technoculture203-09

From an article in the Guardian:

‘If you wanted to try and cover everywhere, you'd need a whole army of people watching CCTV," ... "That's essentially the driver for this technology - it's automation, it's doing things more efficiently.’” (Orwell, 2009)

This really ties in with the Western world’s obsession with efficiency. The example in the aricle about preventing bike theft implied that this technology would save time and prevent theft. However, how much money would be put in to this CCTV imaging processing technology just so that the city of London can boast that they have no more bikes being stolen?

The article also notes that these camera will be able to notice when people are acting “strangely.” Who decides what strange is? It seems to me that we are quickly entering a world in which our expression and our movements will be watched and processed by government standards. Being able to track individuals and see their every move is not something that should be able to be bought and sold within companies to the highest bidder.

Is technology like this going to create a society of fear? If you knew that a camera was watching you for behavior anomalies, it would make sense that you would try not to stand out. Scientists are saying that CCTV will soon be able to detect how different people what, what colors make a person stand out in a crowd, and what behaviors are “abnormal” so what is next? Where do we draw line with trying to protect ourselves and lose our identity?