘token Brit’ and a surveillance expert. I’m happy to talk about my feelings as someone from Britain and I’ve made it clear to people that I am neither a technical nor a legal expert, but the conversation inevitably ends up in those domains and others which are really outside my expertise – and I’ve had to be careful what I say.

I’ve generally stuck to three lines:

1. That these riots don’t provide simple moral lessons, they are neither politically-motivated or just about ‘crime’, but they do have roots and implications which are profoundly political – this is about consumerism, class, inequality and exclusion.

2. That you can’t blame Blackberry. That’s like blaming the postal service for hate-mail. The problems for RIM here are twofold: bad public relations from being associated with rioting, and how much it is prepared to sacrifice the privacy of its users to help UK police in an effort to counter the bad PR.

3. That all the UK investment in video surveillance didn’t help stop these riots (see my previous posts).

People like Chris Parsons are the kinds of people that the media need to talk to about the technical issues, and there’s a really fantastic and detailed post from his blog here on Blackberry and security and privacy issues. On legal issues, there’s no-one better than Michael Geist on things like lawful access. His website is here. Michael writes a regular column for the Toronto Star and I was quite amused that when the Star called me yesterday, I had to remind them to talk to him about lawful access issues! The best sociological piece I have seen on the causes is from Zygmunt Bauman.

That said, here’s some links – There’s a podcast here on the Financial Post, which also has a good discussion with Tamir Israel of CPIC.

On the more social side here, syndicated in lots of local and regional papers.

And the usually strangely edited piece in my local paper, the Kingston Whig-Standard, here, also featuring my colleague, Vince Sacco.

London Riots and Video Surveillance, pt.1

A really interesting map on the website of the US monthly, The Atlantic, illustrating the relationship between density of video surveillance cameras (CCTV) and recent incidence of rioting in London. There are many things one can get even from a simple map like this. It’s worth noting in particular that Wandsworth and Harringey are the residential boroughs with the highest concentration of CCTV, and have been hit by rioting. There are also places with both greater and less than average density of CCTV which have not had rioting.

Whilst you have to be careful not to mistake correlation for causality, and bearing in mind that this is not a statistically tested verdict, the main tentative conclusion one can draw is that there seems to be no relationship between the presence and density of CCTV and the occurence of rioting. This might seem like a fairly weak statement, but it is yet more evidence that CCTV has little deterrent effect on crime of this sort (and of course, the rioting is not only explicable as ‘crime’ anyway).

What’s Wrong with Video Surveillance?

Occasionally, you need to simplify and clarify. Someone asked me the other day, “so, what’s wrong with CCTV anyway?” Here was my quick answer.*

1. Does CCTV prevent crime?

The prevention of crime was the main rationale for CCTV in Britain back in the early days in the 1990s, and this rationale is still the main one currently in the USA…

But meta-evaluation of valid studies of CCTV by Welsh and Farrington, recently published as Making Places Safer by OUP, shows the following: that studies can only show a positive correlation between reduction in rates of crime and the installation and operation of CCTV in limited situations, namely in car parks and the like. This is because car theft is a more rational form of crime (the perpetrators are often professional criminals and they do not want to get caught). Most crime, especially street crime and violence is not so rational. People do not generally look up in their violent drunken haze and think ‘ooh, there’s a camera, better not kick this guy’s head in’.

According to Martin Gill and co.’s work evaluating 14 schemes across the UK, only 1 resulted in a clear reduction in crime over the longer term. CCTV can have temporary effects in reducing crime (and police studies always seem to be done in these early months and hence are very misleading), but over the years after installation, unless other things are done, the crime will return to similar levels. It’s those other things that are done – more community volunteers, neighbourhood watch schemes, better street lighting, economic regeneration – that make the difference to crime rates. People who think they ‘know’ it’s down to CCTV are just looking at A and B and thinking changes to A must be a result of B, without considering C, D and E…

What can be useful in this regard, knowing that temporary reductions can be made, is to use CCTV in targeted, temporary and flexible manner – i.e. if you are going to have video surveillance at all, make it moveable and used to target specific areas where there have been sudden increases in crime.

So, so much for prevention…

2. What about solving crime? Surely CCTV gives us lots of evidence?

Well, not as much as you might think. The biggest study of street robbery and CCTV in London (the city with the highest density of cameras in Europe), commissioned by the Metropolitan Police, showed that only 3% of such crimes were solved using CCTV . And, figures released in 2007 through Freedom of Information Act requests, showed that 80% of crime in London still goes unsolved even with this infrastructure.

3. But at least someone’s looking out for us – right?

Studies of control rooms show that the professionalism and seriousness of operators is increasing but there is still evidence that more time is spent on anti-social behaviour and dealing with ‘unwanted’ people than the potential for serious crime, particularly in shopping districts. Who is watched and why is also complicated by family and social connections, especially in smaller towns. CCTV systems are also increasingly difficult to watch as the numbers of cameras and screens increase; there aren’t enough staff, however well-trained they are, to do a really efficient job in most cases and computer analytics are not good enough (yet).

In addition, there is the growing issue of cost. There were originally subsidies for installing CCTV in Britain in the 1990s, but running costs, maintenance and replacement have to be covered by the operators (usually Local Authorities) and there is an ongoing row going on behind the scenes between LAs and police in the UK about who pays for it.

