Surveillance Studies

Abstract

Surveillance studies is described as a cross-disciplinary initiative to understand the rapidly increasing ways in which personal details are collected, stored, transmitted, checked, and used as means of influencing and managing people and populations. Surveillance may involve physical watching, but today it is more likely to be automated. Thus it makes personal data visible to organizations, even if persons are in transit, and it also allows for comparing and classifying data. Because this has implications for inequality and for justice, surveillance studies also has a policy and a political dimension.

Introduction

At the start of the twenty-first century it is clear that ‘surveillance studies’ is a rapidly developing field of analysis and theory. Diverse practices and processes for dealing with personal data are multiplying, and the speed with which records can be accessed is accelerating. The old top-heavy bureaucracies of the earlier twentieth century are being replaced with computerized and networked systems. While it should be noted that some surveillance relies on physical...