the role of technology in shaping cctv surveillance practices

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The role of technology inshaping CCTV surveillancepracticesLynsey Dubbeld aa Centre for Studies of Science, Technology andSociety , University of Twente , PO Box 217, 7500, AE,Enschede, The Netherlands E-mail:Published online: 12 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Lynsey Dubbeld (2005) The role of technology in shaping CCTVsurveillance practices, Information, Communication & Society, 8:1, 84-100, DOI:10.1080/13691180500067142

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Lynsey Dubbeld

THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN

SHAPING CCTV SURVEILLANCE

PRACTICES

In the literature on the operation and effects of closed-circuit television (CCTV),attention has focused on the roles of human actors in surveillance practices. Thisarticle argues that, in addition, the role of technical artefacts in shaping surveil-lance should be taken into account. Through an empirical case study of centra-lized CCTV, the construction and operation of surveillance from the perspectiveof the technical, material design of the socio-technical network of video surveil-lance are explored. The analysis suggests that the application of complex tech-nologies for camera surveillance does not simply augment but also limits therealization of targeted observations. This insight contributes to studies ofCCTV and theories of surveillance concerned with analysing the surveillancecapacities of contemporary surveillance practices.

Keywords surveillance; closed-circuit television; socio-technicalnetworks; camera-enabled observations; technical mediation

Introduction

This article describes a case study of centralized camera surveillance in orderto explore some of the practicalities of camera-enabled observations of peopleand places.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) has been a recurring topic in debates oncontemporary surveillance practices. Since the mid-1990s a growing numberof studies have analysed the use of camera surveillance. Studies of CCTVsystems have not only been concerned with assessing their effectivenesswith regard to crime prevention and public safety, but also with the impli-cations of camera-enabled surveillance for issues such as privacy, controland power.

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of the use of CCTVsystems with regard to the operation and effects of surveillance. The focus

Information, Communication & Society Vol. 8, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 84–100

ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13691180500067142

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is on limits to the realization of high levels of intense electronic surveillance – aprocess that Michael McCahill in his study of CCTV broadly termed the‘human mediation of technology’ (McCahill 2002). Like McCahill, I willaddress the complexities, negotiations and interactions in the socio-technicalpractice of CCTV, but in contrast with McCahill I will do so from theviewpoint of technical agency rather than human behaviour. The questionis: how do electronic observations of individuals and groups come about inthe socio-technical network of camera surveillance?

Several recent studies have analysed the practical operation of CCTV andits surveillance capacities. Norris & Armstrong, in their study of three Britishtown-centre CCTV schemes, exposed control room operators’ behaviours,attitudes and working rules in producing targeted observations of groupsand individuals (Norris & Armstrong 1999).

Undoubtedly monitoring routines developed by observers are an import-ant aspect of the practice of camera surveillance. But the ways in which tar-geted surveillance takes place is not only related to the creation of workroutines among CCTV operators but also to the network that they are partof. Michael McCahill has taken up this issue and discussed CCTV practicesin terms of a ‘surveillance web’ consisting of a variety of actors and acomplex structure of interrelations between them (McCahill 2002).

McCahill thus extended the analysis of CCTV to include not only theactivities of operators but also their interactions with other actors involvedin the use of camera surveillance, such as retailers, police, the citycouncil, local news articles, etc. (cf. Haggerty & Ericson 2000; Coleman &Sim 2000). McCahill found that human interactions often placed limits onthe technical surveillance capacities of CCTV systems, with organizational,occupational and individual concerns regularly resulting in non-compliancewith monitoring tasks, non-use of artefacts such as pagers or alarm systems,etc. – a process which he called the human mediation of technology (McCa-hill 2002, p. 186).

Both Norris & Armstrong and McCahill primarily described the actionsand interactions of human actors involved in the use of CCTV. However,material designs and technological infrastructures could also be importantfactors shaping the surveillance effects of camera systems. In this article Iwill argue that CCTV practices are not only based on what McCahill calledthe human mediation of technology, i.e. processes involving humanconduct that result in limits being placed on the panoptic potential of surveil-lance systems, but also ‘technical mediation’, i.e. processes involving techni-cal artefacts that direct people’s behaviour (Ihde 1990; Latour 1994). That is,my fieldwork on CCTV suggests that the material set-up of camera systemsplays a decisive role in the operation of camera surveillance, in the sensethat the construction of targeted surveillance is not solely accomplished byinteractions between human actors but also by technical artefacts which

CCTV SURV E I L L ANC E P RACT I C E S 8 5

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shape operators’ behaviour and therefore influence the way camera-enabledobservations come about. For this reason, I will argue for the need to takeinto account the role of material design and technological actors in thestudy of visual surveillance practices (cf. Latour 1992).

