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Book part
Publication date: 13 April 2022

Luke Jones, Tim Konoval and John Toner

The purpose of this chapter is to promote the importance, utility and necessity of applying a sociocultural lens to the analysis of the normalized appropriation of surveillance

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to promote the importance, utility and necessity of applying a sociocultural lens to the analysis of the normalized appropriation of surveillance technologies and wearables across sports settings.

Approach

The chapter synthesizes existing literature that has embraced a sociocultural lens to examine the implications of the increasingly normalized adoption of surveillance technologies in sport settings. In doing so we hope to provoke discussion regarding the contemporary effects of technologies in order that they may be better understood by not only sports scholars but those who operate within sport. To achieve this aim, we provide an exemplar of how Michel Foucault's concepts have been a useful heuristic for this endeavour.

Findings

Within the highly commercialized and spectacularized domain of corporate sport, the performing athletic body has become a commodity of vital importance. Correspondingly, sports practitioners across the globe have rallied to devise innovative ways to train, protect and improve athletes. As this chapter details, one of the main ways in which this project has occurred is through the increased appropriation of wearable (and increasingly invasive) surveillance technologies. A major finding from existing literature is that surveillance technologies can contribute to the unproblematized production of compliant athletic commodities in sports settings. Moreover, that this can have significant limiting outcomes for athletes' development and well-being and coaches' practices.

Research limitations/implications (if applicable)

The chapter argues for three future ‘touchstone’ areas of study: Surveillance technologies and athlete retirement, unintended consequences of more technology and resisting the regulatory intentions of behavioural nudges.

Originality/value

This chapter provides one of the first summaries of the socioculturally informed research that has examined the implications of the increasingly normalized presence of surveillance technologies across sports settings. In doing so, it also acts as one of the first resources designed to help those who coach and develop athletes to reflect upon the significant dangers and limiting outcomes that can be associated with the unconsidered deployment of surveillance technology.

Details

Sport, Social Media, and Digital Technology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-684-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 June 2015

Malcolm John Fisk

The purpose of this paper is to consider the use of surveillance technologies in care homes and the way in which they can help protect older people. It signals an ethical way…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to consider the use of surveillance technologies in care homes and the way in which they can help protect older people. It signals an ethical way forward for their use that de-fuses the heightened rhetoric associated with concerns about the abuse. Totally, seven principles are put forward by which the use of surveillance technologies can be supported.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper recognises the significance of technological developments and the key part that they now play in helping people live more independently. Surveillance technologies have a part in this within care homes, but there are important ethical considerations – notably around the way in which concerns for privacy are balanced with those about people’s safety and autonomy.

Findings

The paper points to an approach that can guide the use of surveillance technologies within care homes. The seven principles put forward will be built on through further work in 2015 including care home residents, family carers, formal care providers and others. In setting out these principles the paper mediates between the positions of those who argue the merits of such technologies and those who point to some of them, notably cameras, as undermining people’s privacy and the nature of the “care relationship”.

Originality/value

The subject matter of the paper is important because of the attention being given to problems of abuse in care settings; and the freedom by which anyone can access technologies that can be used for surveillance. The paper is timely and carries substantial originality.

Details

Working with Older People, vol. 19 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-3666

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 August 2019

Michelle Cayford, Wolter Pieters and P.H.A.J.M van Gelder

This study aims to explore how the public perceives the effectiveness of surveillance technology, and how people’s views on privacy and their views on effectiveness are related…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore how the public perceives the effectiveness of surveillance technology, and how people’s views on privacy and their views on effectiveness are related. Likewise, it looks at the relation between perceptions of effectiveness and opinions on the acceptable cost of surveillance technology.

Design/methodology/approach

For this study, surveys of Dutch students and their parents were conducted over three consecutive years.

Findings

A key finding of this paper is that the public does not engage in a trade-off neither with regard to privacy-effectiveness (exchanging more effectiveness for less privacy and vice versa) nor with effectiveness-cost, but rather expects all three elements to be achieved simultaneously. This paper also found that the correlation between perceived effectiveness and perceived privacy was stronger for parents than for students.

