Smile: You are on camera! The rise of participatory surveillance

Abstract

This essay uses the Unique Identification Number (UID) introduced recently in India to meditate upon the surveillance society. It opens with a discussion of identity and identification, arguing that identity cards and biometric data are forms of identification through which a society validates the claims of identity. In the second section it argues that biometric surveillance and data-collection reintroduce the body as the key component of human identity. In section three it makes a case of participatory surveillance where we all willingly subject ourselves to observation but are in turn ourselves observers in what is a new format of surveillance - diffused multiveillance. © www.rupkatha.com.