Surveillance and Capture

tags

Philip E. Agre Surveillance Datafication

Capture model of privacy "comprises the following:
(1) Linguistic metaphors for human activities, assimilating them to the constructs of a computer system's representation languages
(2) The assumption that the linguistic "parsing" of human activities involves active intervention in and reorganization of those activities
(3) Structural metaphors; the captured activity is figuratively assembled from a "catalog" of parts provided as part of its institutional setting
(4) Decentralized and heterogeneous organization; the process is normally conducted within particular, local practices that involve people in the workings of larger social formations
(5) Driving aims that are not political but philosophical, as activity is reconstructed through assimilation to a transcendent ("virtual") order of mathematical formalism [cf Digital Sublime]"

Notes

capture model employs linguistic metaphors and has deep roots in the practices of applied computing through which human activities are systematically reorganized to allow computers to track them

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deliberate reorganization of industrial work activities to allow computers to track them in real time

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step toward "ubiquitous computing,"

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some entity changes state, a computer internally represents those states, and certain technical and social means are provided for (intendedly at least) maintaining the correspondence between the representation and the reality

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As human activities become intertwined with the mechanisms of computerized tracking, the notion of human interactions with a "computer"—understood as a discrete, physically localized entity—begins to lose its force. In its place we encounter activity systems that are thoroughly integrated with distributed computational processes

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acquiring certain data as input

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representation scheme's ability to fully, accurately, or "cleanly" express particular semantic notions or distinctions

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ambiguity between an epistemological idea (acquiring the data) and an ontological idea (modeling the reality it reflects)

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practice of constructing systematic representations of organizational activities is not at all new

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tradition of applied representational work

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To keep a set of books, it is necessary to organize one's financial activities with a view to categorizing every move as one of the action types that one's particular accounting scheme recognizes

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aesthetic criterion of obtaining a complete, closed, formally specified picture of the activity

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How capturing also reorganizes

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Representations of the activity suggest rearrangements of the activity, possibly to facilitate capture

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Grammars of action misrepresent the activities

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Instrumentation imposes burdens on the actors

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People being observed adjust their behaviour, perform to a certain image, or outright falsify records

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capture is never purely technical but always sociotechnical in nature

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phenomenon of capture is deeply ingrained in the practice of computer system design through a metaphor of human activity as a kind of language

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projects, particularly in the participatory design movement (Schuler & Namioka, 1993), have sought alternatives to the engineering strategy of thoroughgoing capture

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the less a system captures, the less functionality it can provide

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contrast between painting and drawing programs

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Capture, by contrast, permits efficiency and control to be treated separately, so that people who engage in heavily captured activity have a certain kind of freedom not enjoyed by people engaged in Taylorized work

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captured work activities are often connected with the corporate discourse of "empowerment"

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