Research limitations/implications

Participants for this study were exclusively in The Netherlands. Survey questions on the effectiveness of surveillance technology focused on one type of technology, and on private mobile device use in two scenarios.

Social implications

The public’s perceptions of the effectiveness of surveillance technology potentially influence its acceptance of the technology, which, in turn, can affect the legitimacy and use of the technology.

Originality/value

Within the much-discussed privacy-security debate lies a less-heard debate – that of the effectiveness of the surveillance technology in question. The public is one actor in this debate. This study examines the public’s perceptions of this less-heard debate.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 April 2008

Riikka Vuokko

The purpose of this paper is to explore how surveillance facilitates new power relationships.

1578

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how surveillance facilitates new power relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

This longitudinal qualitative study is predicated on observations of the home care workers interacting with their managers and clients. The emerging picture was complemented with interviews of the participants. The home care workers were chosen as being crucial in the construction of new everyday relationships, and their interpretations were given most value in presenting how surveillance and monitoring relationships are constructed as embedded mundane practices and as emerging from practical needs.

Findings

The paper discusses an implementation and use case of surveillance capable technology in a social home care setting. The findings suggest discrepancy of how surveillance is being interpreted by different participants depending on their positioning in the context of use.

Originality/value

The study presents a case study where surveillance issues emerge not only at the workplace but also in the domestic sphere. The paper explores the workers' role in defining surveillance at the workplace, and questions the limits of legitimate surveillance in the social care context concerning vulnerable citizens as clients.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Intelligence and State Surveillance in Modern Societies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-171-1

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 9 December 2021

Alfonso Alfonsi and Maresa Berliri

This chapter, based on a sociological approach, addresses the ethical issues of surveillance research from the perspective of the profound transformations that science and…

Abstract

This chapter, based on a sociological approach, addresses the ethical issues of surveillance research from the perspective of the profound transformations that science and innovation are undergoing, as part of a broader shift from modern to post-modern society, affecting also other major social institutions (such as government, religion, family, and public administration). The change occurring in the science and technology system is characterised by diminishing authority, uncertainty about internal mechanisms and standards, and a declining and increasingly difficult access to resources. Such changes, also related to globalisation and new digital technologies, have transformed the way research is conducted and disseminated. Research is now more open and its results more easily accessible to citizens.

Scientific research is also put under increased public scrutiny, while, at the same time, public distrust and disaffection towards science is rising. In such a context, it is more important than ever to make sure that research activities are not compromised by fraudulent and unethical practices. The legitimate expectations of citizens to enjoy their rights, including the ability to protect their private sphere, are growing. Scientific and technological development is deeply interrelated with the widespread awareness of these rights and the possibility of exercising them, but it produces also new risks, while a widespread sense of insecurity increases. The digital revolution, while improving people’s quality of life, offers at the same time new opportunities for crime and terrorism, which in turn has produced a demand to strengthen security systems through increasingly advanced and intrusive surveillance technologies. Misconduct in the field of surveillance may not only undermine the quality of research, but also further impair society’s trust in research and science as well as in the State and its institutions.

Details

Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-414-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 November 2016

Shona M. Bettany and Ben Kerrane

This study aims to offer understanding of the parent – child relationship by examining, through a socio-material lens, how one aspect of the new child surveillance technology

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to offer understanding of the parent – child relationship by examining, through a socio-material lens, how one aspect of the new child surveillance technology market, child GPS trackers (CGT), are rejected or adopted by families, highlighting implications for child welfare, privacy and children’s rights policy.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors gathered netnographic data from a range of online sources (parenting forums, online product reviews, discussion boards) that captured parental views towards the use of CGT and stories of the technology in use and theorize the data through application of a novel combination of neutralisation and affordance theory.

Findings

The research reveals how critics of CGT highlight the negative affordances of such product use (highlighting the negative agency of the technology). Parental adopters of CGT, in turn, attempt to rationalize their use of the technology as a mediator in the parent – child relation through utilisation of a range of neutralisation mechanisms which re-afford positive product agency. Implications for child welfare and policy are discussed in the light of those findings.

