“Digital technologies permeate our lives and make the walls of the built environment increasingly porous, no longer the hard boundary they once were when it comes to decisions about privacy. Data profiling, aggregation, analysis, and sharing are broad and hidden, making it harder than ever to constrain the flow of data about us.” Nissenbaum and Varnelis 2010).

 

 

The use of CCTV camera’s is an example of an archive that brings the realms of the private and public together, as well as issues of authority and control. Does walking though a shopping centre or park mean you give permission for your actions to be recorded? Or is this just part of living in a high-density area in western society? The answers to these questions will vary according to the person, but the fact is that they exist. Some cameras are more visible than others, however what isn’t always visible is who is behind the camera. Who gets to view the footage? An extension of this is the fact that anyone with a camera enabled phone, can now perform this same exercise and possibly not be under the same rules or regulations that businesses or surveillance companies are when dealing with footage. The aggregation and flow of data mentioned above, can also be seen in discussions of shopping centres potentially using your Wi-Fi connection and security footage to track your shopping habits.

 

 

Nissenbaum, H and Kazys Varnelis, K 2010,Situated Technologies Pamphlets 9: Modulated Cities: Networked Spaces, Reconstituted Subjects, Situated Technologies, Accessed 5 November 2014, www.situatedtechnologies.net.