Based on an empirical case study of video surveillance, this articleasks how the observation of people and places comes about in the practiceof CCTV. In particular, questions are raised about the roles of material andtechnical conditions in the operation of camera surveillance. These questionswill be discussed on the basis of a case study of centralized CCTV, which willbe introduced in the next section. Then, the material design of the centralizedcontrol room and the camera network are analysed in order to explore therole of technical artefacts in the shaping of operators’ monitoring behaviour.The last section summarizes the research results, and suggests some ways inwhich this article contributes to studies of camera surveillance.

Centralized CCTV in Dutch railway stations

The case study described here concerns a centralized CCTV scheme that iscurrently in use railway stations in the Netherlands.1 In autumn 2000, oneof the major Dutch railway companies introduced a system that connected1100 cameras located in 15 railway stations all over the country to onecentral control room, where three operators would monitor the imagesthus gathered. In its extent and range, this type of centralization of video sur-veillance was unprecedented in the Netherlands. The CCTV scheme was partof a larger set of measures taken to improve public safety in train station areas.

Background to the case study

Camera surveillance has been used in public transport in the Netherlandssince the early 1990s. In railway stations, a number of disparate CCTVsystems coexisted. In the late 1990s, the railway company which exploitedthese systems made a proposal to renew some of the existing camera surveil-lance projects and then link these to a central control room. The railwaycompany believed that such a control room would realize ‘maximum flexi-bility for the presentation and recording of images’ (internal report, 29 Sep-tember 1999).2 For instance, a centralized system would enable thereprogramming of local matrixes, the operation of new colour-generatingcameras, the introduction of automated detection software, etc. Also, oper-ators could be assigned additional tasks such as handling fire alarms, elevatoralarms, etc. (internal report, 29 September 1999). As one of the railway com-pany’s facility managers wrote: ‘The central control room will become adynamic location and an important source of information for the management

8 6 I N FORMAT I ON , COMMUN I CAT I ON & SOC I E T Y

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and control of social safety in train stations’ (internal report, 4 July 2000). Inwinter 2000, cameras in 15 railway stations were linked to a newly openedcentral control room, located in one of the major railway stations in theNetherlands.

The aims of centralized camera surveillance

In the daily practice of centralized CCTV the way monitoring took place wasembedded in the railway company’s security policy. Camera surveillance intrain stations was to contribute to the registration of incidents (data ofwhich could be used as evidence in court cases), to assist in the fightagainst hooliganism and graffiti, and to support the work of police officers(internal memo, 15 September 1999). More specifically, CCTV was expectedto help ‘scare off potential criminals’, ‘combat hooliganism and graffiti’,‘identify individuals who have been denied access to the station before, orwho are known to the police in any other way’, and to enable ‘the registrationof individuals or small groups, in order to get one or more suspect descrip-tions’ (internal memo, 15 September 1999).

In addition to the general outline of the CCTV system’s security goals laiddown in the railway company’s policy programme, operators were givenspecific instructions (communicated through, for example, codes ofconduct, work manuals and memos) as to the ‘risk groups’ and ‘suspiciouspersons’ that were to be monitored in detail. The railway company manage-ment produced a number of documents that defined the types of people andgroups that were viewed as posing a risk for the maintenance of order andsafety within station areas. For example, facility managers wrote that therailway company’s CCTV system was to prevent travellers from gettinginto ‘unpleasant situations’, caused by ‘assemblies, loitering youth, aggressivebehaviour, hooliganism, homeless people, drug-dealing and drug-usingpersons, unwanted approaches, and an environment that provides insufficientbarriers between perpetrator and target’ (internal memo, 15 September1999). Qualifications recurring in virtually all instructions given to operatorsincluded beggars, homeless people, loitering youth and drug users. In somecases these target definitions were supplemented by descriptions like ‘hooli-gans’, ‘aggressive customers’, ‘sleepers’ and ‘train spotters’.

Therefore, the railway company’s organizational concerns with securityand order in train stations were translated into instructions to operators inorder to help them focus their observations on specific situations andpeople. However, as will be shown in the following sections, operators’monitoring behaviours were not only shaped by these organizational policies,but also by the technical design of the CCTV system and the technologicalfailures that it had to deal with.


