AUTHOR
Andrew A. Adams

ABSTRACT

As is well known, the UK has more CCTV cameras per head than any other country in the world. The majority of the cameras in operation are analogue cameras attached to a nearby visual display, although a significant minority are networked to larger local monitoring centres. A small number of wide networks with broad access exist. One of these is the national traffic flow system. In his 2005-6 Annual Report the UK’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner raised the question of the attachment of ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) systems being attached to this network and being used to routinely track the movement of vehicles. He raised the concern over whether this was consistent with human rights legislation, and also the security of the data being gathered.

As cheap digital cameras are rolled out to augment or replace existing analogue installations, as network access to camera installations becomes widespread, and as automated processing gains capabilities, how should the deployment and use of such systems be regulated? Until 2005 all “identifiable” images of a particular individual were regarded under UK law as “personal data” as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998. Following the case of Durant vs FSA, the advice on when a video sequence constitutes “personal data” changed radically. As the capabilities for tracking individuals’ movements through widespread camera networks increases, the question of how to regulate the use, misuse and abuse of CCTV installations becomes ever more pressing.

Is a CCTV act needed, and if so what should its provisions be? In this paper we will propose appropriate regulatory apparatus and principles to regulate the deployment of CCTV systems and the use of automated processing systems attached to networks of cameras. Issues addressed include:

Defining the nature of video sequences as “Personal Data”. At what resolution and orientation do individuals become recognisable within the field of surveillance, is it possible to track movement between camera viewpoints, and if PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) cameras are in use then how are their viewpoints controlled?

Acknowledging the link between “identity”, “identification” and “surveillance”. Identification can be within a sequence or surveillance area (this figure seen here is the same as this figure seen here) or tied in to external identifiers including both databases and human identification.

Setting limits on who may deploy video surveillance equipment in public and semi-public spaces. Surveillance activity should be “notifiable” along the same lines as processing of personal data. Notification of systems beyond one or two cameras in a corner shop should be notifiable to the Surveillance Commissioners and appropriate principles of surveillance should be published and enforced, similar to the Data Protection Principles.

Setting statutory requirements for notification of CCTV monitoring, recording and automated processing of images, to those thus surveilled. Rights to prevent abuse of surveillance depend on awareness of surveillance. The routine recording and processing of video data and its possible insecure transmission and storage are all issues which require public acknowledgement and scrutiny if we are to avoid widespread abuse which cannot easily be solved “after the fact”.

Setting “necessity and proportionality” principles in law for the routine automated processing of video surveillance. The attachment of ANPR to traffic flow monitoring was undertaken in a systematic manner by UK police forces without any public consultation and without higher level social/political authorisation. How much recording/processing of data is necessary and proportionate to the benefits society gains from such surveillance, and who benefits and who loses in the process?

Requiring appropriate security for the primary video feed and stored sequence data to prevent unauthorised processing. Fiction presents CCTV networks as very easy to crack into with a modicum of expertise. As automated processing becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, the “value” of video feeds becomes greater and thus the security of such systems requires more attention.

Defining “best practice” in the training and supervision of those with access to sequences. As shown by the Sefton CCTV operators case and by ethnographic studies by Norris and Gould (et al), misuse of public CCTV cameras for voyeuristic purposes and otherwise does happen. The Data protection Act requires Data Controllers to ensure that those with access to data should be properly trained not only in how to access such data but what the limits are on whether they should access particular information. Similar measures should apply to CCTV surveillance operators.

Defining “best practice” in the deployment of PETs (Privacy Enhancing Technologies). PETs exist and are being improved alongside other forms of automated CCTV processing. For example, it is possible to block some areas of view from the video feed out of a camera entirely or to encrypt certain portions of the feed to that only authorised access can be achieved. Alongside necessity and proportionality rules for deploying surveillance capabilities, appropriate use of such PETs should be mandated.

AUTHOR
Jose V. Camacho, Roderica R. Camacho and Basilisa V. Camacho

ABSTRACT

The world today can be characterized on how information and knowledge can be accessed and fully utilized in order to achieve rapid economic and social development. Many economies have come to realize that investment in developing intellectual capital is the key to global competitiveness and an essential ingredient for economic efficiency and social equity. As World Bank in its 1999 World Development Report argues “(F)or countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labor. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.”

The world today can be characterized on how information and knowledge can be accessed and fully utilized in order to achieve rapid economic and social development. Many economies have come to realize that investment in developing intellectual capital is the key to global competitiveness and an essential ingredient for economic efficiency and social equity. As World Bank in its 1999 World Development Report argues “(F)or countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labor. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.”

