Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Sorting Out Smart Surveillance, David Wright, Michael Friedewald, Serge Gutwirth, Marc Langheinrich, Emilio Mordini, Rocco Bellanova, Paul De Hert, Kush Wadhwa, Didier Bigo

Michael Friedewald

Surveillance is becoming ubiquitous in our society. We can also see the emergence of “smart” surveillance technologies and the assemblages (or combinations) of such tech- nologies, supposedly to combat crime and terrorism, but in fact used for a variety of purposes, many of which are intrusive upon the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Following the dark days of 9/11, security and surveillance became paramount. More recently, in Europe, there has been a policy commitment to restore privacy to centre stage. This paper examines the legal tools available to ensure that privacy and personal data protection are respected in attempts to ensure …