Panopticon revisited

contributed articles
doi: 10.1145/ 1743546.1743582
vision of a society monitored by cameras
by Jan Kietzmann and Ian Angell and computers is quickly becoming a
reality; and he wouldn’t be amazed that

Panopticon
the most recent generation of cameras
can also reprimand offenders in a child’s
voice broadcast over loudspeakers.3
These location-specific technolo-

Revisited
gies, embedded into the fabric of so-
cial life, allow uniformed officials who
gaze at screens to ‘monitor’ and judge
whether or not acts are antisocial. But
of course such evidence can at best help
identify suspects after the event, as was
the case in London’s 2005 bombing,
Jeremy
T h e year is 1787. Ut i li tari an ph i l os op h e r and the abduction and murder in 1993
of two-year old Jamie Bulger in Liver-
Bentham publishes his ideas for a panopticon, a pool. A recent report into the London’s
quite brilliant merger of architectural design with an surveillance network claimed that only
understanding of human behavior. This is a prison one crime is solved by each 1,000 CCTV
cameras.2 More importantly, the tech-
requiring minimal supervision. It is circular in cross- nology does not stop these acts in fla-
section. Cells are placed on the circumference, stacked grante delicto. Bad-deeds still happen.
floor upon floor, with the doors facing a guard tower To be consistent with the panopticon
concept, the state therefore still needs
at the centre. That tower is designed so that a lone to instill the belief in the population
guard can see every point of the prison from behind a that the very presence of monitoring
artifacts means the virtual attendance
mesh screen – he can see the prisoners, each uniquely of authority: that being caught red-
identified, but they can’t see him. Not knowing if they handed on camera undoubtedly leads
are being watched, but having to assume that they to punishment and perhaps prison
sentences. The ability to watch antiso-
are, the prisoners adjust their behavior. At regular cial behavior, and the presence of such
intervals, each prisoner is relocated according to his dedicated technologies, should there-
fore positively direct social behavior.
overall record of discipline – good behavior is rewarded, The problem is that using surveil-
bad conduct punished. Ergo, a highly efficient and lance technology involves both equip-
cost effective method for controlling sociopaths, and ping every dark corner with a CCTV
camera, and manning a remote monitor
thereby regulating the prison. with a ‘warm body’ city official who will
Fast-forward to the first decade of the 21 century, watch the happenings from afar. CCTV
is not a cost-sensitive approach, and as
and Closed Circuit Television (CCTV). The panopticon David Davis MP, the former U.K. Shad-
is no longer just a concept for prisons. Manhattan’s ow Home Secretary comments, it “leads
Chinatown has seen an increase from 13 to 600 to massive expense and minimum effec-
tiveness.”10 As a result, authorities have
‘security’ cameras since 1998.4 Britain alone has 20% privatized some of these duties: private
of the world’s CCTV cameras, which watch traffic, parking attendants assign tickets; and
citizens armed with city-licensed radar
shoppers, and people walking down the street, all on guns hunt speeders for extra income
the lookout for sociopathic acts. British subjects going (and excitement) during retirement.8
about their ordinary lives can expect to be captured Of course, the outsourcing of such
government services is still a far cry
on camera 300 times a day, every day. George Orwell from a panopticon; it is solely exercis-
would have been proud and horrified to see that his ing policing but in a different form.

