Over the past few years, digital surveillance in different parts of the world has become increasingly common. The use of surveillance by governments since the industrial revolution period has increased as most people are today being watched with or without their knowledge. Aiding in this process has been growth and advancement in technology. By definition, surveillance refers to a close observatory approach undertaken by a government or an organization to manage, control, influence, or protect a person. In fact, digital surveillance involves the monitoring and watching of nearly all actions of individuals in a society by governments or organizations. Therefore, the issue of digital surveillance can best be understood through an in-depth analysis of the ways through which an individual might be tracked by digital surveillance on a normal day, the devices that might be used to track that person, as well as the type of data that might be collected and the extent to which an individual my resist digital surveillance.
Ways and Devices Used to Track an Individual
Today's technological capabilities have taken surveillance to newer levels. There are a number of ways used by governments and organizations to track people. For instance, an individual may be tracked using GPS location markers, a GPS tracker, London Oyster Cards, video surveillance such as CCTVs, biometrics, and through the use of watch check-ins. Besides, an individual may be tracked by enabling a cellphone track app or plan in the person’s phone. Additionally, an individual might be tracked using Google maps. Furthermore, a person may get tracked through the use of loyalty cards. People are also tracked using their data flows as well as through the use of internet cookies. Moreover, a person might be tracked using a shop radio frequency identification tags.
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What is more, a person might be tracked through the use of a private detective without his or her knowledge. In this respect, a private detective is hired by the government or an organization to spy on someone in order to try to get some information about that person. In particular, they are hired to try to detect some fraudulent claims about a particular person. Spying on an individual may also be used in the interest of national security or some organizations in order to sway a person’s opinion about some people, especially high-profile individuals or political candidates. Spying is also done to discover trade secrets. What is more, spying is done to discover what might be happening relative to the interest of a government or a corporate society (Al Jazeera Investigative Unit, 2017).
Data That Might Be Collected During Surveillance and the Extent to Which A Person My Reject or Resist Digital Surveillance
When monitoring or spying on people, a lot of personal information is collected from everyone being monitored. For instance, government agencies, as well as other companies involved in digital surveillance, usually collect information concerning an individual’s digital traces. In this respect, they collect data concerning the location of that person. Besides, information concerning their personal profiles and fan pages are collected may be due to some targeted campaigns which are usually organized by groups or people denouncing that person’s pages. Such agencies also collect the individual's metadata as well as the content of what he or she usually talks about, publish, or share (Richardson, 2018). These types of data are very important since they can be used for various surveillance purposes. Although digital surveillance is being carried every day with or without the knowledge of most people, so many people are opposed to the idea of their personal information being collected because they feel their privacy is being invaded. According to Qiang (2019), most people, especially Americans have long been divided in their opinions about the issue of surveillance. Most of them are concerned about how this information is collected and why they are being collected. However, when a terrorist attack takes place, people tend to favor more digital surveillance by the government. People are not only becoming increasingly concerned about protecting their civil liberties but also about their privacy (Qiang, 2019). Therefore, to a greater extent, they are against being monitored or spied on by their governments.
References
Al Jazeera Investigative Unit. (2017, April 10). Spy Merchants: What is electronic surveillance? Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/04/spy-merchants-electronic-surveillance-170409100231959.html
Qiang, X. (2019). The Road to Digital Unfreedom: President Xi's Surveillance State. Journal of Democracy , 30 (1), 53-67.
Richardson, L. J. (2018). Ethical challenges in digital public archaeology. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology , 1 (1), 64-73.
