Protecting Privacy in Video Surveillance offers the state of the art from leading researchers and experts in the field. This broad ranging volume discusses the topic from various technical points of view and also examines surveillance from a societal perspective. A comprehensive introduction carefully guides the reader through the collection of cutting-edge research and current thinking. The technical elements of the field feature topics from MERL blind vision, stealth vision and privacy by de-identifying face images, to using mobile communications to assert privacy from video surveillance, and using wearable computing devices for data collection in surveillance environments. Surveillance and society is approached with discussions of security versus privacy, the rise of surveillance, and focusing on social control. This rich array of the current research in the field will be an invaluable reference for researchers, as well as graduate students.

In 1967, Justice John Marshall Harlan introduced the litmus test of ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’ in his concurring opinion in the US Supreme Court case of Katz v. United States. Privacy, regulations to protect privacy, and data protection have been legal and social issues in many Western countries for a number of decades. However, recent measures to combat terrorism, to fight crime, and to increase security, together with the growing social acceptance of privacy-invasive technologies can be considered a serious threat to the fundamental right to privacy. What is the purport of ‘reasonable expectations of privacy’? Reasonable expectations of privacy and the reality of data protection is the title of a research project being carried out by TILT, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. The project is aimed at developing an international research network of privacy experts (professionals, academics, policymakers) and to carry out research on the practice, meaning, and legal performance of privacy and data protection in an international perspective. Part of the research project was to analyse the concept of privacy and the reality of data protection in case law, with video surveillance and workplace privacy as two focal points. The eleven country reports regarding case law on video surveillance and workplace privacy are the core of the present book. The conclusions drawn by the editors are intended to trigger and stimulate an international debate on the use and possible drawbacks of the ‘reasonable expectations of privacy’ concept. The editors are all affiliated to TILT – Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. This is Volume 7 in the Information Technology and Law (IT&Law) Series

This research introduces a conceptual framework for enforcing privacy-related restrictions in smart video surveillance systems based on danger levels and incident types to be handled. It increases the selectivity of surveillance by restricting data processing to individuals associated to incidents under investigation. Constraints are enforced by usage control, which is instantiated for video surveillance for the first time and enables tailoring such systems to comply with data protection law.

Yesil proposes that video surveillance is not a novel technology specific to the post-September 11 era, but that it can be historicized within crime prevention and risk management initiatives going back to the 1970s. Analyzing press coverage, security industry statements, and federal agency and law enforcement reports, Yesil discusses this visual technique of knowing and communicating as part of the larger culture of control, and she situates it in the broader processes of rationalization and normalization. Based on interviews with police officers, school administrators, students and private citizens, she presents a systematic exploration of everyday experiences of power and offers insights into the surveillance/ privacy nexus.

Monitoring of public and private sites has increasingly become a very sensitive issue resulting in a patchwork of privacy laws varying from country to country -though all aimed at protecting the privacy of the citizen. It is important to remember, however, that monitoring and vi sual surveillance capabilities can also be employed to aid the citizen. The focus of current development is primarily aimed at public and cor porate safety applications including the monitoring of railway stations, airports, and inaccessible or dangerous environments. Future research effort, however, has already targeted citizen-oriented applications such as monitoring assistants for the aged and infirm, route-planning and congestion-avoidance tools, and a range of environment al monitoring applications. The latest generation of surveillance systems has eagerly adopted re cent technological developments to produce a fully digital pipeline of digital image acquisition, digital data transmission and digital record ing. The resultant surveillance products are highly-fiexihle, capahle of generating forensic-quality imagery, and ahle to exploit existing Internet and wide area network services to provide remote monitoring capability.

This volume examines the relationship between privacy, surveillance and security, and the alleged privacy–security trade-off, focusing on the citizen’s perspective. Recent revelations of mass surveillance programmes clearly demonstrate the ever-increasing capabilities of surveillance technologies. The lack of serious reactions to these activities shows that the political will to implement them appears to be an unbroken trend. The resulting move into a surveillance society is, however, contested for many reasons. Are the resulting infringements of privacy and other human rights compatible with democratic societies? Is security necessarily depending on surveillance? Are there alternative ways to frame security? Is it possible to gain in security by giving up civil liberties, or is it even necessary to do so, and do citizens adopt this trade-off? This volume contributes to a better and deeper understanding of the relation between privacy, surveillance and security, comprising in-depth investigations and studies of the common narrative that more security can only come at the expense of sacrifice of privacy. The book combines theoretical research with a wide range of empirical studies focusing on the citizen’s perspective. It presents empirical research exploring factors and criteria relevant for the assessment of surveillance technologies. The book also deals with the governance of surveillance technologies. New approaches and instruments for the regulation of security technologies and measures are presented, and recommendations for security policies in line with ethics and fundamental rights are discussed. This book will be of much interest to students of surveillance studies, critical security studies, intelligence studies, EU politics and IR in general. A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 license.

This edited collection reports the results of a comparative study of video surveillance/CCTV in Germany, Poland, and Sweden. It investigates how video surveillance as technologically mediated social control is affected by national characteristics, with a specific concern for recent political history. The book is motivated by asking what makes video surveillance "tick" in three very different cultural settings, two of which (Poland and Sweden) are virtually unexplored in the literature on surveillance. The selection of countries is motivated by an interest in societies with recent experiences of authoritarianism, and how they respond to the global trend towards intensified technical means of control. With thorough empirical studies, the book constitutes an important contribution to security studies, surveillance studies, and post-communist area studies.