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Nevertheless, to a certain extent the has no choice: it is impossible to return geted spam; tax audits of individuals
authorities have already turned to the an item for a refund without releasing who, according to their loyalty cards,
cost-effective lessons of the panopti- name, address and telephone number. live beyond their means; or identity
con. Accordingly, fake CCTV cameras Subsequently, databases mine the pa- theft based on individuals’ electronic
and mock-ups of speed traps are set per trails of everyone’s lives, includ- profiles. Consequently, personal in-
up, and even cardboard billboards of ing all ‘voluntarily’ provided pieces of formation and its free disclosure is
police cruisers are mounted to the rails personal information as well as data becoming a primary concern for many
of bridges over highways, in the hope from previously paper-based records citizens. Increasingly, the actual inves-
of creating a similar reaction to seeing that have been turned into electronic tigative power and reach of second gen-
real cameras, traps and cars. However, records (such as health records). eration systems is becoming obvious to
in the resulting ‘climate of suspicion,’ The combination of such private the general public. Privacy advocates
such replicas can lead, paradoxically, information with previously cumber- and civil liberty groups are no longer
to increased accident rates, and even some-to-obtain public details (regard- the only ones alarmed. As the per-
higher speeds once drivers spot the ing lawsuits, liens, and so on) yields ceived drawbacks start to outweigh the
dummies. ‘Criminals’ are quick to money-spinning profiles that can be re- benefits, the various promises are los-
identify real cameras from the fake, or purposed and sold on. Unforeseen by ing their appeal for the citizen. Weary
they simply displace their ‘business’ the unsuspecting population at large, consumers start to resent the constant
to locations that lack obvious threats. perhaps individuals’ behavioral data is demand for personal data, and even
Clearly, such attempts can create more the long-awaited panacea for the prob- the ordinary homemaker begins to pay
problems than they solve. lems of all sorts of secondary users. only with cash and provides fake names
However, that was only the first gen- Insurance brokers and credit bureaux, or telephone numbers for in-store re-
eration panopticon, which in order to that were previously crippled by the non- bates or returns. The effectiveness of
direct social behavior, represented a availability of such data, and employ- the system is once again diminished.
reactive approach by authority to dis- ers who would like to learn more about Similar to the previous generation,
obedience, and focused on punish- their potential employees’ physical and individuals manage to deceive the sys-
ment, or the threat there of. Little effort mental well-being,5 are obvious custom- tem, slip through the cracks, or decide
was aimed at either understanding the ers. Of course, governments too can not to comply with its data collection.
reasons for such behavior, or manag- benefit from this new free-market in the Hence, the flaws of the first generation
ing the motivation of social activities. exchange of personal data, and thereby have reappeared in second generation
Instead the emphasis was on condi- advance from procedures for manually systems. What is going on?
tioning behavior at specific locations. watching the deeds of society’s mem- The use of this technology by gov-
Commerce, through data mining and bers (such as through CCTV cameras) to ernments is also being queried. Some
profiling, was quick to implement the automating the analysis of behavior. critics claim that the ultimate hidden
second generation, trying to overcome At its beginning, this second genera- goal of governments is to create a mod-
the limitations of the first. Computer- tion appeared to depart from the previ- ern panopticon, with politicians be-
supported surveillance (the gambling ous panoptical identity architecture. lieving in a society in which the mere
industry led the way here), loyalty cards, Rather than explicitly trying to curb an- illusion of monitoring and control
credit card purchases, mobile phones tisocial behavior through the presence mechanisms is sufficient to stop those
etc. enable the harvesting of personal of purely investigative technologies with criminal intentions: an emphasis
data on everybody, including not only (such as a circular prison tower or CCTV on crime prevention over correction.
those suspected of illegal activity, but cameras), or blatantly displaying the However, for such a ploy to succeed, the
also high rollers, frequent flyers, actual analytical nature of common technolo- illusion must be tied to a real threat. In
shoppers and potential customers at gies (such as loyalty cards) thereby scar- the original model, the prisoners had
any number of lucrative locations. ing everyone into behaving in a socially to fear that there really was a guard
It is hardly surprising that profit- acceptable manner, their true profiling behind the mesh screen; today’s citi-
oriented corporations were the first and behavior-changing intentions were zens must believe that CCTV cameras
to adopt sophisticated profiling and hidden behind seemingly beneficial are actually genuine, and cross-border
data mining techniques. In its current and/or desirable outcomes for individ- shoppers must expect that their pur-
form, individuals are awarded cash re- ual participants. But behind the scenes, chasing data (invoices and credit card
bates or air miles when they present U.K.’s Inland Revenue demands access data) are available to customs agents.
loyalty cards upon a purchase: what is to the records of supermarkets’ loyalty Equally important, the presence of sur-
this but a reward for good behavior? cards in an effort to catch tax evaders;4 veillance systems must be directly con-
Bad behavior is punished; customers the Pentagon purchases data on teenag- nected to the likelihood of disciplinary
lose their benefits if they don’t keep up ers it can recruit into the military; and action. For if no legal action typically
their shopping momentum. Few peo- the Homeland Security Department results, anti-social individuals would
ple actually read the fine print before pays for consumer information to help never change their behavior. Clearly,
releasing their personal data; most are screen people at borders and to detect the technologies used in generations
more concerned about their members- immigration fraud.10 one and two are failing to intimidate,
only savings than fair information However, unexpected consequences and are becoming less effective in re-
practices. In other cases, the customer have come to light: more effectively tar- ducing shoplifting, pick-pocketing,