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The role of technology in shaping surveillance

With the introduction of the centralized control room, the railway companyexpected surveillance of its premises to become continuous, reliable, effec-tive and efficient. A set-up of networks, cameras and control room equip-ment was designed that was to structure effective monitoring activities,and new technologies were applied in order to support operators’ obser-vation tasks.

However, as it turned out, camera-enabled observations often did not lastfor long periods of time nor did they easily result in intervention. This situ-ation was not simply caused by the fact that operators possessed considerablelatitude in doing their work, or by complex interactions and relationshipsbetween various human actors – issues that were addressed in studies byNorris & Armstrong and McCahill. Rather, targeted surveillance was madeproblematic as a result of the particular design of the control room, whichshaped operators’ behaviour, as well as by the capricousness of technical arte-facts central to the operation of the CCTV network. That is, the material,technical organization of the camera surveillance system, which created anenvironment in which technological artefacts elicited specific conductamong human actors, played a decisive role in the realization of targeted sur-veillance and the arrangement of deployment. This theme will be explored inthe following sections. First, the impact of the technical set-up of the controlroom on operators’ monitoring practices will be discussed. Then, attentionwill be given to the effects of technological failures on the operation of cen-tralized CCTV.

Set-up of the camera network and the central control room

An important aspect of the CCTV practice described here is the fact that theuse of camera surveillance was based on a wide-ranging, encompassing centra-lization of cameras. As will become clear in the following paragraphs, the cen-tralization of disparate systems had considerable effects on the way operatorsenacted their observations. In this sense, the human organization of surveil-lance was not the only or the major factor shaping the way targeted obser-vations came about (or failed to come about): the technical design of thecamera network and the material set-up of the control room in which securitystaff were executing monitoring tasks were equally important.

Put concretely, due to the technical construction of the centralizedcamera system, the intense, continuous or long-lasting observation of particu-lar groups or individuals was not easily accomplished. In several respects, thematerial design of the CCTV network was of decisive importance in thisprocess.


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First, in many (if not most) cases, operators would be viewing images dis-playing station areas far away from the central control room where they weresitting. The central control room itself was based in one of the major Dutchrailway stations, but the majority of cameras monitored there were located instations on the other side of the country. For these locations, in cases of emer-gencies, operators could call the local Railway Police station (if present –only nine stations linked to the central control room had railway policeoffices) or ask local security staff for assistance. If neither of these serviceswas available, a central call centre could be contacted which would assessthe situation and then decide what action (if any) to take and who to deploy.

This situation meant that irregularities discovered on the monitors couldoften not be easily acted upon: operators would first have to decide whichassistance to call (depending on the seriousness of incidents, this could bepolice or private security guards), and the situation would possibly havechanged before intervention could have been mobilized. Having become fam-iliar with this phenomenon, operators would often monitor specific situationsrather briefly, quickly estimating the chance that any problems would sortthemselves out without intervention. As a result, many observations wouldlast only short periods of time, and would generally not lead to requestsfor assistance, or to any other action being taken.

Here are some examples drawn from the fieldwork.

Thursday, 16.35 CETOn one of his monitors, the operator spots someone biking through astation. ‘Shall I call [the police]?’he asks, pointing to the screen in anattempt to draw his colleagues’ attention. ‘Oh well, by the time I havepicked up the receiver that person will be gone already’, he sighs,without waiting for a reply. The biker disappears from the screen, andthe operator starts watching another set of images.

Saturday, 05.51 CETThe operator watches a monitor displaying images of a railway stationexit. A group of people can be seen leaving the station. In the doorway,a man sits on the ground, apparently deep asleep. ‘Hey, a sleeper!’ theoperator exclaims, pointing at the screen in front of him. Because thecomputer is running the automatic scrolling programme, the imagehas just disappeared from the operator’s working console when hiscolleagues turn their attention to it. ‘Oh well, let him sleep’, the operatorsays indifferently, and starts watching another set of images.

Second, monitoring processes were shaped by the technical infrastructureof the centralized CCTV system, which implied that operators were con-fronted with a large number of camera images. Three operators (or two


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during night shifts) were responsible for monitoring images generated by 1100cameras located in 15 different cities. Faced with the knowledge that whenthe images of one railway station were on display the cameras of a largenumber of other stations were not monitored, each operator tended towatch images rather quickly, frequently changing camera sets and lookingat cameras in different stations.

