لطفا منتظر باشید ...
Molding Theories of Surveillance: Dataveillance, Enticement, and Synopticism
Dataveillance was first defined by privacy expert Roger A. Clarke (1988, 499) as ‘‘the systemic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of one or more persons.’’ From the outset, then, Clarke focused on how new information and communication technologies extend the power of the observers to monitor the actions of individuals and communities. The term dataveillance, however, also suggests that the act of surveillance is enabled and perhaps even enhanced through the close monitoring of information produced by consumer interactions and exchanges (credit-card purchases, ATM withdrawals, and so on). In ‘‘Information Technology and Dataveillance’’ (1988), Clarke thus set out to distinguish dataveillance from forms of mass and personal surveillance by concentrating on the use of computerized storage and networking technologies—in short, by discussing the various techniques of computerized monitoring. Dataveillance, moreover, entails decentralizing the panoptic mode of surveillance, calling into question the production of risk-management tools— computer-matching or -profiling techniques that attempt to attribute general characteristics to individuals. When applied to the implications of cross-referencing multiple types of personal information, Clarke’s approach inevitably leads to concern over the failures of such systems—that is, their production of ill-fitting profiles that fail to match the actual likes, dislikes, and behaviors of an individual.Although Clarke’s technological discussion of contemporary data- veillance clearly expands panopticism into the realm of decentralized computer databases and their accompanying profiling and predictive technologies, he begins his critique with an already surveyed, or initially classified, subject. In other words, Clarke does not question how, when, and where information is collected on individuals. As Foucault suggests, though, panoptic surveillance relies as much on the decentralization of information processing (via decenteralized and networked databases) as it does on geographically dispersed, ‘‘feedback technologies’’ that can pinpoint and track the topography of consumer interactions.
Recent updates of the dataveillance literature, particularly by David Lyon, have attempted to address certain gaps in Clarke’s initial work. Lyon, for instance, qualifies the moment at which information is collected on individuals, arguing that consumers often ‘‘trigger’’ their own surveillance. Lyon’s most recent book, Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life (2001), also warns that contemporary surveillance technologies are enabled by ‘‘leaky containers.’’ The metaphor is a compelling one, suggesting the power of networked technologies and the ultimate futility of database security and consumer privacy. However, while the term container suggests an enclosure such as a database, Lyon’s sole example discusses the visual collection (and not storage per se) of personal information—video surveillance of workplace behavior. Thus, Lyon’s ‘‘leaky container’’ metaphor points to the convergence of technological systems and subsequent ubiquity of surveillance techniques and technologies in society.We might therefore consider how the collection of personal information is also ‘‘bundled’’ to the storage and cross-referencing of other data. Bundling is used to highlight the interface between the collection, storage, and cross-referencing of consumer data and other forms of sales, inventory, and distribution data (what are often called ‘‘just-in-time’’ delivery systems). One such ‘‘interface’’—the moment at which individuals are solicited for personal information—is the prime focus of ‘‘enticement’’ theories of consumer surveillance. Such arguments tend to focus on the political or ‘‘disciplinary’’ consequences of Foucault’s work, often asking whether we can conceive of consumers as conscious or willing ‘‘participants’’ in their own surveillance. A number of techniques are used to solicit information from users. Some are relatively transparent and carry little disciplinary implications for nonparticipation—being asked to fill out a survey in a shopping mall, for instance. Computer-aided solicitations, by comparison, tend to be much less forgiving or exclusively rewarding. They subtly integrate both rewards and punishments. Shoppers, for example, who decline or merely neglect to sign up for bar-coded discount cards end up paying a significantly higher price for an increasing array of products. Thus, even if consumers know that information is being collected on them, their choices are either ‘‘participation’’ or the default ‘‘punishment’’ of a higher price. Simon Davies (1998, 144) aptly refers to this incentive to ‘‘opt in’’ as the ‘‘illusion of voluntariness.’’