136 com municatio ns o f th e acm | J u ne 201 0 | vo l . 5 3 | no. 6


smuggling, speeding, terrorism, and age various categories of offence, and picious behavior. In other instances,
parking violations, to name but a few. in most cases allow for little data flow RFID-enabled cash promises to close
The punitive threat of technologies ap- between systems. Even when feedback the loop on information related to all
pears to be held back by limitations in loops do connect systems to each other monetary transactions;1 Nexus cards
two fundamental systemic properties: (such as one database to another, or hu- transmit details of individuals cross-
the cohesive integrity within the sys- man agents to technological systems), ing the U.S.A./Canadian border. Co-
tems involved; and the interaction, or updating the respective entries rarely hesion is on the rise, and connecting
coupling, between them. happens in real-time. For instance, the these individual systems more directly
Highly cohesive systems focus on viability of the FBI’s Investigative Data is part of many national information
related sets of data and precise tasks, Warehouse rests on a number of agen- policies (such as the USA Patriot Act,
and are clearly desirable in terms of ro- cies that update their records, which at the UK Regulation of Investigative Pow-
bustness, reliability, and understand- times occurs on a daily basis, at other ers Act). But still, the places where data
ability. Today’s panopticons, however, times monthly or even quarterly.9 The may be captured are limited in num-
display low cohesion. They are difficult mills of justice grind exceeding slow. ber, and are often constrained to spe-
to maintain, difficult to test, and even Naturally, the fact that in the mean- cific physical locations (such as border
more difficult to understand. Take while many offenders go unpunished crossings); the panopticon is still not
the justice system: it uses many often- both dramatically reduces any threat, working perfectly. Dissidents can still
unrelated sets of data, and relies heav- and undermines the effectiveness of escape detection.
ily on records, photos and fingerprints the fable of an all-seeing panopticon Enter the third generation. The
that are kept on prior felons. Therefore, presented by the justice system. computing power of spy technology
first-time offenders and those who In their debility, governments turn has been placed in the hands of private
have managed to stay out of the system to newer technologies in the hope of citizens. Essentially, the growing em-
have nothing to fear from it. As a result, higher cohesion, more data, more data beddedness of IT artifacts throughout
policing is carried out with numerous sources, and for more coupling, and our social landscape, and the increas-
different investigative activities based greater timeliness. In the meanwhile, ingly active involvement of information
on a number of unrelated data sources. false positives clog up the justice sys- systems and devices in everyone’s lives,
In an effort to increase its systems’ co- tem. The objective of the government can substantially increase the area un-
hesion, in Britain the government is is not only to catch more delinquents der surveillance, and do away with the
finding excuses to justify the DNA test- and arrest fewer innocents, but also to need for more policemen. By outsourc-
ing and recording of large number of increase the perceived punitive power ing policing duties to the general pop-
innocent citizens. Even schoolchildren of the state. But how to achieve these? ulation who are harnessing the investi-
are not exempt from its National DNA For indeed, new technologies are gative power of common technologies,
Database (NDNAD), the biggest DNA now emerging that increasingly permit the data density within our judiciary
repository in the world. CODIS, the the automatic capture of data, tighten- systems can be increased enormously.
Combined DNA Index System funded ing the government’s net, and allowing The ultimate public panopticon can be
by the FBI in the U.S. is second, fol- fewer lawbreakers to slip through. Back- achieved by convincing the population
lowed by California’s own state system. scatter X-ray, for instance, automates to spy on itself. When live CCTV feeds
In terms of reliability, the punishment airport security checks to the point become tied to geospatial applications
of non-criminal offences is also prob- where every traveler can be frisked. The on the Internet (such as Google Maps’
lematic, where not all wrongdoings are amount of detail in the data produced highly detailed Street View feature), the
caught and penalized equally. While is staggering. Today’s installations of elderly will no longer spy only on their
governments can identify car owners, backscatter X-rays can produce photo- local neighborhoods from behind lace
for instance, through the use of license quality images of body contours that curtains, they will be able to watch a
plates, they simply do not have the leave little to the imagination. Under much wider area online.
manpower to ensure that all illegally the criticism of turning passenger There are many much more effective
parked vehicles are ticketed, clamped screening into passenger voyeurism, personal devices that could be includ-
or towed. As a result, many offenders some airports have dumbed down im- ed in this architecture. Take mobile
go free. In the same way, not all cars age clarity with random noise added to phones; they are everywhere, and their
or cargo containers that cross borders the data, but only to a point where the functionality continues to amaze. The
are searched for illegal substances, not technology still serves as a great deter- convergence of cameras and phones
all foreign visitors undergo a detailed rent to carrying weapons on one’s per- was seen as the next killer application
criminal check, and guns used in vio- son. CCTV Cameras with face-recog- to replace the highly lucrative text mes-
lent crimes are rarely registered. nition can now automatically identify saging (SMS), with Multimedia messag-
Furthermore, the data that are avail- passers-by based on their eigenfaces ing (MMS). Although MMS is generally
able are stored in departmental silos, and landmark features. Computerized considered a failure, cameras are still
and are not always directly coupled monitoring can also look for particular in phones and videos and photos are
or connected. By and large, activities items (suitcases or coats), and compare being recorded all the time. This om-
within the justice system are recorded the conduct of one individual on cam- nipresence presents a new lens to the
and treated independently of each oth- era to the behavior of a larger sample in concept of the panopticon. Examples
er. Individual database systems man- the same environment to identify sus- are in the recent instances of teacher-

