The field of surveillance studies is growing at a rapid rate, fuelled by a growing interest in the questions that lie at its heart and a deep unease about the future of individual privacy. What information is held about us, to what extent that information is secure, how new technologies ought to be regulated, and how developments in surveillance will affect our ordinary and everyday lives? Deliberately multi-disciplinary in character, this book examines these questions from the perspective of a broad range of fields, including sociology, management research, law, literary analysis and internet studies. As privacy comes under increasing threat and surveillance activities grow in quantity and diversity, so too the academic field needs to develop in new directions, form new perspectives, and gain new insights. In keeping with this aim, the chapters of this book consider how individuals, organisations, and states are engaged in the compilation, mobilization, scrutiny and use of ever increasing amounts of information. Divided into three sections focusing in turn on legal regulation, technologies of surveillance, and the future of privacy and surveillance, this collection provides a unique and eclectic insight into the question of how the spread of surveillance is changing our lives and the societies in which we live.

The field of surveillance studies is growing at a rapid rate, fuelled by a growing interest in the questions that lie at its heart and a deep unease about the future of individual privacy. What information is held about us, to what extent that information is secure, how new technologies ought to be regulated, and how developments in surveillance will affect our ordinary and everyday lives?

Deliberately multi-disciplinary in character, this book examines these questions from the perspective of a broad range of fields, including sociology, management research, law, literary analysis and internet studies. As privacy comes under increasing threat and surveillance activities grow in quantity and diversity, so too the academic field needs to develop in new directions, form new perspectives, and gain new insights. In keeping with this aim, the chapters of this book consider how individuals, organisations, and states are engaged in the compilation, mobilization, scrutiny and use of ever increasing amounts of information.

Divided into three sections focusing in turn on legal regulation, technologies of surveillance, and the future of privacy and surveillance, this collection provides a unique and eclectic insight into the question of how the spread of surveillance is changing our lives and the societies in which we live.

CCTV and Policing is the first major published work to present a comprehensive assessment of the impact of CCTV on the police in Britain. Drawing extensively upon empirical research, the volume examines how the police in Britain first became involved in public area surveillance, and how they have since attempted to use CCTV technology to prevent, respond to, and investigate crime. In addition, the volume also provides a detailed analysis of the legality of CCTV surveillance in light of recent changes to the Data Protection Act and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Challenging many existing accounts of the relationship between the police and new surveillance technologies, CCTV and Policing breaks new ground in policing and surveillance theory, and argues that it is time for a major reassessment of both our understanding of how the police respond to technological change, and of the role played by such technologies in our society.