The assumption that one can voluntarily opt in or out of data- collection techniques is not valid for some feedback technologies. ATM machines, portions of the Web, and credit-card transactions, for instance, automatically collect personal information from users. Thus, just as the panopticon automates the process of how prisoners self-discipline their own behavior, these technologies likewise automate the collection of transaction-generated information and the subsequent ‘‘choice’’ to divulge personal information. Ultimately, the conclusions of the enticement argument are somewhat clouded by a coercive definition of panoptic surveillance. Such extensions of Foucault’s work often lend themselves to equally rigid terms, despite being defined as open, optional, and transparent. A more subtle definition of feedback technologies requires a rethinking of the nature of consumer exchanges and questions the degree to which the production and collection of transaction-generated information become inseparable and continuous parts of the act of consumption—whether defined as purchasing, booking, browsing, or requesting information about products or services.
The question of technological control, discussed by both enticement and dataveillance scholars, is by contrast largely bypassed in Tim Mathiesen’s (1997) theory of ‘‘synopticism.’’ Although some might be inclined to see his inverted critique of panoptic surveillance as a wholesale rejection of Foucault’s disciplinary thesis, Mathiesen (1997, 219) notes that the ‘‘synopticon’’ works in ‘‘parallel to the panoptical process.’’ Perhaps as a way to generalize Foucault’s interest in social forms of control, Mathiesen points to the mass media as a pivotal space where the many watch the select few opinion leaders and celebrities. Unlike Foucault’s panopticon, the automatic modification of behavior in the synopticon is much less obvious. Mathiesen (1997, 230) argues that social control is exerted by media messages ‘‘disciplining our consciousness.’’ And although television and its ‘‘few’’ are generally agreed to possess varying degrees of power to cultivate the terms of political, economic, and social debate and consciousness, this synoptic process is also greatly enhanced through more traditional panoptic techniques—a parallel process that Mathiesen recognizes but does not develop.Synoptic viewing of television programming is increasingly facilitated by a panoptic process integrated into the medium of television and by extension the act of watching television. Recent digital TV technology, for example, has begun to incorporate the collection of personal information within the act of viewing and recording programming. Initially marketed as a stand-alone ‘‘personal’’ or ‘‘digital’’ video recorder (DVR), TiVo is now also a recording service that has been incorporated into cable receivers by major U.S. digital cable (AT&T Broadband) and satellite television (DirecTV) providers. Moreover, television scholar William Boddy (1999) notes that
One feature of the personal video recorder of enormous appeal to networks and advertisers is its ability to continuously track users’ viewing preferences, offering sponsors and broadcasters the long-sought ability to deliver tailored commercials to individually targeted consumers. General Motors, for example, has partnered with TiVo to allow the replacement of a GM broadcast advertisement with another commercial previously downloaded on the household’s PVR, one tailored to the consumer’s specific viewing habits and demographic profile.
The pivotal shift that TiVo adds to the synoptic act of television viewing is the recommendation-customization function. According to the corporation, TiVo ‘‘uses Anonymous Viewing Information to develop inferences that people who watch show X are likely to watch show Y’’ (TiVo 2001, 16). Based on this process of viewer profiling, TiVo recommends ‘‘like-minded’’ programming. In other words, if a viewer watches Monty Python, TiVo would most likely recommend John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers. Or if a viewer routinely watches reruns of Cheers, TiVo would likely recommend the spinoff, Frasier. In addition to serving as a recommender system, the viewing data that TiVo collects also serves to link specific advertisements to a subset of consumers who have previously demonstrated through their viewing habits an affiliation with the product or service. The panoptic power of TiVo thus raises questions far beyond those posed by the synoptic relationship between the viewer and the viewed, whose claims to privacy and ‘‘resistive readings’’ are constantly debated. In short, TiVo reminds us that the select few that we watch (synoptically) are becoming even more select (via a panoptic process)—that viewers are getting exceptionally familiar, ‘‘more of the same’’ programming.
This subtle form of limiting access to difference does not rely on individualized forms of identification—a process that individual privacy advocates continue to question. TiVo, in fact, goes out of its way to emphasize that all information collected on viewers is anonymous. Panopticism, as such, does not ‘‘multiply the individual’’ (Poster 1990, 97) as much as it uses the collection of personal information to discriminate individuals into previously categorized consumer lifestyle groups or ‘‘profiles.’’ The always already discriminated and profiled data subject thus highlights the need to theorize the reproduction of panoptic surveillance—that is, the means by which the collection, storage, and cross-referencing of personal information continuously inform each other. This cybernetic aspect of panoptic surveillance requires a rethinking—and redrawing—of the panoptic diagram.
