Surveillance Society

In the seminar this week we thought about surveillance and how we are constantly being watched, and therefore governed. This links to what I'm writing about in my essay, but I'm looking specifically at issues of surveillance and the invasion of privacy posed by GPS technology on mobile devices.
I'm using Foucault's theory of the Panopticon, as well as using a lot of David Lyon's ideas to do with surveillance society, which are really, really interesting.

I came upon this article on the internet and thought it was particularly notable...

Spy Cams in Planes Would Track Facial Expressions for Terrorism and ‘Air Rage’

In the workshop we also looked at facial recognition systems, and how people have been experimenting and finding ways to get around them.

This website, 'How to Hide from Machines' is definitely worth a look, there are a lot of interesting ideas on there.

Also interesting is the work by artist Adam Harvey, who is experimenting with the same sort of things.

The image below is one of his pieces of art, showing how make up can be used to confuse facial recognition systems...

His website can be found here.

I've particularly enjoyed this week as the subject is something I'm especially interested in and I think is very relevant today.
As Richard Thomas, the government's information commissioner said, we need to be careful we don't 'sleep-walk into a surveillance society'...