Person of Interest opening sequence. (Source: YouTube)
“You are being
watched.
The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of
every day,”
The above is the opening sequence of the
television series Person of Interest,
attempting to explain the high-tech, paranoid, and scary world that the show is
set in. The show revolves around a small team of individuals preventing crimes
before they occur through the use of all manners of digital surveillance and
tracking. Obviously this is a work of fiction, but just how far off reality
is a show like Person of Interest?
Überveillance is a modern term involving the collection of
data on individuals observed through the multiple types of surveillance,
bringing together all these observations to create a network of information in
order to track and predict a person’s movements based upon their habits and
behavioural patterns (Michael & Michael 2010, pp. 9-10).
By thinking about how often I send and receive data, it’s
not hard to see how my own movements could be predicted. Thanks to a dependency
on routines, someone who had access to my phone, banking and Myki data would
easily be able to know where I was.
Some of the data that 'The Machine' observes in Person of Interest (Source: Pedia of Interest)
It’s certainly possible, maybe even likely, that certain
government institutions have access to this type of data and we can be observed
with ease. However it’s another, larger, step to say that the current level of überveillance
and technology is at a point where our actions can be predicted such that crimes
can be successfully noticed and prevented from the tiniest shred of
information, as is the case in Person of
Interest.
Unless specifically stated in a text message or the like, it’s
hard for surveillance to determine the actual context or reasoning for a person
to be in a certain location at a certain time. For example, my phone’s location,
Myki and bank card may suggest that I’m at the university campus; however
without additional data it may be difficult to know what it is I’m doing there.
Am I there for class? Am I just studying? Am I having coffee with a friend?
I have no doubt that technology will continue to evolve, and
that überveillance
will continue to incorporate more and more degrees of information, and that one
day someone may hold more information on me than I know about myself.
I just hope that such a person has good intentions, and not
ill.
Sources
Michael, M & Michael K, 2010 'Towards a state of uberveillance', IEEE Technology and Society Magazine vol. 29, no. 2 pp. 9-16
Hi Rhys
ReplyDeleteReally intruiging opening paragraphs. You set the pace of your post well with the discussion of the Person of Interest trailer before then transition to the scholarly discussion from Michael et.al. You defined Uberveillance well before then tieing it back to your original discussion of Person of interest. I too share a lot of the fears you were speculating regarding your bank card. I thought there could have been more than just the one scholarly reference, but the article as a whole flows verywell and was quite engaging. It was also good to break it up a bit with an image. Great post.