This also meant that operators, if they considered a call for assistancenecessary, would not bother going through a lot of trouble to realize deploy-ment – and if they did successfully ask for assistance, they would not continuewatching the scene in order to check whether any actions were taken aftertheir request.

Friday, 20.03 CETThe operator is monitoring images of a railway station platform. Shestares at a screen intently: three black males can be seen sitting on abench, holding a news article.20.05 CET One of the males lights a cigarette lighter, and it looks as ifthe three are about to set something on fire. The operator calls the localpolice station but the phone is not answered.20.06 CET The operator starts watching cameras in another station.

Saturday, 02.10 CETThe operator spots a group of males sleeping in a waiting room in one ofthe nearby railway stations. He calls the local railway police station, butthey do not answer the phone. After having tried again without result, hegives up. ‘They [the police officers on duty] are probably on patrol.’

Saturday, 23.48 CETOne of the operators makes a phone call to the local Railway Policestation. ‘I don’t know if you’re going to do anything about this, butthe waiting room at platform number one is crowded with drug usersagain’, he reports. The police answer that they understand the problemand will respond shortly. The operator hangs up the phone, and turnsto his PC to write a report of the incident and the way he has handledit, no longer paying attention to the monitors.

Third, the length and continuity of observations were influenced by thefact that operators had to deal with a variety of tasks and responsibilities inthe control room (cf. McCahill 2002, pp. 104–105). The control roombrought together a range of technical artefacts, such as a fax, phones,mobile phones, walkie-talkies, an intercom, PCs, printers, fire alarmsystems, elevator alarm systems and CD-ROM writers. Operators wereresponsible for handling each of these technologies, including for instance


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responding to fire alarms, opening gates to platforms for emergency servicesand answering police requests for copies of tapes. These responsibilities wereadded to what could be regarded as the primary tasks assigned to operators:monitoring individuals and groups, watching scenes that had been recorded,printing images and filing them in rogues’ galleries, reading notes made con-cerning incidents that had been reported, and communicating with patrollingguards on the spot. (In addition, as will be discussed below, operators had todeal with technical breakdowns in the CCTV system). Given the diversity ofsecurity tasks that they had to deal with, operators’ attention to their camerascreens would often be diverted. The continuity of monitoring and the extentto which operators would concentrate their attention on the screens weretherefore influenced by the variety of duties that operators were responsiblefor, which in turn was the result of the technological infrastructure of thecentralized control room.

To sum up: the empirical study of the centralized CCTV system suggeststhat operators’ monitoring behaviour was steered by the material, technicaldesign of the control room in which they performed their duties. In otherwords, CCTV operators made observations in a socio-technical environmentin which they were responsible for operating several technologies with regardto the electronic surveillance of distant railway stations. As the fieldworkrevealed, as a result of the wide-ranging centralization of cameras (whichmeant that control room staff were at a considerable distance from areasunder surveillance, and were responsible for monitoring an extensivenumber of cameras and dealing with a variety of security duties), requestsfor deployment would be rare, and operators’ attention to their monitoringscreens tended to be brief and discontinuous.

Technological capriciousness

In the case study, the construction of targeted observation resulting in deploy-ment was not only influenced by the material set-up of the control room butalso by the capriciousness of technical artefacts involved.

The railway company’s camera system was built on the expectation thatits sophisticated technologies would optimize observation processes. Using abrand-new ISDN network for transmitting data from various stations to thecentral control room, applying specifically designed software for registeringand storing reported incidents, and developing databases for gathering statisti-cal information on levels of crime, the railway company’s control roomappeared to combine the newest and most refined CCTV technologies.

However, in its operation, the system did not always run entirelysmoothly and efficiently, but rather had to deal with continuous challengesto keep up its levels of surveillance (cf. McGrail 2002): technologies oftenfailed to function properly, which meant that limits were placed on the


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realization of targeted observations. The CCTV system’s technological infra-structure – which included ISDN networks, ATM networks, cameras,computers, software, databases and peripherals like mobile phones, walkie-talkies, telephones, telefax, etc. – frequently broke down, in the sensethat one or more of its elements did not function properly or were out ofoperation. As a consequence, the system appeared to require continuousattention, adjustment, renewal and maintenance in order to sustain its surveil-lant gaze. The application of camera surveillance thus involved dealing withtechnical problems arising on almost a daily basis. This situation affectedthe quality of the images gathered and posed uncertainties as to the level oftargeted surveillance achieved.