As one examines their educational system, these highly industrialized and knowledge-based economies have dramatically restructured their learning systems and reoriented their educational paradigm starting from the basic to the advance levels of their educational ladder. The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) has become paramount feature of their educational curricula, school activities and programs. For instance, in OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)- member countries, curricular reforms were initiated “driven by a perceived need to reorient schooling from rote learning, shallow but wide coverage, and individualistic learning processes to higher level skills, problem solving, in depth study, and collaborative learning” (OECD 2001). The OECD book “Learning to Change: ICT in Schools” (2001) describes the “pervasive use of ICT in schools to be motivating.” It elaborates the economic, social and pedagogical justification or rationale for ICT integration in the classroom. Another notable effort in integrating ICT in the basic learning process can be seen in Alberta, Canada. In the Alberta ICT program, technology is incorporated as “a ‘way of doing things’ – the processes, tools and techniques that alter human activity.” The program gives a wider view on the “nature of technology, how to use and apply a variety of technologies, and the impact on self and society” (www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12). The National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) in Ireland also provides many success stories as it illustrates various educational programs such as the “Schools IT 2000” aimed at maximizing the benefits of ICT use among learners and teachers (www.ncte.ie)

The Philippine government has also been committed to modernize the Philippine educational system, in particular, on basic education, in its effort to make each and every student at par with other students in the developed economies. This is because in today’s knowledge economy and society, the capability to utilize and produce information and to transform it into knowledge and vast array of goods and services is very essential to economic growth and social development. Along with this effort are the continuous curricular changes and reorientation, teacher training and massive investment in school facilities and infrastructure, one of which is geared towards the vision of equipping each public school with the modern computer and other information and communication (ICT)-related gadgets and instructional materials.

It is lamentable to note that in spite of the many curricular reforms to improve the Philippine educational system, its performance indicators are dismal and disappointing. Recent data show that in the 2004 National Achievement Test given by the Department of Education, close to 98 percent of those who took the examination failed to get the passing score of 75 percent. In the High School Readiness Test conducted last year, only 64 percent got a grade of 75 percent or higher. What is more worrisome is the result that half of those who took the examination, around 500 thousand, did not manage to get a score of 30 percent. These appalling performance indicates that fewer and fewer number of Filipino elementary students have the mastery and competency for elementary and secondary education.

The country’s Department of Education (DepEd) ha initiated in 1996 the Computerization Program with the goal of preparing the Filipino students for employment by teaching them to master the new forms of technology being used in the workplace. Philippine education experts have long realized that public schools do not just want to teach students how to use technological tools, computers and other high tech learning gadgets. They would also like to harness and enhance the power of technology towards developing the entire teaching-learning process, specifically in its bid to make each and every public school student empowered in this highly globalized and integrated world economy.

However, integrating ICTs into the learning-teaching equation is not that simple and easy as it sounds, and certainly there are broader prerequisites of achieving classroom technological advancement. This paper explores the policy imperatives and investment requirements of enabling the Philippine educational system with ICT as it pursues the twin goals of modernization and relevance. It illustrates the various forms of innovation, pedagogical strategies and approaches and curricular initiatives to constantly steer the educational system towards excellence and global standards.

AUTHOR
Chris Zielinski

ABSTRACT

Is there an access right to information? While this issue was always an underlying and generally unspoken assumption in debate on information for the developing world, now with the tightening global legal infrastructure, the developing countries need to address this issue formally, rather than essentially evading it by turning blind eyes and generally being lax in enforcement of their copyright regimes, where they existed at all.

In copyright discussions, we are prone to treating information as a monolith. “Information” – or “content” or “knowledge” or “wisdom” ? – seems to comprise everything from soap operas to scientific communications, from details held by governments about individuals to public information, from advertising to commercial and trade secrets. In fact it makes a great deal of difference when embarking on discussions about intellectual property regimes and rights to split this monolithic approach into smaller chunks, if not right down to conceptual pebbles. This introduces a level of complexity that we have shied away from to date, although this may be an inevitable by-product of a world which has focused its most intelligent efforts on increasing the information density of all its exchanges – social, technological and economic. Evolution seems to be about increasing information density, and legislation has to begin to follow this path as well.

This paper will build on the present author’s work over the last ten years on the issue of identifying whether there is such a thing as an access right to “essential” information – the unhindered right to access such information without any legal, technological, financial, geographical or other barriers.

