Diagnóstico y presentación del problema

This thesis deals with the use of software agents for surveillance, a goal that carries a negative meaning for many people because of its potentially grim Orwellian implications. The idea of living in a total surveillance society like Oceania, portrayed in George Orwell’s (1949)Nineteen Eighty-Four, instils fear in the hearts of the public, making people weary of any increase in surveillance practices. Surveillance -which literally means to watch over- is oftentimes regarded as a potential invasion of privacy and an encroachment upon human rights and civil liberties. Still, we find that despite these fears, surveillance is increasingly abundant in many aspects of modern life. This dichotomy between human instinct and everyday reality can be explained by the fact that surveillance actually has two faces (Lyon 2001, p. 3).

Surveillance is defined by Lyon (2001) as the collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purpose of influencing or managing those, whose data have been garnered. We must take care not to oversimplify the issue of surveillance by viewing surveillance solely as a disciplinary tool. The primary stimulus for the rapid proliferation of sur- veillance in our everyday lives is not the need for social control, but rather

the changes in the institutional order of society (Lyon 2001, p. 3). Therefore, we must differentiate between two distinct types (or faces) of surveillance: disciplinary surveillanceandliberal surveillance(Innes 2003, p. 115).

3.1.1 Disciplinary surveillance

Surveillance makes the exercise of power more efficient and effective. Therefore surveillance has traditionally been the province of the authorities. The ability to watch over their subjects provided those in power with the means to ex- ercise a greater deal of control. Many accounts of surveillance activity can be found throughout history, examples are the Roman city life, the plague control in medieval Europe, the monitoring of the poor in colonial times, and the slave trading in America (Sennet 1990, Foucault 1975, Gilliom 2001, Parenti 2003). Disciplinary surveillance involves the purposive monitoring of conduct to allow for the identification, acquisition, and classification of information with the intention of modifying that conduct in some manner (Innes 2003, p. 113). Surveillance in this sense is a mechanism for exercising social control. Cohen (1985) defines social control as those organised responses to crime, delinquency, and allied forms of deviant and/or socially problematic behaviour which are actually conceived of as such, whether in the reactive sense (after the putative act has taken place or the actor has been identified) or in the pro- active sense (to prevent the act).

The idea of surveillance as a technology of power, rationalisation, and control can be attributed mainly to Foucault. In his seminal workDiscipline and PunishFoucault (1975) described how in post modernity rational means of ordering society have in some way replaced traditional methods such as brutal public punishment (Lyon 1994, p. 7). One of the most important elements of these rational means is the extensive use of surveillance. According to Foucault surveillance can be used to induce in subjects a state of conscious and permanent visibility that ensures the automatic functioning of power. Surveillance instils discipline by forcing self-regulation of the subject (Parenti 2003). Foucault’s analysis of surveillance and discipline still features prominent- ly in the contemporary surveillance discourse, therefore we shall study his arguments somewhat more in depth in this subsection.

Panopticism is based on the belief that control over individuals is made possible through a system that facilitates the continuous, automatic, disciplin- ary surveillance of persons determined to be in need of correction or normalisation (Gandy 1993, p. 21). The ideas behind Panopticism were derived from Bentham’s work by French philosopher Foucault (1975) in his influential workDiscipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. In 1791, the social reformer and philosopher Bentham, introduced a new type of penitentiary design that he called the Panopticon, Greek for ‘all-seeing place’ (Bentham 1843). The architectural features of the Panopticon would induce in the inmates “a state

of conscious and permanent visibility that ensured the automatic functioning of power” (Foucault 1975, p. 201).

The architectural design of the Panopticon featured a central tower with an annular building at the periphery. The peripheric building was divided into cells that had two windows: one on the outside that allowed light to enter the cell and one on the inside to allow for permanent visibility of the inmate. The central tower housed the supervisor, who was hidden from the view of the prisoners through an intricate design of windows, shutters, and lighting. From the central tower the supervisor was continuously able to observe the inmates, or as Foucault (1975, p. 200) puts it:

“By the effect of backlighting one can observe from the tower, standing out precise- ly against the light the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualised and constantly visible.”

