Examination of Witnesses (Questions 36-39)
Professor Clive Norris and Dr David Murakami Wood
28 NOVEMBER 2007
Q36 Chairman: Professor Norris and
Dr Murakami Wood, may I welcome you to the Committee and, in the
case of Dr Murakami Wood, may I welcome you back to the Committee
as I think that you participated in our seminar. May I ask you
formally to identify yourselves for the oral record, please.
Dr Murakami Wood: My name is Dr David
Murakami Wood; I am lecturer in town planning at the School of
Architecture Planning and Landscape at the University of Newcastle
upon Tyne and a researcher at the Global Urban Research Unit.
Professor Norris: I am Professor Clive
Norris from the University of Sheffield. I am Head of Department
of Sociological Studies and Deputy Director of the Centre for
Criminological Research.
Q37 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. You are very welcome and we are most grateful to you for
coming. I said to the Committee that we have a large area to cover
and I have asked that questions be brief and so, out of fairness,
perhaps I could ask that replies should be fairly concise too.
Gentlemen, your expertise is in the field of surveillance. Are
you able to say how easy it is to define "surveillance"
and to what extent it is possible, if at all, to break the concept
into subcategories?
Dr Murakami Wood: There are a large number
of definitions of surveillance, some of which would seem to cast
almost all information gathering as surveillance and some of which
would seem to only argue that "bad" forms of information
gathering are surveillance. I think we would regard neither of
these extremes as being useful definitions. We would argue that
the intentionality is the important aspect. I think that information
gathering with the intent to influence and control aspects of
behaviour or activities of individuals or groups would be our
working definition. So, it is the intention that we regard as
important. However, we also argue that not all data that is gathered
with no surveillance intention cannot become useful for surveillance
in future and also there is the question of unintentional consequences
of information gathering that are not thought of when the information
is gathered.
Q38 Chairman: We are considering
both surveillance and the use of personal data. To what extent
can public sector use of databases of personal information be
seen as a form of surveillance?
Dr Murakami Wood: In a brief sentence,
we would say that it is possible to conceive of a database that
is not used for some form of control. That is perfectly clear.
However, it is equally impossible to conceive of one that could
not be and I think that statement is about as far as we can really
go with that.
Q39 Chairman: Are you able to say
in what ways and to what extent surveillance by the state can
contribute to public safety in general and be helpful to the individual?
Professor Norris: The state is responsible
for providing security and clearly there is a whole range of people
who may be considered a threat to that. So, databases of known
individuals who are active in terrorism, drug dealing and so forth
seem highly appropriate and I do not think anyone would want to
argue that they are not. So, in the sense that the state has a
duty to protect and to gather information of those it has good
reason to consider to be a threat, then I think that one would
say that this of course can lead to enhanced security and safety.
I think it would be silly to think that surveillance is a "bad"
thing or that the construction of databases in themselves is a
"bad" thing. They have their uses and their places.
For instance, the Sex Offenders' Register may be considered one
of those things in general although, in its particular operation,
one might have criticism of it. In that sense, there is not an
argument that databases in themselves are problematic and they
clearly can help in the administration of public safety.
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