In the following paragraphs, some of the technical problems and failuresare described that put recurrent pressures on the execution of camera-enabledobservations.

Cameras in operation

Whereas the data network cabling connecting cameras in different locationsto the computers in the central control room was virtually new and hadhardly been in use prior to the centralized CCTV project, with the onsetof centralization the majority of cameras linked to the network had been inoperation for a considerable period of time, with some cameras beingalmost 10 years old. Hence, at the time of the fieldwork, images receivedin the control room were predominantly in black and white, taken fromstandard cameras that could not be moved or focused by operators.

Given the cameras’ span of life, it might therefore come as no surprisethat frequent breakdowns occurred. For instance, regularly, for whateverreason, cameras would not transmit any images.

Wednesday, 8.59 CET‘Nice images’, the operator mumbles, nodding her head at her col-league’s working console, where six monitors are not putting throughany images. The next set of cameras located in the same railway stationthat the operator watches also includes several cameras that havebroken down: three screens are black. The operator counts out loud:13 of 51 cameras in the station are out of order.

In other cases, cameras would not be yielding any useful images.

Friday, 16.58 CETThe operator pulls up a chair to join his colleague who is sitting behind hisdesk. ‘Look at this, these are really useful cameras’, he grins, pointing atthe monitors. Two screens display images of a bike shed in front of a


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railway station. The operator looks at his colleague with a sarcastic smile.‘Useful, aren’t they?’ His colleague doesn’t respond, and the operatorleaves the control room to have a cigarette in the canteen.

Also, there were cases where cameras did not function properly as aresult of lenses becoming smeared, or cameras being deliberately put out ofposition.

Monday, 17.14 CETThe operator is staring at the monitors at his desk. One of the screensdisplays a rather hazy image, showing the vague silhouette of an old-fashioned-looking car. I ask the operator what that is. He replies thatsomeone has probably put a sticker or a car-shaped piece of liquoriceon the camera lens – something that could be possible because thecamera is positioned at street level.19.05 CET The operator tells the team leader about the camera lens withthe car-shaped view. The team leader responds that he will report it, andwrites down the camera number in a log. The operator changes thecamera set and starts monitoring the cameras in another railway station.

The need to have frequent checks on the condition of CCTV equipmentwas evident from the fact that camera lenses required regular cleaning. Fumescoming up from frying pans easily affected cameras that were positioned nearcafeterias. This would regularly be the case in passenger tunnels where severalpizza and fast food restaurants were located. Operators also frequently spottedspiders spinning webs in front of camera lenses.

Saturday, 21.31 CET‘That spider is really busy making a web’, the operator says while point-ing at one of his monitors, which is displaying the hairy legs of a spiderthat seems to be in the process of spinning an elaborate web. Now andagain the spider can be seen tumbling down a bit, losing a thread, andthen moving upwards again. After some time, the spider has firmly posi-tioned itself in the web and is sitting in the centre of the camera lens. Theoperator glances at the screen, and then moves on to monitor the camerasin another railway station.

Also, changes in the cameras’ environment could affect the quality ofimages gathered. For example, as a result of construction work at a stationin autumn 2001 camera lenses were smudged, and monitors were filledwith images of construction workers, loose hanging cables, constructionsites, etc.


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Friday, 11.38 CETOne of the stations equipped with a video surveillance system linked tothe central control room is being renovated. One of the monitorswatched by the operator shows a builder’s face. ‘Hey, what is hedoing?’, the operator calls out, pointing at the monitor. ‘I hope hedoesn’t cut any of the cables so we’ll lose connection with thecameras’, he adds, talking to no one in particular. He slaps his hand onthe monitor, calling out loud: ‘Hey, you, can you remove thosespider’s webs over there while you’re at it?’

Control room equipment

Technical problems that operators were confronted with were not limited todefects of cameras; problems also arose with regard to the other equipmentused in the control room.

For example, signals of lift malfunctions and fire alerts received in thecontrol room were more often than not false alarms, resulting from hooligan-ism or technical problems. The intercom and camera at the entrance door ofthe control room were regularly out of order, or yielded unclear sounds andimages. The hands-free headsets for telephones on the operators’ desks brokedown within months of first use. In addition, they were viewed by a number ofoperators as ‘uncool’, and as a consequence were not used at all.

Nor did the PCs in the control room always function properly either. Forinstance, information visible on the control room’s monitoring screens coulddiffer from local camera programming: time indications on screens variedfrom camera to camera or station to station, or were not adjusted tosummer time or standard time (even though registration of images wasalways standardized to universal time).