Ju n e 2 0 1 0 | vo l. 53 | n o. 6 | c om m u n ic at ion s of t h e acm 137


baiting, in which students provoke barrage of abuse from ‘netizen vigilan- of its consequences. Smoking in a non-
and taunt their teachers to a break- tes,’ and she was forced to terminate smoking designated area, using a mo-
ing point. These classroom dramas, her education program. bile phone while driving, jaywalking,
caught on camera phones, are then up- The Internet and the mobile phone vandalism, littering, and a hundred
loaded to popular video-sharing sites camera is a powerful combination. In and one other crimes and misdemean-
(such as YouTube.com) for all to see, this case it was a communal sense of ors could be policed, and punished in
often sparking discussions about the indignation that sparked the witch- this way.
dismissal of the teacher in question. hunt. Think what could happen if But by then every honest citizen has
But fortunately, some schools already people were paid to report any antiso- become criminalized, with society it-
have cameras installed in their class- cial behavior they saw and recorded? self as the prison, and each prisoner
rooms, too. Instances outside of the Next, add a Global Positioning System doubling up as a potential guard and
classroom involve similar e-evidence. to each mobile phone – this will soon bounty hunter. The state doesn’t need
Photos taken by bystanders on cam- be a legal requirement in Japan. Now to pay salaries to the jailers; it’s all pay-
era phones are regularly introduced suppose the longitude and latitude can by-results spying and sanctimonious
into newsfeeds (such as the Tsunami be superimposed on any digital photo- reporting. At last, the ultimate panop-
of 2005 and the shootings at Virginia graph along with a tamper proof time ticon, and it’s coming soon to a neigh-
Tech in 2007). Coverage shot by citizen- signal. Add on a checksum and digital borhood near you!
reporters is frequently requested for certificate that guarantees the image
court-cases (such as the London bomb- has not been altered with the likes of
References:
ings of 2005). It was pure coincidence Photoshop, include the abovemen- 1. Angell, I. and Kietzmann, J. RFID and the end of
that a video camera was present at the tioned facial recognition features, and cash? Comm. ACM 49, 12, (Dec. 2006) 90-96.
2. BBC (Aug. 24, 2009). “1,000 Cameras ‘Solve One
Rodney King incident in 1991, but to- finally invite such images to be sub- Crime.’”
day one must suspect that all actions, mitted as evidence in a court of law. By http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/
london/8219022.stm.
legal or not, right or wrong, are likely to instantaneously e-mailing such a cer- 3. Bentham, M. CCTV spy cameras will TALK in London
be caught on camera. tified photograph (or video) from the London Lite, 2007; http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
news/article-23391487-details/CCTV+spy+cameras+
These examples illustrate another mobile phone to the authorities of say will+TALK+in+London/article.do
important change. No longer are we anyone being illegally parked, the pho- 4. Graham, B. George Orwell, Big Brother is watching
your house. Evening Standard. http://www.
just looking at simple photographs, tographer could be paid a bounty, a flat thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-details/Ge
but at evidence that is widely shared amount or a percentage of the penalty orge+Orwell,+Big+Brother+is+watching+your+house/
article.do
through blogs, micro-blogs (such as to encourage catching offenders. Such 5. Hopegood, J. Taxman snoops on loyalty cards
Twitter), social networking sites (such practices are strongly reminiscent Daily Mail, This is Money, 1999; http://www.
thisismoney.co.uk/tax-advice/article.html?in_article_
