Before addressing the advantages of surveillance in our world, it is important to note that surveillance and unwarranted interrogation do not always go hand and hand. For example, a state or government that uses surveillance to protect security and preemptively prevent crime or track dangerous individuals is very different than a state or government that uses surveillance to create a Police State.  It is also important to understand the concept of individual tracking, and the differences between individual tracking and surveillance.  The advantages of surveillance of public areas, stores, and other specific locations is rather self-explanatory, as it provides faster call to action on security and more incriminating evidence of individuals who perform criminal acts. Individual tracking, however, is different, and can often be considered unconstitutional. Cory Doctorow’s novel, “Little Brother” revolves around the notion that tracking individuals is a major breach of privacy and does not yield positive results. However, situations in the real world have demonstrated that these tracking methods do have many advantages.

Police Brutality
Source: Last Generation News

Decreasing Police Abuse: 

As suggested by Eugene Volokh, a professor of Law at UCLA, one advantage of tracking is its effects on police abuse. There are many Youtube Videos depicting Police Brutality, in which police officers act unethically and abuse their power.   However, Volokh argues that if individuals were tracked, the courts would be able to determine if an incident was in fact police brutality based on hard evidence rather than taking the word of the police officer or citizen. For example, it is much more difficult to argue against a traffic camera than it is against a police officer, because it provides evidence that cannot be disputed. This is evident in Doctorow’s “Little Brother”.  A rebel group called “Abuses of Authority” captured a video of, “General Claude Geist, a retired three-star general, being tackled by DHS officers on the sidewalk in front of City Hall,” (80). While this surveillance was not instituted by the government, it demonstrates that using video as hard evidence holds governmental officials accountable for their actions. Although “Little Brother” portrays a society in which police brutality rapidly increased in conjunction with increased surveillance, there is reason to believe that in our society, police abuse could potentially decrease with increased surveillance.

Accountability: 

Another positive aspect of advanced surveillance is the benefit of locating criminals using facial recognition. For example, after the riots in the UK, the UK began to use facial recognition to hunt rioters. In times of absolute chaos, it is difficult to find the perpetrators without any information on who they are or where they are from. When criminals can not be identified, advanced surveillance allows the government to post photos of the criminal to find the individual involved and hold them accountable for their actions.

Safety: 

Tracking individuals would preemptively scare people from performing crimes, therefore lowering the crime rate. Tracking individuals, specifically those who have had a history of violence or crime, could help prevent them from committing crimes. High schools that use RFID chips do not necessarily infringe on privacy because they are useless outside of school grounds, but they are useful for attendance and ensuring the safety of students on campus.