Additionally, links between the control room and the patrolling guardscould elicit problems. While on patrol, security staff would stay in contactwith the control room through mobile phones and walkie-talkies, butsometimes personnel forgot to take one or used one with a flat battery.The hands-free sets that could be attached to walkie-talkies in the course offoot patrol often gave problems too, for instance when connections wereinadvertently lost so that guards on patrol could no longer be contacted byoperators in the control room, or when someone forgot to end the speechconnection after having had a conversation, as a consequence of which thecentral control room received all the noises and talk from the person carryingthe phone.

Thursday, 9.32 CETOne of the tutors leaves the control room with a trainee to get somegroceries for the control room canteen. In the control room a loud


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noise comes through the central walkie-talkie that is placed in the middleof the three working consoles. ‘Who has forgotten to turn off the walkie-talkie?’, the operators ask each other, exchanging irritated looks. Theycall up the security guards on patrol, but no one responds. After sometime they decide to call the tutor on her mobile phone, asking her toturn off her walkie-talkie because it is making such a noise. After abrief moment, the noise in the control room walkie-talkie ends. ‘Thatis better’, one of the operators sighs with relief. All three operators sitback in their chairs.

Also, walkie-talkies and mobile phones were sometimes stolen from thecontrol room, presumably by visitors or technical personnel working onthe spot.

Lastly, the design of the centralized CCTV system included the develop-ment and implementation of technologies that would automatically detectcertain types of behaviour. However, at the time of the fieldwork thesuccess rate of the system fell below an acceptable threshold and had thusnot been implemented.

This system – DEVASTA (‘DEtectie van Verdachte Activiteiten opSTAtions’, Dutch for the detection of suspicious behaviour on railwaystations) was intended to automate the detection of aggressive behaviourand thereby increase the effectiveness of live CCTV monitoring as a whole.As the railway company’s CCTV scheme aimed to prevent crime ratherthan repress disorder or follow-up on offences, efforts were made toenhance the chance that operators would detect deviant behaviour at anearly stage. Given the sheer number of images with which an operator wasconfronted, and the financial costs involved in constant live monitoring, itwas seen to be more efficient and cost effective to show only those imagesthat might indicate potentially criminal activities. Therefore, an automatedaggression detection algorithm was designed in order to pre-select images,which could then be interpreted by operators as relevant – verifying theoccurrence of an illegal activity, or the onset of such an act – or irrelevant.The railway company’s central control room was the test location for theDEVASTA technology. The pilot project was first demonstrated in a confiden-tial field trial in January 2002, but its live operation was postponed as a resultof the technology’s high degree of mismatches (interview, railway companyfacility manager, 25 January 2002).

To sum up: while technical artefacts constituted the preconditions for theexecution of electronic visual surveillance, they were at the same time centralin the production of limits on surveillance capacities achieved through dis-tanced, mediated observations. As noted in the field study, although theCCTV system as a whole remained intact, several of its elements (including


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the cameras that were at the heart of the system) regularly failed to functionproperly or were temporarily out of use.

Therefore, in several respects, the technological elements of the centra-lized video surveillance system shaped the operation and effects of camera-enabled observations. First, due to the large number and variety of elementscomprising the technological system, the proper functioning of all artefacts inthe entire system required considerable attention and effort. This meant thattechnical failures arising in the practice of electronic visual surveillance putlimits on the degree to which CCTV produced continuous, all-seeing obser-vations. In addition, the recurring need to deal with breakdowns and toconduct repairs put pressure on operators’ capacities to dedicate time andattention to executing observations. Because of the messy practices impliedin complex socio-technical systems, the centralized CCTV scheme couldnot match the intended levels of continuous surveillance for which it wasdesigned.3

Conclusion

This article highlighted some of the technological issues playing a role in thepractice of camera surveillance. Current analyses of CCTV in operation havefocused primarily on operators’ working routines and interactions betweenhuman actors involved in the network of surveillance. These processes havebeen identified as crucial elements in video surveillance practices capableof impacting on the types and levels of surveillance produced by CCTV.Yet what remains out of sight when the operation and effects of camera sur-veillance are described in this way is what could be said to be the reverse ofthe human mediation of technology: the agency of technologies, and the waysin which technical artefacts and technological infrastructures impact on theactivities of operators (and others involved in the network of CCTV).