Now costs are starting to bite, exacerbated by recession and new Tory efficiency savings, some local authorities have even started to either combine their monitoring with others – meaning even more distant and less efficient watching and in some cases have stopped watching the cameras live at all (in many countries this dead recording is normal anyway).

4. What about the Courts?

The only undoubtedly positive effect seems to be that it encourages criminals who are caught to confess and plead guilty, which saves court costs and time – although of course, guilty pleas mean that the criminals are punished less and out of prison quicker (if they go in at all), which might be felt not to be an advantage by some!

Summary

Video Surveillance, particularly fixed CCTV, is expensive, inefficient and has all kinds of negative social side-effects. Public money would be better spent on improved street lighting, schemes for community involvement and economic regeneration. CCTV certainly isn’t a ‘Panopticon’ because actually it doesn’t actually ‘see’ very well at all nor does it actually seem to alter behaviour as much as states would like in itself, but it does appear to contribute to the decline of social trust and decreasing personal responsibility, which are partly at least to blame for the problems CCTV is supposed to solve, and all of which would be more likely to increase with other solutions.

*In most ways, this answer is not really ‘mine’ – it’s the distillation of many other people’s work, some of whom are mentioned here, some of whom like Clive Norris, Mike McCahill, Will Webster, Pete Fussey and Gavin Smith, are not… anyway, they know who they are! Thank-you all…

Surveillance Studies Summer Seminar – deadline approaches!

Surveillance Studies Summer Seminar
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
16 – 21 May 2011
Application deadline: 11 February 2011
APPLY NOW

The Surveillance Studies Summer Seminar provides an intensive, multi-disciplinary learning experience that addresses key issues of surveillance studies in ways that enhance the participants’ own research projects, as well as providing a unique national and international networking opportunity.

“International and cross-cultural diversity of the participants is one of the strengths of the seminar. Because surveillance studies are related to social justice, equality, and power, it is crucial to have the perspectives from the world of non-English speaking people.” –2007 SSSS participant

“Quality of faculty and attendees was excellent; social events well planned and spaced; location and setting excellent; well-planned and organized throughout.” –2007 SSSS participant

CORE FACULTY:
David Lyon, FRSC, Professor and Queen’s Research Chair, Department of Sociology, and Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre, Queen’s University, Canada

Valerie Steeves, Associate Professor of Criminology, University of Ottawa, Canada

David Murakami Wood, Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Surveillance Studies and Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University

THE PROGRAMME:

The core of the seminar is group work, each facilitated by a member of seminar faculty. Groups will grapple with key issues in surveillance studies, including issues such as “The researcher as surveillance agent,” “Gaining entry into surveillance sites,” “Making international comparisons,” “Connecting social science with policy and legal fields” and so on. Participants are encouraged to comment, in their statement of interest, on what areas are of particular interest. The rest of the programme is devoted to theoretical, methodological and professional issues, and to open interaction with established scholars in the field. The idea is to “go behind” conference and book performances to discover how and why surveillance researchers do what they do.

There will be no assessed tasks and no credit for enrolling in the seminar, although a letter confirming your completion of the seminar will be provided.

FEES AND SUBSIDIES:

The fee for the 2011 SSSS is $700 CAD. Applicants should pursue funding opportunities before submitting their application.
The Surveillance Studies Centre (SCC) will award up to three Summer Seminar tuition subsidies to non-Queen’s graduate student registrants who can demonstrate financial need. Click here for more information.
The Surveillance Studies Network Global Scholar Award (SSN) will award up to three bursaries of £500 (500 GBP) each to SSSS participants from less developed or developing countries who are in need of financial assistance. Click here for more information.
The deadline to apply for both subsidies is 11 FEBRUARY 2011.

—
Joan Sharpe
Project Administrator
Surveillance Studies Centre
c/o Dept of Sociology
Queen’s University
Kingston, ON K7L 3N6
Canada
(613) 533-6000, ext. 78867
(613) 533-6499 FAX

Twitter @sscqueens
http://www.sscqueens.org
http://www.newtransparency.org

Surveillance and Empowerment

I’ve just spent my Saturday getting the new issue of Surveillance & Society out…

8(2): Surveillance and Empowerment
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal/issue/current

edited by Torin Monahan, David J. Phillips and David Murakami Wood

James P Walsh – From Border Control to Border Care: The Political and Ethical Potential of Surveillance.
Katie Shilton – Participatory Sensing: Building Empowering Surveillance
Priscilla M Regan and Valerie Steeves – Kids R Us: Online Social Networking and the Potential for Empowerment
Dean Wilson and Tanya Serisier – Video Activism and the ambiguities of counter-surveillance
Marko M Skoric, Jia Ping Esther Chua, Meiyan Angeline Liew, Keng Hui Wong, and Pei Jue Yeo – Online Shaming in the Asian Context: Community Empowerment or Civic Vigilantism?
Ariane Ellerbrok – Empowerment: Analyzing Technologies of Multiple Variable Visibility
Gwen Ottinger – Constructing Empowerment through Interpretations of Environmental Surveillance Data
Anders Albrechtslund and Louise Nørgaard Glud – Empowering Residents: A Theoretical Framework for Negotiating Surveillance Technologies

+ all the usual book reviews

Coming soon: our forthcoming issues on ‘Surveillance, Marketing and Consumption’, and our ‘Global Surveillance Society?’ Conference specials.

Surveillance & Society | the international journal of surveillance studies
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/