ANDRÉ DU PISANIMILLIONS OF citizens live in surveillance societies. The inner city of Windhoek is under constant CCTV surveillance.
Many public buildings, the port of Walvis Bay and countless private buildings and homes are under surveillance. If increasing surveillance is inexorable – as I think it is – there is a legal and moral obligation on us to ensure that society benefits from this seemingly unstoppable trend.
Most Namibians would agree on the downside of ubiquitous surveillance, the invasion of privacy, the violation of human rights and the intrusion into private and intimate space, such as one’s private conversations and bedroom. But: what good could come from companies, governments and citizens making use of surveillance in specific contexts?
Responsible surveillance, if such a thing is possible, may have the following advantages:
* Less crime – a point regularly advanced by authoritarians – but is it necessarily true? Global evidence indicates that universal surveillance may reduce crime in particular settings such as environmental crimes, through the use of autonomous technology such as drones and robotics. Surveillance may also simplify court cases, in the sense of providing useful evidence of crimes.
* Fewer police – this is the converse advantage. Savings in time and money could be made in some aspects of security provision, such as bodily searches at airports and other forms of policing.
* Smaller armies – with reliable foreign intelligence, states could conceivably reduce their arsenals and forces.
* Fewer restrictions on technology – many exist to prevent the stupid or dangerous from misbehaving. With effective surveillance, such restrictions would be unnecessary. The stupid and the dangerous could be stopped individually, and the rest of us would be liberated.
* Reduced corruption – What if we watched the watchers? There could be less corruption and lying among public officials. Attempts by the powerful, to shield themselves from surveillance, would become more untenable.
* Surveillance – would enable citizens to keep an eye on the politicians and the big corporations, who often shelter themselves from scrutiny via privacy laws.
* Epidemiology – we could track down epidemics as they emerge and unfold.
* Diluted prejudice – in a transparent society, we would be more familiar with members of other groups and communities, and so less likely to feel prejudice towards them.
* No password – this could be one of the most useful benefits to the increase in surveillance: no need for passwords or other identifiers.
At the end of the day, there are real dangers as well as benefits to the increase in surveillance, most particularly concerns about creeping totalitarianism. However, it seems one has to accept that there could be advantages too.
Debating and agreeing on these will assist us figure out what kind of surveillance society we should be fighting for. It should not necessarily end up in a ‘Big Brother Watch You’ society, particularly if we strengthen our laws, hold security providers, politicians and corporate elites to account, and integrate civil society cooperation with the state. Inevitably, it is important to ask a number of normative questions such as: Whose security? In whose interest?
* André du Pisani is emeritus professor at the University of Namibia and founder of the Pax-Africana Institute for Comprehensive Security. He has an interest in conversations on security in its different forms. The views expressed are not those of his employer.