This article has therefore argued that the technological design and use ofCCTV shape the execution of electronic observations, and are capable ofcausing disruptions that put limits on the surveillance capacities of video sur-veillance systems. The role of technology in affecting observation processes istwofold. First, technical objects steer operators’ monitoring capacities andbehaviours, thus affecting the levels of surveillance achieved in a system ofCCTV. As the field study showed, the way control rooms were set up andcameras were linked to networks were important factors influencing theways in which observations came about and observers performed their moni-toring tasks, which meant that observations would often be brief and incon-sequential. Second, technical failures arising in the operation of CCTVinfluenced monitoring processes in the sense that camera-enabled obser-vations were disrupted, continuity of operators’ monitoring was uncertain


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and communication links were unstable. Therefore, in two basic ways,technologies were central to the production of distant electronic observationsand the implications of this type of surveillance.

While the idea that technologies impact on monitoring processes inCCTV systems may sound somewhat trivial, the notion of technical artefactsas ‘actors’ shaping the operation of camera surveillance has been an underde-veloped issue in contemporary studies of surveillance. As far as technologieshave been taken into account in analyses of CCTV, studies have tended tofocus on the augmentation of surveillance capacities enabled by technologicalinnovations. However, as this article has suggested, technological systems arealso vulnerable, capricious and equivocal: while they undoubtedly are capableof providing opportunities for realizing high levels of intense observationsthey are also capable of putting considerable limits on the surveillancecapacities of observational regimes.

To sum up: the analysis has suggested that levels of visual surveillance andtargeted observation are shaped by the composition and interaction of thesocio-technical network of CCTV. This would imply for studies of surveillancethat analyses of the operation and effects of camera surveillance would benefitfrom taking into account the diversity of actors, both human and non-human,involved in the practice of camera systems. Adopting this approach will enabletheorists of surveillance to avoid dystopian or deterministic analyses ofsurveillance technologies (cf. Graham & Marvin 1996; McGrail 1999), andit will also contribute to a better understanding of the activities of cameraoperators and the sources and effects of their monitoring behaviour.

However, perhaps the best news that this article brings is for thoseconcerned about the disciplinary effects of CCTV: for them, the fragility,capriciousness and failures of camera surveillance systems may come as arelief.

Notes

1 The analysis in this article is based on a case study of a centralized system ofcamera surveillance used in a number of railway stations in the Netherlands.The case study involved empirical fieldwork (conducted in winter andspring 2001–2002), which included observations, interviews and aliterature survey.The first phase of the fieldwork consisted of observations and informal inter-views in the CCTV system’s central control room. I spent 136 hoursobserving operators: I took 17 eight-hour shifts, following operators intheir routine work at different times of the day and talking to them inthe canteen during breaks. As the CCTV system was being monitored24 hours a day, operators could be on different shifts: morning (7 am till


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3 pm), afternoon (3 pm till 11 pm), and night (11 pm till 7 am). I tookvarying shifts, including the times that were, according to operators, typi-cally busy (for example, Saturday evening) as well as those that wouldinvariably be boring (such as Sunday afternoon), and those that wererather chaotic (like Monday morning).In addition, a survey was made of texts relating to the case, including therailway company’s policy documents, internal reports, technical evalu-ations and costumer surveys. I also reviewed news articles (in the fourmain Dutch national newspapers published in the period from 1992 to2003) that featured the railway company’s video surveillance projects.In the final stage of the fieldwork I attended several of the company’sinternal meetings, visited a number of stations in order to look at thecameras in operation, and conducted several one-hour, semi-structuredinterviews. Interviews were held with three facility managers in therailway company who had been involved in the implementation and oper-ation of the CCTV project, and the manager for the central controlroom. Also, I interviewed spokespersons for two Dutch advocacy groupsthat were critical of public camera surveillance, two policy-makers atthe Dutch data protection authority, the unit manager for the controlroom staff, and two police officers working in the local Railway Policestation.The empirical data were analysed on the basis of an Actor-Network Theoryapproach, which meant that I first distinguished various types of actorsinvolved in the practice of centralized CCTV (including human as well asnon-human actors) and summarized their roles and interrelations in theoperation of the network (cf. Law 1999). Then, a number of themes thatemerged in this analysis were drawn up, and fragments taken from fieldnotes, interviews and text summaries were categorized under these head-ings (cf. McCahill 2002, pp. 29–30). In this way, some of the salientissues coming to the fore in the practice of centralized CCTV were ident-ified, and input for exploring the role of technical artefacts was gathered.

