Surveillance of Society. This is the first step towards a submissive and controlled civilization. Surveillance reinforces divisions within society

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Technology Bytes

Sociology 101

Anita VanWick

        According to Lyon (1996), “We live in a surveillance society” (p. 203). The creation, collection and processing of personal information is an ever-present reality. Every time we use our loyalty cards at a retailer, our names are connected with our purchases and entered into extensive data bases. Every time we use a cell phone, navigation system, credit card, our location is recorded, examined, and stored. Similarly, Surveillance cameras are now present on street corners, in schools, parks, and even in public restrooms. It can easily be said that privacy is becoming non-existent in a society where surveillance technology runs rampant, becoming a normality.

        Business owners once began using a collection of mirrors reflecting off one another to get a broader range of vision throughout their stores. Years later, this became outdated with the development of closed circuit television monitoring.  After the creation of video cassette recorders, surveillance could now be preserved on tape as evidence. This phenomena rapidly spread to other cities and was soon used at businesses prone to theft, such as banks, mini-marts, and gas stations. In response to the September 11th attacks, nations, governments, companies, and private citizens are leaning on the use of surveillance cameras more than ever before. With these widespread results it’s no surprise that reality television shows like Big Brother have come into existence.  Big Brother is based on a group of people living together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously being watched by television cameras. People have grown to accept this as a form of entertainment, so much so, that people will pay to watch the contestants twenty-four hours a day over the internet. The shows name comes from George Orwells’s novel 1984. In the novel, Orwell created a world just like the show. There was a constant viewership, with the government controlling everyones thoughts and moves.  Congruently, the characters live in a society that has been compared to the 21st century. One that is filled with surveillance, invasiveness and issues involving privacy.

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        One of the biggest objectives about surveillance cameras concerns invasiveness. Many people feel that they should be free to travel or move around the city without being photographed or recorded. What started as a simple way to monitor security around the perimeter of public places has evolved to a point where one can install a hidden video camera and monitor that video from anywhere in the world, directly over the internet. The integration of traffic cameras and face recognition software give law enforcement the ability to track and identify anyone without us even knowing about it.         Presently, the need for ...

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