Surveillance: Citizens and the State - Constitution Committee Contents


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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