Taking surveillance apart: states, online surveillance, and machines of ambivalent grace

Abstract State surveillance has been shown to be a significant public and academic concern. That online communication from the public is subject to official scrutiny is not new knowledge, and with ever increasing connectivity, platforms and methods for doing so it will only increase. However, what is often not considered is how the public is likewise scrutinising these surveillance practices and the agencies performing them. Using original survey data and interviews with participants in the UK, we consider how this gaze is turned back onto the agents and agencies doing online communication surveillance. Participants express their gaze in terms of geographic, political and organisational factors, with trust and perceived competency playing central roles in their deliberations. Further, a distinction is made between automated and human analysis: while we had expected largely negative responses to automated analysis, participants often felt more comfortable with this than human analysis. Machines were perceived as more neutral, albeit with a degree of ambivalence as to their ultimate virtue. An underlying sense from participants of not being of interest to authorities is also woven through responses. These novel findings present important questions about the capacity of the public to critically engage with surveillance and take it apart, as well as being dissected by it.