Originality/value

The paper presents an empirical, qualitative understanding of parents negotiating the emergence of a controversial new child-related technology – CGT – and its impact upon debates in the field of parenting and childhood; develops the theory of parental style towards parental affordances, using a socio-material theoretical lens to augment existing sociological approaches; and contributes to the debates surrounding child welfare, ethics, privacy and human rights in the context of child surveillance GPS technologies.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 50 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 January 2013

Vasilios Katos, Frank Stowell and Peter Bednar

The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach for investigating the impact of surveillance technologies used to facilitate security and its effect upon privacy.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach for investigating the impact of surveillance technologies used to facilitate security and its effect upon privacy.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors develop a methodology by drawing on an isomorphy of concepts from the discipline of Macroeconomics. This proposal is achieved by considering security and privacy as economic goods, where surveillance is seen as security technologies serving identity (ID) management and privacy is considered as being supported by ID assurance solutions.

Findings

Reflecting upon Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, the authors conclude that surveillance policies will not meet espoused ends and investigate an alternative strategy for policy making.

Practical implications

The result of this exercise suggests that the proposed methodology could be a valuable tool for decision making at a strategic and aggregate level.

Originality/value

The paper extends the current literature on economics of privacy by incorporating methods from macroeconomics.

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2021

Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann and Linus Feiten

The purpose of this paper is to defend the notion of “trust in technology” against the philosophical view that this concept is misled and unsuitable for ethical evaluation. In…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to defend the notion of “trust in technology” against the philosophical view that this concept is misled and unsuitable for ethical evaluation. In contrast, it is shown that “trustworthy technology” addresses a critical societal need in the digital age as it is inclusive of IT-security risks not only from a technical but also from a public layperson perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

From an interdisciplinary perspective between philosophy andIT-security, the authors discuss a potential instantiation of a “trustworthy information and communication technology (ICT)”: a solution for privacy respecting video surveillance. Here, strong data protection measures address grave concerns such as the threat of bulk biometric tracking of citizens. In a logical argument, however, the authors show that this technical notion of “trust” needs to be complemented by interlocking trust relations to justify public trust.

Findings

Based on this argument, the authors demonstrate that the philosophical position considering “trust in technology” to denote either “reliability” or “interpersonal trust” is too limited as it fails to address critical aspects of IT-security. In a broader, socio-technical sense, however, it is shown that several distinct accounts of trust – technical, interpersonal and institutional – should meaningfully interlock, to address concerns with ICTs.

Originality/value

This conceptual study demonstrates the potential of “trust in technology” for a more comprehensive evaluation of ICTs within the context of operation. Furthermore, it adds to the discussion of trust in IT-security by highlighting the layperson’s challenge of judging a technology’s trustworthiness. Vice versa, it contributes to Ethics of Technology by highlighting crucial IT-security needs.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 29 February 2008

Kevin Stenson

An industry of description and interpretation has developed around the growth of surveillance, accelerated by: the development of the internet; volatile international relations…

Abstract

An industry of description and interpretation has developed around the growth of surveillance, accelerated by: the development of the internet; volatile international relations since the collapse of communism; demographic mobility, segregation by class and ethnicity in the rich and poor worlds, sharpening inequalities, and post 9/11 fears of terrorism. Influential narratives have emphasised the diminishing power of sovereign nation-states in a marketised and globalised world. This chapter challenges the notion that coercive, sovereign modes of rule are a monarchical survival in decline. Rather, sovereign technologies of rule, in which surveillance is central involves strategies of governance from below as well as from above. They combine coercive with rhetorical, metaphorical communication and other ‘soft’ modes of rule. These make thinkable the nation-state as a discrete, defensible entity. Political communication translates between the complex technical expertise of evolving surveillance and security technologies and language intelligible to the public. Though surveillance technologies and information can be produced by commercial and other non-state sites of governance, metaphorically, much surveillance can be viewed as the extension of the eye of the sovereign. Although we are all targets of surveillance, those seen as threatening to the majority help to constitute and reproduce the social collectivity.

Details

Surveillance and Governance: Crime Control and Beyond
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1416-4

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