This article was originally published in May 2008.

There are 1,319,872,109 internet users in the world [1], and most of them are not perfectly aware of “the surveillance society”, of its laws and regulations. When protection against terrorism and personal safety are involved, people accept the notion of a surveillance society, however when the focus shifts onto personal privacy and anonymity, this perspective tends to change. This essay explores some of the aspects of surveillance society in relation to the internet, first of all highlighting who watches who, how the surveillance happens, positive and negative points of view and finally, how to deal with the surveillance society.

(image courtesy of mvwphoto) “The surveillance society is a society which is organised and structured using surveillance-based techniques. To be under surveillance means having information about one’s movements and activities recorded by technologies, on behalf of the organisations and governments that structure our society. This information is then sorted, sifted and categorised, and used as a basis for decisions which affect our life chances. Such decisions concern our entitlement and access to benefits, work, products and services and criminal justice; our health and well-being and our movement through public and private spaces.” [2].

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