knowing glances: from privacy to visibility in information infrastructures david j. phillips...
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Knowing Glances:
From Privacy to Visibilityin Information Infrastructures
David J. PhillipsDepartment of Radio-Television
FilmUniversity of Texas at Austin
Anonymity ProjectOttawa, ONJune 2004
THE PUNCH LINE
Identities are performed in communities of meaning.
In talking about appropriate forms of identification, we have to talk about forms of
performance, community, and sense-making.
Surveillance:a 4 stage process
individuation and identificationtracking and monitoringstatistical analysisresponse
Surveillance produces social identities, social relations.
It mediates social power.
“Think of GeePS [a location-based marketing system] as a local market, a one-mile circle of energy around a potential customer, which moves with him or her, providing local information that fits individual needs. This information is dynamic and controlled by the merchants, communities and establishments in that radius.”
Can the surveillance process be used
by the known population itself,
to make sense of the world from alternative perspectives,
to maintain subcultural identity and
to articulate that identity within the larger social order.
Queer theory studiesthe creation and maintenance of social divisions/positions/power
through identity categories
It aspires toward “changed possibilities of identity, intelligibility, [and] publics.”
It probes “opportunities … for discursive counterpractices.” (queering the discourse)
Practices of identity, visibility, presence:
• claiming a recognized identity
• negotiating identity among various social contexts
• recognizing others who share our identity
• creating, defending, and acting upon subcultural knowledge
• occupying public space
How do surveillance infrastructures potentially mediate
transgressive, contingent identities
regenerative places and communities
Identities are performed
toward certain ideals,
in certain contexts, and
using certain resources
Resources for identity performance: Mirrors
Resources for identity performance: MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identities
Resources for identity performance: MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identitiesAwareness of context
Resources for identity performance: MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identitiesAwareness of contextAbility to signal within a subculture
Resources for identity performance: MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identitiesAwareness of contextAbility to signal within a subcultureAvailability of public space
Resources for identity performance: MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identitiesAwareness of contextAbility to signal within a subcultureAvailability of public spaceAvailability of public presence
Case Study: U.S. E9-1-1
Political analysis of an infrastructure of visibility;
an ecology of surveillance
Infrastructure:
Intertwining of law, institutions, economics, culture and everyday practice
shaping and mediating
law, institutions, economics, culture and everyday
practice
Why 9-1-1?
It’s the killer app of locational surveillance
structuring elements:
• legacy technical configuration; • telecomm industry competition; • mobile telephony; • E9-1-1 regulation; • information policies and laws; • profit motive;• a culture of fear and safety
Callerdials‘911’
Wirelinecarrier
switching office
Dedicated 911switching network
Public ServiceAnswering Point
Basic 9-1-1
Callerdials‘911’
Wirelinecarrier
switching office
Dedicated 911switching network
Public Service Answering Point
Wirelinecarrier business
office
Wireline Enhanced 9-1-1
PHONE ADDRESS
512 471 8083
512 353 3664
…
340 Oak St.
1823 Elm Ave.
…
ANI / ALI DATABASE
Callerdials‘911’
Wirelinecarrier
switching office
Dedicated 911switching network
Public Service Answering Point
Wirelinecarrier
businessoffice
Enhanced 9-1-1 with Wireline Competition
Wirelinecarrier business
office
Wirelinecarrier business
office
PHONE ADDRESS
512 471 8083
512 353 3664
…
340 Oak St.
1823 Elm Ave.
…
ANI / ALI DATABASE
Callerdials‘911’
Wirelinecarrier
switching office
Mobile carrier
switching office
Locationservice
Dedicated 911switching network
Public ServiceAnswering Point
Wirelinecarrier
businessoffice
Wirelinecarrier
businessoffice
Wirelinecarrier
businessoffice
Wireless Enhanced 9-1-1
PHONE ADDRESS LAT LON512 471 8083
512 353 3664
610 242 8811
340 Oak St.
1823 Elm Ave.
30° 15’ 98° 30’
ANI / ALI Database
New markets:for geographic database management
for geographically aware call-delivery systems
for location-determining systems
for automated dispatching systems served by private companies
but funded by mandated surcharges.
Information Policy and Laws
• No opt out of E9-1-1
• Info used only to deliver emergency services
• Use of locational information (not generated in 9-1-1) requires “express prior authorization”
• Only data itself, not infrastructure is protected
• “De-identified” info might not be covered
• What’s “emergency service”?
Market Imperatives
• unused systems capacity is a resource to be profitably mined
• pressure to design and deploy general purpose, modular, and reconfigurable systems:
linking locational databases to other databases;
Multi-purpose call delivery (fleet management, targeted ads.)
Context of infrastructure development:
• private, volatile, fractured, profit-seeking telecomm industry
• well-funded cultural and legal mandate for emergency service
• a patchwork of privacy laws
Resulting resources:
• Legible landscape
• Individual visibility to telcos
• Privately owned data space; data available for sense-making through
consentde-identificationpower
• Privately owned call-routing systems
Desiderata for appropriable surveillance infrastructures:
MirrorsFamiliarity with ideal identitiesAwareness of contextAbility to signal within a subcultureAvailability of public spaceAvailability of public presence
Publicness of data space / Availability for many modes of sense making
• Attributes of landscape (maps) differentially available.
• Data produced by individual’s actions available through:
consent
de-identification
power (emergencies, subpoenas)
Signaling within subcultures / Publicness of performance
• Different places for individuals in same space
• Segmenting
A generic, modular, malleable system
Potentially responsive to all sorts of patterns of data exchange and analysis (like the internet?)
But who can harness the consent, money, and authority to populate, use, and apply the private dataspaces?
Therefore, dominated by the interests of state and market institutions (like the internet?)
In general, the infrastructure facilitates an imbalance
in the creation, acquisition, and control of social knowledge
in favor of corporate and state interests.
This, despite the strongest privacy laws in the U.S.
Possibilities for Intervention • opt-out of emergency services
• independent oversight of homeland security
• all aspects of system restricted to emergency operations OR operated as a public resource
• mine rifts between state and corporate interests
• address culture of fear
Look at other legal regimes, (in addition to privacy rights)
• anti-trust
• cultural rights:data is extracted from the cultural context of its production, commodified and marketed to the detriment of the culture from
which it was drawn.
David J. PhillipsDepartment of Radio-Television-
FilmUniversity of Texas at Austin1 University Station A0800
Austin, TX 78712 USA