Everything that is said about access rights to information is either treated in the context of exceptions (e.g., use of texts for private study or citation, home or academic taping of video for time-shifting purposes, etc.) or sweepingly in statements along the lines of “copyright is good/bad because?” Neither of these is adequate to real-life complexity. Debates around these issues rapidly head down simplistic and absolutist paths: “Information wants to be free”, “copyright should be abolished”, “exceptions should be abolished,” “encrypt everything,” – these are all repeated or applied, but none of them make much sense taken across the board.

In fact, there are different types of information with different access rights. One can readily find examples of information to which nobody should be able to claim a moral right to access – commercial and trade secrets, for example, almost by definition, even though this may well include criminal and morally suspect information. The debate around powerful encryption can be read as the government seeking to assert an access right to information which the owner wishes to keep secret.

As has been noted, this debate is generally conducted in absolute terms – either for or against ownership rights. This paper has no bias towards either end of this spectrum – or rather, it has a bias towards both ends. It asserts that different ethical positions apply to different types of information – and that the legal system does not distinguish between the two.

Is there an access right to most entertainment content? While we may want to have unhindered access to music, novels and films, there does not appear to be a good argument that the human race has a legal or moral right to be entertained. Going to the other extreme, there are clearly categories of information to which there either already is, or to which a strong case can be made for, an access right. Freedom of Information acts in many countries identify the citizen’s right of access to government information. Other legal instruments spell out the rights of access to confidential information held about the citizen by public or public-licensed bodies (including the legal and medical professions, religious groups and the like). It could be argued that this way of putting the argument masks a bias towards ownership. The question “Do people have a right to be entertained?” obviously begs a different answer than “To what extent is a limited monopoly for entertainment providing support for science and the useful arts?” The author acknowledges that at present the entertainment and scientific information world are merged under a single copyright framework, so that to accept the ownership of entertainment information is tantamount to accepting the ownership of essential information (defined below). This position will be made explicit and challenged. In fact, as the paper will argue, there are currently opportunities to split the fields in relation to new digital legislation.

One step short of this emerging legal environment (although not without precedent in law) is what the present author has been calling “essential information”, borrowing the concept from “essential drugs”: information that is essential to human survival. It comprises the things we need to know to survive, to be healthy, to plant the right seeds, to feed our families correctly. It includes information related to the basic minimum needs of humanity, information tools for trade and economic development, information essential to the development of backbone industries, basic science and survival services in health, education, welfare, agriculture and labour. A strong argument can be made for such information to be treated differently from, say, trade secrets or entertainment information.

To conclude, there are a number of provisions for an access right to essential information in the international legal environment – from rather vague statements in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to the relatively minor exceptions allowed in international and national copyright legislation, to an explicit and large loophole provided by the Paris Act of 1971 (revised 1978) to the Berne Convention, which provides developing countries with the right to translate “educational materials”, by statutory licence if necessary. All of this needs to be brought together and updated for the electronic age, and the present paper aims to provide a contribution to the upcoming debate.

AUTHOR
Sheldon Richmond

ABSTRACT

Why has the computer revolution failed to give more “power” to the worker as predicted by most futurists? Why is there a new power elite of computer professionals? In the early days of implementing computer technology-desktop PCs and Networks-into the corporate world, the leaders of this implementation preached for “open systems”, flat organizations, and the decentralization of responsibility and power. They argued that this was a new “paradigm” and those who resisted the “paradigm-shift” were stuck in the old paradigm and so favoured the status quo either because they feared change or totally misunderstood the new paradigm . However, what has actually happened over the last twenty years or so is that organizations introduced new technocratic hierarchies and locked down computer systems in the corporate environment in order to prevent workers from learning through trial and error how to use computers systems as opposed to being used by computer systems. Why? The answer is quite obvious: computer systems are the means of production in contemporary knowledge economies. Hence, those who know how to control computer systems thereby gain control of the means of production. In order to prevent workers from actually understanding computers and so gaining control of the means of production, they are prevented from “tampering” with their computers at work, and their jobs become extensions of computer operations. Furthermore, their minds become part of the techno-system of machine procedures, which inhibit independent, critical and creative thought, let alone the asking of questions.

REFERENCES

Bush, Vannever “As We May Think” Atlantic Monthly. July 1945.

Simon, Herbert A. and Allen Newell, Human Problem Solving,1972.

Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945.

Rose, Ellen, User Error: Resisting Computer Culture, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003.

Postman, Neil, TECHNOPOLY :The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992.

Postman, Neil , Amusing ourselves to death : public discourse in the age of show business, 1985.

