It has become very common practice for the Governments to keep and use public data for the betterment and quality of services provided. Different information systems are in custom which involve data about the people. For better use of public data, it is necessary to reliably associate the data with specific persons. An effective and efficient identification system should be established and maintained. Information technology has remarkably progressed in human identification system. It is very easy to identify and monitor a person with the help of modern IT tools.
They key challenge for the supervising authorities is to develop identification and monitoring programe which should be practicable and economic to address the issues. These programs should have high integrity to solve the problems faced by the governments regarding human identification and monitoring. The special concern in this regard is the threat to personal privacy that the human identification and monitoring programs presents. If these programmers are introduced energrtically, the reaction of social fabric may be threatened.
Surveillance and dataveillance
What is surveillance?
Surveillance is defined as to watch or guard kept over a person especially over a suspected person, a prisoner, or the like; often spying, supervision; less commonly, supervision for the purpose of direction or control, superintendence.
Physical surveillance comprises of watching and listening .Monitoring is carried out remotely in space with the help of image amplification devices such as field glasses, infrared binaculars, light amplifiers satellite cameras, and sound amplification devices like directional microphones; and remotely in time with the help of image and sound recording devices. In the modern word, several communication surveillance is in practice like mail covers, and telephone interception etc.
These forms of surveillance are mostly augmented by the collection of data from interviews with information's such as neighbour, colleagues etc.Due to these information collection of public data has become an important source for the governments.
What is dataveillance?
Dataveillance is defined as the systematic process of using personal data for investigation and monitoring of actions or communications of people through the application of advanced information technology tools.
This term is used for any form of systematic attention to whether rules are obeyed or not, and how those how deviate can be located and sanctioned. That is why dataveillannce is believed as a process of monitoring people for the purpose of social control.
Dataveillance may be classified into two categories;
Personal dateveillance
Mass dataveillance
Personal dateveillance.
Personal dataveillance is the use of data of an identified person. Normally a specific reason exists for the investigation or monitoring.
Importance
Personal data veil lance is an important tool in the fight against such social evils as terrorism and organized crime. It is also used in civil cases. Is sometimes used in negative way by collecting the embarrassing information about a person and then blackmailing him.
Benefits of dataveillance
There are significant benefits from dataveillance.The people and their property may be protected. Financial benefits may occur by detection and prevention of errors and abuse and frauds. Benefits can be foreseen both in government activity and in the private sector. There is typically a reason for the initial investigation practices in personal dataveillance.For Example Corporation use it to discredit individuals to avoid hiring, justify firing or other background research for an assortment of different reasons. The best example of dataveillannce is profiling. Profiling is an advanced system of extreme stereotyping. profiling in terms of dataveillannce begins to become a problem when assumptions about someone are made based on religion,looks,race or actions and used it inhibit their freedom.
The most important benefits of the dataveillance are to provide safety to the people. A watch is kept all the time on the people why is doing what and for whom. Use of dataveillance in war against terrorism is not deniable. Recent operation in Pakistan in which Osama Bin Laden was killed, is a good example of dataveillance.He was traced because he was being monitored with the help of satellite devices. And his identity as Osama was made possible with the help of DNA test which is used in dataveillance.
There are several other benefits of Dataveillance.people feel comfortable when they know that their security is responsibility of the government. In addition, when people know that they're being monitored, they perform well and their ethical standards are also high.
Mass dataveillance
Mass dataveillance is concerned with groups of people and involves generalized suspicion that some members of the group may be of interest.
Mass dataveillance is used in many of the same way as personal dataveillance; such as screening or authentication of transaction, front end verification, and front audit.
Implications of mass dataveillance
It is very important to understand the implications of mass dataveillance imposed on the citizens. Many people are aware that these processes exist, but very few people have an idea to what extent their personal data trail affects their everyday lives. Organizations, like police department, are using dataveillance in ways that pose serious threats to our society. Police detectectives are encouraged by mass dataveillanvce to focus on minor offenses that can be dealt with efficiently, rather than more important crimes that are more difficult to solve. This poses serious threats to how impartial the law is perceived to be enforced, and create threat to rule of law.
The negative effects of personal dateveillance
The first and far most threat of dataveillance is to the privacy and identity of individuals and as a society as a whole. Mass surveillance has been criticized on many grounds like violation of privacy rights, illegality and for prevention social and political freedom.
Importance of privacy
Privacy is defined as 'ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and herby themselves selectively. The boundaries and extent of what is considered private differs among culture and people, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive. The degree to which private information is exposed therefore depends on how the public will receive this information. Which differs between places and over tiem.privacy is broader than security and includes the concepts of appropriate use and protection of information?
Applying maslowian thinking the following categories of privacy can be distinguished.
Privacy of the person, sometimes referred as 'bodily privacy', is concerned with the integrity of the individual's body, and is related to the physiological and safety levels of Maslowian hierarchy.
Privacy of personal behaviour, including sometimes referred as 'media policy'.
Privacy of personal commiunication, sometimes referred as 'interception privacy'
Privacy of personal data sometimes referred as 'Data privacy'.
All means of dataveillance dater the concept of privacy of individuals and society as a whole. One cannot perform well if he is being watched all the time. People do not feel themselves safe as this watch over can be used in a negative way.
Dataveillance can harm the privacy and identity of the individuals and the society in the following ways.
