Surveillance – Protection Versus Human Rights
Surveillance in our society has become extremely developed which brings us to question whether the extent of surveillance is necessary for our protection or is a violation of our human rights. And are official government agencies selling our information to advertisement companies. Is digital surveillance really safe for us? There are many incidences where surveillance used as protection end up as a breach of privacy. A. Hintz, L. Dencik, & K. Wahl-Jorgensen (2017) state that “Under conditions of surveillance capitalism, those who hold, manage, and control the personal data of digital citizens are offered unprecedented insights into our lives, minds, and bodies. ” It is terrifying that everything is being monitored. The data is also used in manipulating citizens and their behaviours, Mattelart (cited in Journal of Information Technology, 2017) states “it [datafication] provides vastly enhanced possibilities to understand, predict, and control citizen activities. ”
As Matteelart states, the first thing the government does after obtaining data is using it to predict and control situations before they happen no matter the consequence, which is clearly a breach in privacy. In June 2013 Edward Snowden cleared more than just conspiracy theories about secret surveillance. A. Hintz, L. Dencik, & K. Wahl-Jorgensen (2017) discusses “Edward Snowden…gave details of secret surveillance programs” This caused a huge uproar around the world, shedding light upon the privacy breach issues causing the initiation of countless court cases, till this day these issues are still being investigated and settled.
These pieces of evidence clearly show the impact of surveillance upon our society and how they have breached our privacy through their guise of “protection. ”Snowden June 2013 was one of the greatest revelations of human rights breaches in surveillance. Edward Snowden showed the world how “surveillance” was being abused. Hong (2017) states “without Snowden, we would not have had such a public opportunity to influence what ‘surveillance’ means and entails. ” This especially affects the United States yet also demonstrates international concern regarding telecommunications surveillance. Snowden helped the future of surveillance in knowing their bounds of personal privacy. “…the NSA implores the public that the sensible thing to do is simply trust the security experts and let the unknown lie undisturbed” (Hong, 2017), clearly showing the lack of transparency within the surveillance industry. Hong (2017) states “negative criticism alone cannot respond to the alleged benefits of existing surveillance practices. ” The benefits of surveillance practices cannot only be justified with a negative point of view but also needs to be taken account of all the positive factors. Positive factors include state security, crime prevention and citizen safety. All these factors are important and should be controlled by officials to keep everything under control. However, even with all these positives in mind, we can still clearly see how this can be easily manipulated negatively to violate our human rights as demonstrated by Snowden. Societal turmoil had become evident within the security of citizens, questioning if surveillance truly is a violation and invasion to our privacy. Hong (2017) suggests that surveillance and security cannot come with privacy “personal information for promises of convenience and safety. ” This tells us that the surveillance desired within our society intends to intrude upon our privacy, to the extent, as suggested by Hong (2017), having less privacy and personal information means more surveillance and security. However according to Turow, Hennessey and Draper (cited in Hong 2017) “Americans do not voluntarily surrender privacy for corporate surveillance, but rather that they feel resigned”, supporting the argument that the Americans and in extension our society, prefer to keep their privacies, showing distaste in such ideas in losing it.
To further show to us prove that this is a violation of privacy, Turow, Hennessey and Draper (cited in Journal of Information Technology, 2017) add that “they [the Americans] do not believe that privacy can reasonably be protected anymore, and grudgingly swallow the everyday proliferation of surveillance. ” This shows the societal turmoil within citizens of our modern society, having to give up their privacy for their own securities, it truly shows us that the security and surveillance is clearly a violation and invasion of our privacy, with Hong (2017) stating it as almost a ‘trade off’ of sorts. This means that even if the surveillance and security violates our privacy, in the end, there is no other choice but to sacrifice our privacy for such security. Surveillance and security is definitely an invasion of our human right of privacy, as shown through the breaches of privacy through ‘security’ and the revelations of Snowden. However it is revealed that such violation is necessary for secure and effective surveillance and security. The surveillance in our modern society is invasive, however our need for privacy must also be put in question against the need for security.
