A photograph taken by Stasi operatives of suspected defectors at an abandoned restaurant in Kreuzberg, Berlin, in 1962.
Stasi Records Agency Berlin/Bild
30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, covert surveillance images offer us an unparalleled look at the lives of people trying to escape from the east to the west.
Darwin is one of the aspiring 'smart cities' that is adopting Chinese technology that can identify and track individuals. Add changes in Australian law, and we have the makings of a surveillance state.
Technology can significantly improve governments’ surveillance abilities.
Reuters/Thomas Peter
AI can help make government more efficient – but at what cost? Citizens' lives could be better or worse, based on how the technology is used.
Cairns has an extensive CCTV network, which as well as keeping homeless people under surveillance is sometimes used to help them.
Andreina Schoeberlein/Flickr
Surveillance often results in people who are homeless being the target of enforcement measures. But a new study in Cairns shows surveillance can also be used to achieve more positive social outcomes.
A scholar asks: If two acts of violence kill similar numbers of people, have similar effects on victims and communities, and spread fear and terror, should they not be seen as equally abhorrent?
Who’s collecting your data, and what are they using your data for?
Brian A. Jackson/Shutterstock.com
In the 10 years since Google Street View launched, the platform has provided ample fodder for artists, who have used it to comment on surveillance, poverty and gentrification.
Is someone watching while you work?
Jay Moff/flickr
Computers are getting better at identifying people's faces, and while that can be helpful as well as worrisome. To properly understand the legal and privacy ramifications, we need to know how facial recognition technology works.
Global media systems cannot effectively contribute to social progress until opportunities not just for access, but also for active participation, are more widely shared.
The Snooper's Charter has cleared parliament, but there might still be a way to stop the government collecting all our internet histories.
Shifts in our communication infrastructures have reshaped the very possibilities of social order driven by markets and commercial exploitation.
Marc Smith/flickr
Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science
Capitalism has become focused on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and processing – as if the social itself has become the new target of capitalism’s expansion.
Chinese are starting to question government control of the terms of public debate, as conveyed by this propoganda banner in Hangzhou in 2010.
Philip Roeland
Hangzhou is hosting the G20 summit and China is anxious to present a positive picture of the country to the world, but the official attitude to non-compliant citizens isn't helping.