1...The first and the most immediate of the threat is that there is not always an actual person monitoring the data. Often it is computer system that is linking together pertinent facts to establish a conclusion. It is likely that a computer can commit errors and deliver information that is wrong and can potentially be overlooked because the lack of personal monitoring. This can pose a variety of other issues .An obvious example of this is wrongly identifying a person into certain categories base on his or her attributes and data trial. For instance .one might use his or her computer to purchase or research necessary items for a home project; this can lead them to be placed into a certain group of highly watched individuals if the items being looked at cross certain key word (such as items that resemble pieces needed to make a bomb.)If this scenario happens, and an individual is wrongly identified, this can create a nightmare for an individual trying to oppose false information.
2…The second threat of dataveillance is the quality of data. There is currently no clear standard pertaining to quality of data that need to be used in dataveillance system. People often utilize the cheapest and easiest forms in order to keep costs down and information high, this is seen with the lack of regulations placed on dataveillance.Obviously,errors are a factor in low quality data, and an error in this field could jeopardize someone's livelihood. As stated earlier, this is specifically true in case where people are not aware that their actions are being tracked and are unable to oppose the facts.
3….A third and an equally important danger is the possibility of misinterpretation. Data is likely to be misinterpreted if all the pertinent factors are not taken into consideration.Dataveillance situations only involve the immediate facts. It is unlikely that a person,or a computer system is going to do extensive research to make sure that the findings are correct based on the circumstances .Technology used in online marketing has advanced to a state where collection, enhancement and aggregation of information are instantaneous. This proliferation of customer information focused technology brings with it a host of issues surrounding customer privacy.
Most people are unaware that large, public companies such as Google and government agencies are using dataveillance without individual consent. Currently it is foe more common for data to be collected without the individuals' knowledge. if people are not aware that they are being monitored ,it is likely they are also unaware of the possibility that their information is being released to outside sources. Often data is released and is accessed by other people and organization. This typically occurs because people usually do not read through consent forms about the release of information. In recent years, this bubble of data that is being retained is leading to morally and ethically questionable procedures. It is possible for someone to be blacklisted from an organization from obtaining something (a permit) based on an event that is not directly related. People are denied jobs because of certain diseases or past conditions, as well as denied insurance due to bad credit. In many cases, it is questionable if these factors are legitimate at all.
The effects of Mass dataveillance on the individual
As advancements and new technological improvements are made today, understanding the effects of new technologies on individual's privacy and ways of life are significant. Data mining and datavillence allow organizations to see what, where, when and how you paid for purchase and categorize you based on them. Supermarkets saver cards and radiofrequency identification tags are example of it. Is it legal? Organizations Government agencies are collecting large pool of data and grouping individuals based on a generalized suspicion. This poses ethical danger because individuals can be falsely grouped based on routine procedures and actions. This can inhibit someone's chances to success in the work places everyday life based on previous sporadic activities which can lead to misjudgment base on them. Information can tell you a lot about a person but it cannot paint a complete picture and is often taken out of its original context.
Mass data collection and surveillance will force you to look over your shoulders and see nothing, but know that there is someone, somewhere, collecting data and in a sense, watching every move of you. These dangers are real and frightening. As individuals become placed into groups based on things they do, talk about and write about, they are being labeled without their knowledge. The individuals need to be aware of all this .As the databases increase and become easier to use and access, there needs to boundaries to the information organizations can access.
The effects of mass dataveillance on Society
As discussed earlier, dataveillance poses clear dangers to the individuals, but what does this mean for our society as a whole. Is it ethical for the companies to use mass dataveillance techniques that results in prevailing climate of suspicion? What this means is that organizations that are using personal dataveillance after reasonable grounds of suspicion have arisen.
The right of privacy is not absolute and in certain cases, it should not to be. But what about those instances in which it should? As a society, should we accept that the explosive pace of technology advancements has a negative effect on our individual lives? Is it fair that organizations using mass dataveillance techniques can now come up with the information necessary to bring you down with no prior reasonable doubt? These are important questions that more people need to ask themselves as our technologies continue to advance.
Conclusion
Dataveillance has two sides; on one side, it apparently offers speed, security, and safety; on the other, it unnecessarily exposes individuals to potential threats for privacy. Privacy is a privilege that most people take for granted. It is simply thought of as a source of God given right that we, as human being, are entitled to, the right to have our own space, to be safe, and to be left alone. The increased use of dataveillance has been found very useful on many occasions and no one regret the positive aspects of dataveillance.But the problem is that increased use of dataveillance does not currently have any standards or regulations. The potential issues being described of both personal and mass dataveillance poise ethical dangers and need to be more regulated. it is not currently being monitored to the extent it should be and we are still far from laws having governing the majority of this data techniques. It is being spread too fast and getting out of hand with the advancement of modern technology. It is vital that we begin to recognize and personally monitor our personal release of information. It is necessary to read and reread the every document we are signing and ask about the implications it could have. In addition, because of its perceived benefits, the worrisome aspects are usually overlooked. This perhaps sheds light on why resistance is often lacking or simply fails. It is important in the early stages of 21st century, for citizens to ask collectively whether the negative aspects of dataveillanceare likely to be mitigated or eliminated if present trends continue? if as a concerned citizen, we feel the negative effects of dataveillance will not be mitigated if we continue on the current path; then we must move collectively away from trying to maintain an ever-weakening illusion of privacy, and shift to offensive, by demanding accountability of those whose power is enhanced by dataveillance.It is only when we begin to pay attention that we will be able to understand the incredible amounts of information being held on each one of us, Then hopefully, regulation will be started to be imposed and we will have both privacy and freedom without compromising either.
