The Dangers Of Surveillance

Abstract In the past two decades, surveillance has gained great expansion and a significant meaning with overarching effects on our modes of living as citizens, neighbors and human beings. Utilizing resources from various disciplines and studies, we would analyze the profound change in humans and societies due to the exponential growth in surveillance technologies and its application in modern settlements and spaces. The paper will also try to tackle the challenge to determine whether surveillance is helpful or a hindrance; an instrument to improve the quality of life or a cause for infringement of civil liberties.

In recent years, surveillance technology has undergone a major revolution and has found its application extensively in modern

Richards in his article, “The Dangers of Surveillance”15 writes on how state surveillance systems can severely hamper the rights of citizens and inhibit experimentation with “new, controversial, or deviant ideas.” Surveillance can act as an impediment to intellectual privacy which is key to the progress of a free society and help in maintaining the status-quo. In 2011, administrators of Harvard University were found spying on the emails of deans, to investigate a certain case.16 In India, a mid-age IT professional was killed by certain political groups, for the professional had offended their sensibility by posting certain images on his social media profile.17 It is important to introspect, when values of freedom of speech and intellectual privacy are compromised, there tends to be a decay in the democratic principles of modern societies. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy the way surveillance transform citizenship in modern

This led to immense curiosity and interest in the field of Surveillance Studies. In the course of my research I have tried to use resources from various interdisciplinary fields, to understand how surveillance changes us as citizens, neighbors and human beings vis-à-vis determine whether it causes an improvement in the quality of life or a causes for infringement of civil liberties. An aspect which has not been dealt with the paper is what if the observer has no awareness that he/she is being observed or commonly referred as voyeurism. Though the paper provides no definitive answers on the legitimacy and moral judgments on the systems of surveillance, it has tried to meaningfully conceive of surveillance, where some see it as a legitimate technology that allows to care for the interests of everyone, whereas others see it as a powerful instrument of coercion and