What Distinguishes Surveillance, Monitoring, and Tracking?
Data gathering, processing, and application – along with subsequent philosophical and ethical debates – occur on three levels:
Social
Emotional
Economic
Data Ethics concentrates on the economic, with its corresponding tracking and targeting.
Surveillance
Field of application: Social
Observation type: Surveillance
Executed by: Society (through governmental institutions)
Aimed at: Society (civilian population)
Purpose: Public security and welfare
Examples:
Screening email to detect signs of impending terrorism
Scanning car license-plates to study traffic patterns
Monitoring
Field of application: Emotional
Observation type: Monitoring
Executed by: Discrete individuals
Aimed at: Discrete individuals
Purpose: Modulate personal emotions
Examples:
The collegian lingering at the bar to see if the girl he likes gets affectionate with the Lacrosse player.
The mother placing a baby monitor near the crib to be alerted when the newborn cries.
Note: Emotional monitoring is currently entering the space of big data ethics as software overlays combined with facial recognition algorithms and wearable hardware transform interpersonal encounters into big data scenes.
Rudimentary: a retailer using loyalty cards to track purchases to learn what patrons’ have found desirable.
Contemporary: a retailer processes reams of purchasing histories to predict products that a specific patron will find desirable.
Critical historical moments:
Data escapes commercial silos.
Information gathered by a retailer (maternity clothes purchased) is used to promote a distinct service (natural birthing centers begin sending mailers).
Data becomes an independent sources of economic activity.
Organizations engaging in no direct consumer interactions acquire information from retailers, social media platforms, government agencies and similar, to synthesize and then resell to the original gatherers as fuller profiles.