Joseph Weizenbaum ,Computer Power and Human Reason, 1976.

Winograd, Terry and Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design, 1987.

AUTHOR
Aaron Norgrove

ABSTRACT

This paper emerges from the initial stages of research towards a Doctoral thesis in Sociology on practices of digital gifting in Online Communities. Specifically, the paper represents a series of preliminary theoretical reflections on one nexus of the wider debate over research ethics: the use of spatial metaphors in the conceptualisation of Internet social relations and the consequent impact of this conceptualisation on debates over the appropriate form that ‘ethical’ research should take.

Over the past decade, the issues of internet research and the ethical dilemmas (potential and actual) faced by those engaged in such research has grown significantly, in both volume and sophistication (see for example Johns, Chen and Hall, 2004), particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of, and research on, the different forms of ‘community’ that have emerged through the Internet. At the level of ontology, the theoretical conceptualisation and consequent debate over the definitions of online communities is indebted to accounts of community formulated prior to the emergence of the internet as a significant site of social relations. As Nils Zurawski (2002) has previously suggested, theories of space have a long history in the social sciences, and these theories have in turn influenced the conceptualisation of the Internet as a qualitatively different social ‘space’ that is characterised by historically-specific forms of social relationships. From Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ to Manuel Castells’ ‘Space of Flows’, through to Hine’s (2000) suggestion that the internet ‘community’ transcends both online and offline spheres of experience and action, the spatial metaphor has played an important role in the production of academic discourse on the nature of the Internet and Internet Mediated Communication.

In terms of research practice, the use of spatial metaphors in the conceptualisation of OnliOver the past decade, the issues of internet research and the ethical dilemmas (potential and actual) faced by those engaged in such research has grown significantly, in both volume and sophistication (see for example Johns, Chen and Hall, 2004), particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of, and research on, the different forms of ‘community’ that have emerged through the Internet. At the level of ontology, the theoretical conceptualisation and consequent debate over the definitions of online communities is indebted to accounts of community formulated prior to the emergence of the internet as a significant site of social relations. As Nils Zurawski (2002) has previously suggested, theories of space have a long history in the social sciences, and these theories have in turn influenced the conceptualisation of the Internet as a qualitatively different social ‘space’ that is characterised by historically-specific forms of social relationships. From Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ to Manuel Castells’ ‘Space of Flows’, through to Hine’s (2000) suggestion that the internet ‘community’ transcends both online and offline spheres of experience and action, the spatial metaphor has played an important role in the production of academic discourse on the nature of the Internet and Internet Mediated Communication.ne Communities has in turn, it is argued, influenced the framework of debates on Internet Research Ethics. For example Waskul (1996) uses the metaphor of the public park to draw the relationship between appropriate ethical practice in offline situations and their similarities with research on the internet. However, following Mihalache (2002) it is suggested that such arguments are undermined when one considers that the internet is qualitatively different from the pre-existing, metric and topological spaces that characterise the offline world. Just as the emergence of urban centres lead to the development of a qualitatively different set of experiences from rural modes of life, and despite the flow of goods and people between the two sphere, so too does the Internet and online community lead to the emergence of experiences and relations that cannot be completely subsumed by metaphorical understandings that are appropriated from the offline world.

As such, it is suggested that debates over research ethics in relation to Internet research remain indebted to, and consequently hindered by, an attachment to conceptualisations of space that are insufficient if the ethical dilemmas presented by online research are to be resolved. Whilst Bassett and In terms of research practice, the use of spatial metaphors in the conceptualisation of OnliOver the past decade, the issues of internet research and the ethical dilemmas (potential and actual) faced by those engaged in such research has grown significantly, in both volume and sophistication (see for example Johns, Chen and Hall, 2004), particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of, and research on, the different forms of ‘community’ that have emerged through the Internet. At the level of ontology, the theoretical conceptualisation and consequent debate over the definitions of online communities is indebted to accounts of community formulated prior to the emergence of the internet as a significant site of social relations. As Nils Zurawski (2002) has previously suggested, theories of space have a long history in the social sciences, and these theories have in turn influenced the conceptualisation of the Internet as a qualitatively different social ‘space’ that is characterised by historically-specific forms of social relationships. From Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’ to Manuel Castells’ ‘Space of Flows’, through to Hine’s (2000) suggestion that the internet ‘community’ transcends both online and offline spheres of experience and action, the spatial metaphor has played an important role in the production of academic discourse on the nature of the Internet and Internet Mediated Communication.ne Communities has in turn, it is argued, influenced the framework of debates on Internet Research Ethics. For example Waskul (1996) uses the metaphor of the public park to draw the relationship between appropriate ethical practice in offline situations and their similarities with research on the internet. However, following Mihalache (2002) it is suggested that such arguments are undermined when one considers that the internet is qualitatively differeO’ Riordan (2002) for example have suggested the partial abandonment of spatial metaphors in favour of conceptualisations of Internet Mediated Communications based on text and textuality, it is argued that the limits of philosophical understanding demand that spatial metaphors cannot be dispensed with: as Derrida (1984) outlines, the relationships we conceptualise are lived by the subjects we study as a series of non-conceptual practices. Yet the need to conceptualise in the production of academic discourse, particularly in terms of the relationship between Self (as researcher) and Other (as research subject) demands that spatiality be preserved: if spatiality is denied to the Other, then any consideration of ethics and ethical responsibility on the part of the researcher becomes impossible. Retaining some form of spatial metaphor is especially imperative if one concurs with Lakoff’s (1992) argument that our metaphor system is central to our understanding of experience and to the way we act on that understanding.

