Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada (Athabasca University Press) by Colin J. Bennett


Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada (Athabasca University Press)
Title : Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada (Athabasca University Press)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1927356776
ISBN-10 : 9781927356777
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 242
Publication : First published January 1, 2014

The work of a multidisciplinary research team, Transparent Lives explains how surveillance is expanding—mostly unchecked—into every facet of our lives. Although many Canadians are aware that government agencies are able to conduct mass surveillance using phone and online data, relatively few of us recognize the extent to which our privacy has been invaded by routine forms of monitoring. We cannot walk down a city street, attend a class, pay with a credit card, hop on an airplane, or make a phone call without data being captured and processed. Where does such information go, and who makes use of it? Who gains, and who loses? The New Transparency Project set out to investigate the myriad of ways in which both government and private sector organizations gather, monitor, analyze, and share information about ordinary citizens.

This research, which extended over several years, culminated in the identification of nine key trends in the contemporary practice of surveillance—trends that, together, raise urgent questions of both privacy and social justice. Perhaps the loss of control over our personal information is merely the price we pay for using social media and other forms of electronic communication. Or should we instead be wary of systems that make us visible, and thus vulnerable, to others as never before? Transparent Lives is intended to inform policymakers, journalists, civil liberties groups, and educators about the current state of surveillance in Canada. Above all, though, it aims to alert unsuspecting citizens to the ubiquitous and largely invisible practices of monitoring that surround them.

Transparent Lives: Surveillance in Canada (Athabasca University Press) Reviews

  • Mike Smith

    This book is the collective product of a large group of academics from the fields of political science, law, information technology, sociology, criminology, and surveillance studies. It argues that the use of surveillance technologies has grown significantly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and that we as citizens should be wary of this. The authors define and describe nine broad trends in surveillance that the see in Canada:

    - surveillance is expanding rapidly
    - the accelerating demand for security drives much surveillance
    - public and private agencies are increasingly intertwined
    - it is more difficult to decide what information is private and what is not
    - mobile and location-based surveillance is expanding
    - surveillance practices and processes are becoming globalized
    - surveillance is now embedded in everyday environments
    - the human body is increasingly a source of surveillance
    - social surveillance is growing

    It concludes with some advice for how citizens can respond to these trends.

    The writing is generally clear and understandable, and I believe that most of the facts reported in this book are accurate and true. I did find, however, that the tone was slanted from the beginning. The authors state that "Surveillance does matter." It proceeds to lace every argument with emotionally-loaded adjectives that portray any form of surveillance as "Orwellian", "intrusive", and "invasive". There is merit to some of their arguments, but the authors' obvious bias tends to reduce the strength of those arguments. This book would have been better if it had been more objective.

  • Ietrio

    Bureaucrats living off governmental handouts from the collected taxes are here to bamboozle you about the Evil Warlocks of the 21st century: the private companies that magically corrupt the benevolent government. Sure, the government has its faults, usually corporate shills, right?