Beatrice von Silva‐Tarouca Larsen, Setting the Watch: Privacy and the Ethics of CCTV Surveillance, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011, 226 pp, hb £50.00.
| Published date | 01 May 2014 |
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| Author | Joe Purshouse |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12077_4 |
and constitutional law and theory. She is equally comfortable with either vein of
material, and has joined the dots between the two to great effect, leaving virtually
no stone unturned in the presentation and defence of her argument. In the
process, she has made a contribution to the study of both children’s rights and
socio-economic rights that will shape discussion of these questions for years to
come.
Conor O’Mahony*
Beatrice von Silva-Tarouca Larsen,Setting the Watch: Privacy and the Ethics of
CCTV Surveillance, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011, 226 pp, hb £50.00.
The rise in the use of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in
public places in the UK has been well documented. In academic discourse and
public debate, questions about the extent to which such surveillance is an
effective tool in the prevention of crime and how they are to be weighed against
concerns for people’s privacy are often considered with little discussion of the
ethical principles underlying these privacy-based interests and their normative
value. Larsen offers an extended and systematic consideration of these ethical
principles, a rationale for the protection of privacy interests, and a discussion of
the extent to which they can be justly compromised in the interest of crime
prevention. Her main thesis is that public CCTV violates the intrinsically
dignity-based entitlement to anonymity by interfering with the individual’s
ability to control the presentation of the self. Challenging the presumption that
public CCTV is ‘just another pair of eyes’ observing people as they move around
in public space, this thesis serves as the premise for various recommendations that
are made to redraw the current balance struck between privacy and the State’s
interest in crime prevention through the use of public CCTV. This review
assesses the success of the philosophical arguments underpinning Larsen’s main
premise and evaluates the conclusions she draws regarding the use of public
CCTV in the United Kingdom.
In the first chapter,Larsen seeks to fill a philosophical lacuna, undertaking the
task of elucidating what privacy interests people should have when in a public
space. Here she develops Andrew von Hirsch’s concept of anonymity in public
space (‘The Ethics of Public Television Surveillance’ in von Hirsch, Garland
and Wakefield (eds), Ethical and Social Perspective on Situational Crime Prevention
(Oxford: Hart, 2000)), arguing that ‘anonymity conventions’ dictate that a
person can expect to go about in public space without being identified and
subjected to prolonged scrutiny. Larsen argues that privacy gives the individual
the power to control the presentation of the self. This access control, according
to Larsen, creates zones where a person is free from uninvited scrutiny. Accord-
ing to Larsen, unwanted exposure to scrutiny is demeaning because individuals
*University College Cork.
bs_bs_banner
Reviews
© 2014 The Authors. The Modern Law Review © 2014 The Modern Law Review Limited.
524 (2014) 77(3) MLR 513–531
To continue reading
Request your trial