Rewarding surveillance, one picture at a time

Earlier in June, the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, Nitin Gadkari stated that a person sending a picture of a wrongly parked vehicle would be eligible to get a reward of Rs 500, especially in cases where the fine for such parking is around Rs 1000. He is also considering introducing a legislation that will aim to disincentivise people from wrongly parking vehicles. This will amount to citizens involving themselves in constant surveillance in return for a reward.

With potential initiatives like these and other citizen-centered surveillance mechanisms, the culture of lateral surveillance has now become the norm. Further, these mechanisms are moving from a ‘voluntary’ act to involving ‘rewards’ encouraging the act of watching over each other, on behalf of the state.

Unlike the traditional surveillance, wherein there is a vertical relationship between the person watching and the person being watched (State and the citizen), lateral surveillance is peer-to-peer; ordinary citizens are empowered to watch others. Lateral surveillance is described as "surveillance tools by individuals, rather than by agents of institutions public or private, to keep track of one another...” The lateral surveillance started off as the “neighborhood watch programmes’’ implemented in the US but with newer forms of surveillance technology/tools, lateral surveillance is developing rapidly.

For instance, in India, it was promoted during Covid-19, through applications such as Aarogya Setu, Corona Watch and Quarantine Watch. The government introduced them with the intent to "manage Covid effectively", which eventually created fear, a culture of suspicion, and discrimination among the members of the society. For instance, these applications had potentially provided both the state and in some cases the citizens, information regarding those quarantined, containment zones near them, and a potential databases for facial recognition as selfies were being sought from individuals periodically.

Lateral surveillance curbs freedom of speech and expression, especially when fuelled by technology. There is a constant “fear of being watched”, which tends to affect how people behave on a daily basis. There is a clear difference between the “top-down” method of state surveillance and this, because the monitoring activities are given to public. For instance, in the current instance of parking concerns, people are “rewarded” for reporting of wrongly parked cars. There are many dangers from this as it increases social distrust. Not only is there a heightened fear of crime, but it also creates a space with increased intolerance, xenophobia, casteism, etc. The marginalised and the minority communities will be disproportionately impacted by lateral surveillance as they would face a higher risk of “non-conformity” and hence are potential to be labelled “surveillance worthy” by their neighbours/fellow citizens.

Even other basic rights such as the right to privacy which has been declared a part of the right to life under Part III (Chapter on Fundamental Rights) of the Constitution could be violated. The Supreme Court, in Puttaswamy v Union of India (II), while determining the validity of Aadhaar also adopted the proportionality test decided upon earlier where any form of restriction must have a legitimate goal; it must be a suitable means of furthering this goal; there must not be any less restrictive, but equally effective alternative; and the measure must not have any disproportionate impact on the right holder.

In the current case of excessive parking, there are various less restrictive measures for solving this problem, which do not involve the public resorting to intrusive measures of taking pictures of one another. Solutions to “smart parking” have been suggested before.

There are various concerns with the introduction of a “law” that will reward persons for snitching. It is obvious that lateral surveillance mechanisms by the state are encouraged specifically when there is ambiguity in citizens’ public and private responsibilities. As noticed above, from situations concerning a health emergency like Covid, up until solving “cybercrime”, citizens are actively expected to participate.

One of the popular lateral surveillance mechanisms was the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign that started off post 9/11 attacks in the US where citizens were encouraged to be “vigilant”.

In India, another prominent example would be the Cyber Crime Volunteers Programme introduced by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, with the aim to allow citizens to register themselves as 'Cyber Crime Volunteers' in the role of 'Unlawful Content Flaggers'. Aiming to rope in around 500 persons to flag unlawful content on the Internet, the initiative was intended to help law enforcement agencies in identify, report and remove illegal online content. While this started off as a “voluntary” programme, we now have riskier lateral surveillance mechanisms with rewards; private citizens perform public functions for the State. Citizens take up the responsibility to ‘surveil’ for the supposed larger welfare of society. These lateral surveillance mechanisms, usually state-driven, start with a "soft persuasion" which then get embedded deeply.

The current case with a reward becomes a sort of coercion, wherein surveillance becomes an integral part of the lives of the citizens. People then monitor not only because they have the avenues and technological devices to do so but also because it is a tool for survival propagated by state institutions.

An “interactive participation” is created, making citizens unnecessarily vigilant because they are deeply motivated to do so. With surveillance techniques like "WhatsApp eye" where citizens can tip the police off about traffic violations, we are increasingly becoming disciplined because of a gazing mass that is now rewarded for such surveillance as well. We are contributing to a system where everyone is encouraged to ‘keep an eye’ for ‘their own safety’ subsequently heightening the fear of crime in society.

(The writer is a technology policy researcher based in Delhi.)