2 Internal reports produced by the railway company referenced and cited inthis article have been translated by the author. These reports are notincluded in the bibliography, as they are confidential and could reveal theidentity of those who participated in the research. For the same reason,field notes in this article have been anonymized.

3 It may be argued that this state of affairs would only be a temporary phase inthe future development of automated, fully reliable surveillance systems, assome of the debates concerning biometrics and automated detection soft-ware appear to suggest (cf. Norris et al. 1998). However, as a number ofstudies have shown, the introduction and use of technologies – nomatter how sophisticated their state – can always elicit new responses,new negotiations, new attempts to construct relations, and new distri-butions of power and asymmetry (e.g. Akrich & Latour 1992). In the


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face of these movements, networks are easily liable to change and disrup-tion. In other words, material artefacts are not simply neutral instrumentsthat can be put into service at will but are among the defining actors in thenetwork of human and non-human actors involved in the practice of sometechnological system (cf. van der Ploeg 2003); moreover, technologies are‘actors’ that do not always sort the expected results. Therefore, the capri-ciousness of artefacts cannot be understood simply as an aberration or a tem-porary phase in technical developments to be overcome by futureinnovations, but rather as an inevitable implication of the application ofintricate, complex, networked socio-technical systems and the mutualshaping of objects and users.

References

Akrich, M. & Latour, B. (1992) ‘A summary of a convenient vocabulary for thesemiotics of human and non-human assemblies’, in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, eds W. E. Bijker & J.Law, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 259–264.

Coleman, R. & Sim, J. (2000) ‘You’ll never walk alone: CCTV surveillance,order and neo-liberal rule in Liverpool city centre’, British Journal ofSociology, vol. 51: pp. 623–639.

Graham, S. & Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications & the City: Electronic Spaces,Urban Places, Routledge, London.

Haggerty, K. D. & Ericson, R. V. (2000) ‘The surveillant assemblage’, BritishJournal of Sociology, vol. 51, pp. 605–622.

Idhe, D. (1990) Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Indiana Univer-sity Press, Bloomington/Indianapolis.

Latour, B. (1992) ‘Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a fewmundane artefacts’, in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Socio-technical Change, eds W. E. Bijker & J. Law, MIT Press, Cambridge,MA, pp. 225–258.

Latour, B. (1994) ‘On technical mediation’, Common Knowledge, 4: 29–64.Law, J. (1999) ‘After ANT: complexity, naming and topology’, in Actor Network

Theory and After, eds J. Law & J. Hassard, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford,pp. 1–14.

McCahill, M. (2002) The Surveillance Web: The Rise of Visual Surveillance in anEnglish City, Willan, Devon.

McGrail, B. A. (1999) ‘Communication technology and local knowledges: thecase of ‘peripheralized’ high-rise housing estates’, Urban Geography, vol.20, no. 4, pp. 303–333.

McGrail, B. A. (2002) ‘Confronting electronic surveillance: desiring andresisting new technologies’, in Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole,Reality, ed. S. Woolgar, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 115–136.


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Norris, C., Moran, J. & Armstrong, G. (1998) ‘Algorithmic surveillance: thefuture of automated visual surveillance’, in Surveillance, Closed Circuit Tele-vision and Social Control, eds by C. Norris, J. Moran & G. Armstrong,Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 225–258.

Norris, C. & Armstrong, G. (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise ofCCTV, Berg, Oxford/New York.

Van der Ploeg, I. (2003) ‘Biometrics and privacy: a note on the politics oftheorizing technologies’, Information, Communication and Society, vol. 6,no. 1, pp. 85–104.

Lynsey Dubbeld is postdoc at the Centre for Studies of Science, Technology

and Society in the Faculty of Business, Public Administration and Technology at

Twente University. In 2004, she received a PhD in Philosophy at the University of

Twente. Her dissertation (‘The regulation of the observing gaze: privacy impli-

cations of camera surveillance’, Print Partners Ipskamp, Enschede, 2004) is an

empirical-conceptual exploration of the privacy aspects of public video surveil-

lance systems. Currently, she is working on a two-year project concerning

issues of privacy and security in the context of telemonitoring systems in the

health care sector. Address: Centre for Studies of Science, Technology and

Society, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.

[email: [email protected]]

1 0 0 I N FORMAT I ON , COMMUN I CAT I ON & SOC I E T Y

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the role of technology in shaping cctv surveillance practices

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