A Report on the Surveillance Society
9.4.
9.3.1.
It is indisputable that new technologies have helped to change the nature of surveillance. Several general observations should be made about surveillance ‘technology’. First of all, there is no inherent ‘good’ or ‘evil’ within these technological systems. Historically, IBM’s punch-card machines were as essential to the efficient operation of the massive system of population surveillance that enabled the Nazis to single out Jews and other ‘undesirables’ for imprisonment and extermination, as early computers were to cracking the Enigma codes that sped the Allied defeat of the Nazis. Efficient national databases can be used for the provision of targeted health care or for the victimisation of political opponents.
9.3.2.
However it is not a simple matter of how surveillance technologies are used. All technologies are developed within particular organisations which have particular aims. A technology can sometimes be appropriated by users, for example with text messaging on mobile telephones, which was never intended as their major purpose. However the capabilities of technologies are determined by the functionality built-in by their developers, for example the built-in surveillance of television viewing preferences of many TV-on-demand systems like TiVo). As we have seen, many technologies operate as part of global networks, and the parameters of the networks are controlled by corporations, state and often the military, for example, the Global Positioning System (GPS).
9.3.3.
Several particular technologies and their capabilities will be examined below. However attention has to be paid not only to the capabilities and practical use of any technology, but also to the development process, the control over its operation as part of a network, and the way it connects to other technologies.
Telecommunications 9.4.1.
Surveillance in telecommunications refers to the degree to which individuals, organisations and corporate bodies are able to monitor, sort and store information about the occurrence and content of telecommunications exchange, both between technological devices, and between technological devices and people. ‘Telecommunications’ includes the infrastructural technological processes of communication, the systems and devices through which telecommunications are achieved and also the exchange of ‘data’, ‘messages’ or ‘information’. Included in current definitions of telecommunications are not only analogue but digital signal formats, and telecommunications includes not only fixed line telephony with voice calls and faxes, mobile telephony and the huge range of communicative functions enabled by large scale digital and computing systems such as the Internet.
9.4.2.
Historically, the telecommunications infrastructure in the UK was dominated by fixed line cable telephony run by the state General Post Office. The single most likely source of surveillance was ‘wiretapping’, most often associated with state law enforcement. Three key developments have seen a radical transformation of this system: the expansion and convergence of telecommunications technologies, the development of information storage and processing capacity, and the diversification of telecommunications markets.
9.4.3.
Throughout the last two decades, technological development and change has led to more diverse technologies employed for telecommunications. For example, radio frequency devices now enable large-scale cellular or mobile
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