The fact that the supervisor himself was not visible was one of the key elements of the Panoptic design. Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible but unverifiable (Foucault 1975, p. 201). Power was clearly visible in the form of the outline of the central tower, but its exercise was unverifiable as a result of the window, shutter, and lighting design that rendered the supervisor invisible. Inmates were thus placed under the im- pression that the gaze of the supervisor was continuous and unrelenting. The Panoptic design ensured that the inmates did not know whether they were actually being watched, thus giving them the impression that they could be at any given time. This situation made obedience the only rational option for the inmate, as deviant behaviour was most likely to be noted by the supervisor (Lyon 1994, p. 63).

In a sense the Panoptic design shifted the exercise of power over to the side of the surface of its application (Foucault 1975, p. 202). Those who are subjected to a field of visibility and are aware of this situation automatically assume responsibility for the constraints of power and alter their behaviour to meet its demands (Foucault 1975, p. 203). In this way the watched actually subjugate themselves to the power of the watchers through a process of self- regulation. This also makes the actual exercise of power in the form of harsh (corporeal) punishment unnecessary in light of the fact that the subjects are “caught up in a power situation of which they themselves are the bearers” (Foucault 1975, p. 201).

The Panoptic model forms a break with previous technologies of power and discipline that relied primarily on force and violence exercised through the authority of sovereignty. Rather than the exercise of power through the right of the sword, Panopticism made the exercise of power lighter, more rapid, and ultimately more efficient and effective. Panopticism was “a design of subtle coercion for a society to come” (Foucault 1975, p. 209).

The Panopticon must be seen as a generic model for the functioning of power and discipline that can be detached from any specific use as well as its original architecture (Foucault 1975, p. 205). The Panoptic model can be used for disciplining individuals in any environment that can provide complete and unverifiable visibility of the subject. While in the past this meant the Panoptic model could only be successfully implemented within discrete institu- tions such as the prison, mental ward, or army barrack, it could be argued that the rise of surveillance technology now makes Panopticism feasible on a much larger scale, turning our entire society into what Poster (1990) has called the Superpanopticon. But before we turn our attention to electronic surveillance and its panoptic effects, I will describe liberal surveillance.

3.1.2 Liberal surveillance

Every society, from past to present, has evolved mechanisms for the observa- tion of its members. Though historically mainly the province of the state, in our time surveillance is also routinely conducted by private entities. According to Lyon the rapid proliferation of surveillance practices can be attributed largely to changes in the order of our society. Surveillance is oftentimes a necessity due to the way we structure our political and economic relationships in a society that values mobility, speed, security, and consumer freedom (Lyon 2001, p. 3).

The advent of information and communication technology has led to a situation were social interaction has become increasingly ‘disembodied’ (Lyon 2001, p. 15), that is to say, conducted without the physical presence of both parties and possibly asynchronously. In order to restore the feeling of trust lost as a result of disembodied communication, a wide variety of surveillance methods have been developed and are currently being used by both public and private entities to identify and authenticate the opposing party.

In fact, without liberal surveillance many forms of interaction and com- munication would be impossible in the information society. For instance, it is necessary to keep records of telephone conversations for billing purposes. Moreover, though surveillance provides ample opportunity for abuse, in general people seem to celebrate the arrival of many new surveillance methods. Most people are more than willing to comply with surveillance given the fact that most of the time it is conducted with a plausible justification and/or provides tangible benefits to those willing to be subjected to it.

An example of an in itself pervasive surveillance technology that is readily accepted is the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) in public areas. Great faith is placed in the possibilities of this technology to curb crime, and indeed, people are willing to relinquish part of their privacy and anonymity for increased security. In this sense surveillance encapsulates a ‘caring’ sense of

watching over and assists in enhancing objective and subjective security (Innes 2003, p. 117).

In the private domain a good example is the use of customer loyalty pro- grammes. Consumers allow companies to watch and record their shopping behaviour in exchange for benefits such as better service or lower prices.

The supposition that surveillance is solely a means of disciplining the subject is therefore too simplistic and must be rejected. However, we must not disregard the fact that liberal surveillance methods can also be employed for disciplinary purposes. I shall discuss this problem in the following sections.