Transparency and Surveillance as Sociotechnical Accountability

Surveillance and transparency are both significant and increasingly pervasive activities in neoliberal societies. Surveillance is seen as a means to achieving security and efficiency; transparency is seen as a mechanism for ensuring compliance or promoting informed consumerism and informed citizenship. Indeed, transparency is often seen as the antidote to the threats and fears of surveillance. This book adopts a novel approach in examining surveillance practices and transparency practices together as parallel systems of accountability. It presents the house of mirrors as a new framework for understanding surveillance and transparency practices instrumented with information technology.