Everyday surveillance: personal data and social classifications

This chapter is about the changing nature of surveillance. Surveillance is
no longer merely a matter of deliberate, individual scrutiny and
consequent fears for personal privacy. It is an everyday experience, run by
myriad agencies for multiple purposes and exempting no one.
Interestingly, surveillance is also an ambiguous process, the two faces of
which must be seen in relation to each other. So what is happening?
Numerous data – including now biometric, genetic and video data – are
abstracted from embodied persons and manipulated to create profiles
and risk categories in a networked, rhizomic system. The resulting
classifications are intended to influence and to manage populations and
persons. The choices and the chances of data-subjects are thus both
directly and indirectly affected, but socio-technical surveillance systems
are also affected by people complying with, negotiating or resisting
surveillance.