Published Feb 16 2021

The age of surveillance

Normann
Witzleb
Associate Professor, Law Resources, Monash Data Futures Institute
Xin gu
Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts
Mark andrejevic
Professor, Communications and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts
Carsten rudolph
Associate Professor of Cybersecurity, Faculty of Information Technology
Gemma cafarella
Barrister, writer, podcaster and Chair of Government Regulation & Equality at Liberty Victoria
Neil selwyn
Professor, School of Education Culture and Society, Faculty of Education

Face-recognition technology means that any of us could be identified whenever we walk past a CCTV camera at train stations, busy intersections, shopping malls or airports. Our location can also be tracked via our smartphones, and our interests and social circle can be discovered via our Google searches and social media posts.

The idea that we have a private life – or are entitled to one – has been further eroded in the COVID-19 era, where our visits to cafes, galleries, hospitals and sporting arenas are recorded in case they're needed for contract-tracing purposes.

Read more: Facial recognition technology and the end of privacy for good

How are these technologies affecting our behaviour, and what – if anything – can be done to step them back? 

In this episode of A Different Lens, Monash University academics consider the social, legal, technological and health implications of living in a world of surveillance. They talk about what we have gained – and what we have, unwittingly, given away.

About the Authors

  • Normann witzleb

    Associate Professor, Law Resources, Monash Data Futures Institute

    Normann’s research focus is on Australian and European private law, in particular the area of privacy rights, torts and remedies. He is an Associate Professor at Monash Faculty of Law and the Convenor of the Privacy and Access to Information Group in the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law.

  • Xin gu

    Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts

    Xin’s research concerns the digital creative economy, looking at the democratisation of creativity through vast transformative digital media ecosystems. Her work focuses on the transformation of creative cities and the creative economy under different social, economic and political conditions. She was appointed by UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Expression of Cultural Diversity (2019-2022) and heads the Master of Cultural and Creative Industries (MCCI) at Monash. She has published widely on urban creative clusters and agglomerations, cultural work, creative entrepreneurship, cultural and creative industries policy, media cities, maker culture and cyberculture. Xin has worked with policy initiatives in the UK, China and Indonesia to support small-scale local creative industries development services.

  • Mark andrejevic

    Professor, Communications and Media Studies, Faculty of Arts

    Mark contributes expertise on the social and cultural implications of data mining, and online monitoring. He writes about monitoring and data mining from a socio-cultural perspective, and is the author of three monographs and more than 60 academic articles and book chapters. His research interests encompass digital media, surveillance and data mining in the digital era. He is particularly interested in social forms of sorting and automated decision-making associated with the online economy. He believes regulations for controlling commercial and state access to and use of personal information is becoming an increasingly important topic.

  • Carsten rudolph

    Associate Professor of Cyber Security with the Faculty of Information Technology

    Carsten is an expert in the cyber security issues that accompany peer-to-peer trading schemes like those being considered for “smart grid” - based future energy delivery systems. He is also Director of the Oceania Cyber Security Centre, a collaboration of eight Victorian Universities with the broad aim of engaging with industry to develop research and training opportunities for dealing with cyber security issues.

  • Gemma cafarella

    Barrister, writer, podcaster and Chair of Government Regulation & Equality at Liberty Victoria

    TBC

  • Neil selwyn

    Professor, School of Education Culture and Society, Faculty of Education

    Neil's research and teaching focuses on the place of digital media in everyday life, and the sociology of technology (non) use in educational settings. He's written on issues including digital exclusion, education technology policymaking and the student experience of technology-based learning.

Other stories you might like