as Facebook) and video-sharing sites of the Spitzels of the former German id=385777in_page_id=11in_a_source=
(such as YouTube). Without these tech- Democratic Republic and of civil infor- 6. Industry Canada. Why Do We Care About Privacy?
Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs, ed., 2006. http://
nologies, the phenomenon of teacher- mants in China today – or indeed the strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/oca-bc.nsf/en/ca01360e.
html
baiting would not be nearly as popular. ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ posters from 7. Kim, J. Subway fracas escalates into test of the
But it is not all anti-social. The cyber- the Wild West. The difference now is Internet’s power to shame. The Washington Post,
2005; http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
mob can take the moral high ground. that the state can pay rewards directly article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html
All it requires is a common techno- and anonymously into the telephone 8. Magnes, T. Private speed controls in Graz (Austria).
European Local Transport Information Service, 2007.
logical platform to share e-evidence in account, and have the mobile phone http://www.eltis.org/PDF/generate_pdf.php?study_id=
order to police social behavior. In July payment system changed, allowing 1323lan=enPHPSESSID=ce4b9e7971487f0f9e02
251fc45fda44
2005 a young woman was traveling with credit on an account to be withdrawn 9. McCullagh, D. Post-9/11 antiterror technology: A
her lap dog on a South Korean subway at post-offices. No more traffic wardens report card Security. ZDNet News, 2006; http://news.
zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6113064.html
train, when the dog was ‘taken short’ - we’re all Stasi now! 0. Mohammed, A. and Kehaulani Goo, S. Government
1
and defecated on the carriage floor.7 A But the payment needn’t be mon- increasingly turning to data mining. The Washington
Post, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
fellow passenger gave the woman a tis- etary. Virtue is its own reward. Like in content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402063_
sue, and she promptly cleaned up her the ‘dog-poop’ case, if the authorities pf.html

pet, but left the mess on the floor. An- make it easy to report anti-social be-
gry passengers demanded she wipe it havior, a suitably motivated general Jan Kietzmann (jan_kietzmann@sfu.ca) is an assistant
professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at
up; the woman rudely refused and left population will be lining up to hand Simon Fraser University.
the compartment. A few elderly com- over offenders. Under the banner of Ian Angell (i.angell@lse.ac.uk) is a professor in the
plainants on the train then did the job ‘saving the planet’, it is already com- Department of Management at the London School of
Economics.
themselves. But the story didn’t end monly accepted as right and proper to
there. One passenger had taken pho- police the carbon footprints of others, © 2010 acm 0001-0782/10/0600 $10.00
tographs of the drama with a mobile and by connecting personal technolo-
phone, and incensed, posted the pic- gies to the justice system, it would be
tures on the Internet. The story spread easy turn in the eco-criminal that is
like wildfire and it wasn’t long before your neighbor. We have come full cir-
the ‘dog-poop’ girl was identified, and cle, and are back with Jeremy Bentham
her details broadcast on the Net. Con- and his assertion that the rightness of
sequently she and her family faced a an action entirely depends on the value

138 comm unicatio ns o f t h e ac m | J u ne 201 0 | vo l . 5 3 | no. 6

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Panopticon revisited

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