The central argument of this paper is that a reversal of the step from spatial conceptualisation to ethical implications may lead to alternative pathways for the debate over research ethics in relation to the Internet. Instead of debating appropriate forms of ethical research practice from a position where there is an a priori conceptualisation of Internet social relations, it is suggested that the conceptualisations themselves can only proceed from an initial consideration of online ethics. Utilising a number of philosophical reflections on ethics from Jacques Derrida’s (1978) critique of Emmanuel Levinas and Silverstone’s (2003) exploration of cyber ethics, it is argued that the practice of ethical research on the Internet shares a number of similarities with the wider debates over ‘ethical communication’ on and through the Internet in general. As Silverstone (2003) suggests, the social space that emerges through internet technologies is effectively a metaphysical space founded on the ambiguity of physical distance and social closeness – an ambiguity that reverses pre-cyber spatial ambiguities of social distance and physical closeness. The potential implications of this argument for the debates over internet research ethics are explored, and some possible directions for further analysis outlined.

REFERENCES

Bassett, E. and K. O’ Riordan. (2002). Ethics of Internet Research: Contesting the Human Research Subjects Model in Ethics and Information Technology. 4 (3): 233 – 247.

Derrida, J. (1978). Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas in Writing and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Derrida, J. (1984). White Mythology in Margins of Philosophy, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual Ethnography. Surrey: Sage.

Johns, M. S. Chen and G. Hall (eds.). 2004. Online Social Research: Methods, Issue, and Ethics. New York: Peter Lang Inc.

Lakoff, G. (1992) The Contemporary Theory of metaphor in Ortony, A. (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mihalache, A. (2002). The Cyber Space-Time Continuum: Meaning and Metaphor in The Information Society. 18: 293-301.

Silverstone, R. (2003). Proper Distance: Towards an Ethics for Cyberspace in Liestøl, G., A. Morrison and T. Rasmussen (eds.). Digital Media Revisited. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Waskul, D. (1996). Ethics of Online Research: Considerations for the Study of Computer Mediated Forms of Interaction. (http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~jthomas/ethics/tis/go.dennis).

Zurawski, N. (2002). Ideas and Metaphors of Space on the Internet … and How These Help or Restrict Us in Research. Paper presented to the Conference Internet Research 3.0: NET / WORK / THEORY. Maastricht, The Netherlands, October 13-16.

AUTHOR
Kiyoshi Murata

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, information and communication technology (ICT) is ubiquitous, and the quality of our home, work and social life is significantly dependent on the quality of ICT-based information systems. Since the majority of ICT and ICT-based information systems are developed and used in business organisations, ICT workers, including ICT professionals and ICT non-professionals or end-users, have both intentional and unintentional power over the general public. They have to recognise their responsibility to the general public and develop a professional outlook and attitude in order to create and maintain a safe and reliable information society.

Well-organised codes of conduct for guiding ICT workers in their professional behaviour have already been laid down; however, these codes may not function well on their own, unsupported by context. An ICT worker is not necessarily an independent and unchallenged entity; he/she works within a complex environment filled with various types of stress and pressure. This context might affect individual decisions, which may result in unprofessional behaviour, even though that individual has made a conscious decision to abide by a code. Therefore, the construction of an appropriately professional working environment, designed to encourage ICT workers to develop their sense of professional ethics, could offer a useful strategy for making codes of ICT professional conduct more effective.