Por Paola Cantarini
David Lyon – BIO
David Lyon é diretor do Centro de Estudos de Vigilância (Surveillance Studies Centre), professor de sociologia, e detém uma cadeira na Queen’s Research, tendo sido nomeado como Professor na Faculdade de Direito na Universidade do Queen (Queen’s University) em Kingston, Ontario. Possui doutorado emCiências Sociais e História na Universidade de Bradford em Yorkshire, Reino Unido, e é conhecido internacionalmente devido aos seus trabalhos nos Estudos de Vigilância, possuindo experiencia docente e acadêmica acerca também dos temas sociedade da informação, globalização, secularização e pós-modernidade. É autor, co-autor, editor e co-editor de 28 livros os quais foram traduzidos para 16 línguas. É co-editor formal do periódico Sociedade e vigilância(Surveillance & Society), editor associado da sociedade informacional (The informational society) e está no conselho editorial internacional de uma série de outros periódicos acadêmicos. Desde 2000, Lyon conduz uma série de projetos em equipe; atualmente, “Big Data Surveillance” (2015 – 2020). Está também nos conselhos consultivos internacionais de outros grandes projetos nos estudos de vigilância. Entre seus livros destacam-se:“The Electronic Eye” (1994), “Surveillance Society” (2001), “Surveillance after September 11” (2003), “Surveillance after Snowden” (2015), “The Culture of Surveillance” (2018) e “Pandemic Surveillance” (2022).
Essa entrevista foi realizada originalmente em inglês no dia 05.11.2024.
A entrevista foi revisada em sua tradução inicial realizada por Paola Cantarini, e Guershom David, graduado em Direito pela UPM e Mestrando no Programa de Pós-graduação em Direito Político e Econômico da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, onde também dirige pesquisa aplicada voltada ao gerenciamento e criação de inteligência artificial sistêmica (meta-level AI), aplicável no ensino superior como auxílio à pessoa com deficiência no projeto MackriAtIvity, Subordinada à Coordenadoria de Inovação e Tecnologias (CIT), da Pró- Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação (PRPG) da Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM) através da Incubadora Mackenzie: Startups e Negócios, Pesquisa Aplicada e Empreendedorismo e Educação Transformadora. Faz parte também do programa de pós-graduação lato sensu em Direito Processual Civil, e Direito e Processo Penal, todos os programas pela Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, atuando ainda como coordenador adjunto da MackPeace – Clínica de Orientação Supervisionada a Migrantes e Refugiados na coordenação de Flávio de Leão Bastos Pereira.
Versão original
Paola Cantarini: Paola: Good morning professor David Lyon. Thank you for accepting our invitation. It is a great honor for us to have you here today. The interview we are about to do is part of the “Understanding AI” research study hosted by the University of São Paulo by the Institute of Advanced Studies. The material will also be available online in our institute’s journal and the Ethikai Institute. The first question is related to some of the debates established in the classes of Surveillance, Technology, and Society you started at the University of São Paulo in Ribeirao Preto. During the lectures, you point out there might be another way of surveillance nowadays, also mentioning society and its roles in a new humanized surveillance system. Could you explain what you mean by that in the studies you conducted? How could it be concretely possible?
David Lyon: Firstly, thank you for extending this invitation to me. That is an excellent question, as it is a pertinent and essential characteristic of contemporary surveillance. It guides us towards the concept of “le technique” as defined in studies carried out by French sociologists. In essence, the technique has become the primary intermediary between humans and the world around them. In a broad sense, technique can be understood as an attitude toward the world, representing an action method where one can refer to it as “technician” if wished.
Technology is not a simple tool but rather a human activity that can transform ideas, signifying the natural world through systems of thought. It can produce advanced machines, including narrow computers, with great sophistication and power. However, the pursuit of technological solutions, often called “techno-solutionism” today, is based on the belief that technology can solve human problems more rationally and efficiently. Specific technologies, such as those developed for surveillance, are sometimes designed with an emphasis on efficiency, valuing the elegance of an algorithm over its suitability for a specific task. Furthermore, technology development aims at various purposes, including public health, border security, policing, and welfare provision, elevating technologies to efficiency and importance.
The criterion of convenience has become crucial in the development of surveillance technologies, often eclipsing considerations of efficiency and other relevant factors. When evaluating the appropriateness of surveillance technologies, it is essential to prioritize human purposes by considering the tasks that will affect society, such as public health care systems, border patrol security, and so on. They all want to elevate to a supreme position as if it were the most.
For example, researchers in London, England, while examining the London Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition – that is to say, not just cameras on bodies but live facial recognition systems that recognize supposedly suspect people, with the police operation in that particular site. The tests showed that the systems of live facial recognition used by the London Metropolitan Police needed to improve in accuracy. When the report came out, the London Metropolitan Police, who had approved the research, was very angry. There was a huge controversy over whether or not live facial recognition was really appropriate.
The situation happened not just in London but in another context. I think of someone called “Joy” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was a computer scientist during her Ph.D. at MIT. She ended up demonstrating in her studies that face recognition algorithms are the least likely to be accurate when faced with a black population. She felt this profoundly in her own person since this was not something she had anticipated as a black woman herself. Still, it’s something she found in her research. Because of that, instead of being like any other computer scientist who wanted to get quickly into a high-paying job or something, she decided to find something called the Algorithmic Justice League to introduce fairness criteria into the production of AI-assisted facial recognition. What she’s trying to do, and I applaud her for this, is to introduce aspects of human-centeredness into the production of new technology. I hope that starts to answer your first very important question.
Paola Cantarini: When discussing facial recognition and AI, it’s essential to consider the potential impact on vulnerable groups such as Black Women. Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more problematic questions arise regarding these groups, particularly in policy prediction. Shoshana Zuboff, one of the leading researchers in the field, wrote a book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, but some researchers have reservations about certain aspects of her position. Please provide further insight on this topic.
David Lyon: I have a lot of respect for Shoshana Zuboff for her early work, as well as her recent studies, in which she has become quite famous. I feel indebted to her for the research she has done. She demonstrates further ways in which surveillance systems are very often technicists. As I explained in the first question, the technicists perform in specific ways because they aim at self-augmentation; they want to create more of the same. They always aim for acceleration over the means of developing, not just fast, but faster. They aim at constantly greater productivity, whether or not that productivity is humanity. At all needs, the efforts point at something without living, and that’s an essential aspect of developing these technologies. Frequently, technology development occurs without limits. In other words, there are no criteria for saying when it’s far enough, all without names, and in surveillance capitalism, we see a combination of the capitalist spirit of constant accumulation with the technicist spirit. This challenges everyday human social relationships through a profound intensification of individualism and the elevation of corporate behavior to a new level. That elevation of corporate behavior to a new level threatens democratic polity. For example, we have seen this clearly in the past ten years. The polarization that occurs from the amplification of certain extreme groups, as well as surveillance capitalism, always wants to accumulate or make more profit. And so, if they find that there is money to be made in encouraging the polarization of opinion, then they will go there, and that has profound effects on political life, particularly for those who aspire to democratic politics. Still, it also threatens democratic quality, not only in the way of increasing polarization but also in the way it claims to represent a superior mode of resolving political problems. Entrepreneurs within large platforms are also part of this “surveillance capitalism,” which, as Zuboff points out, threatens democratic activity. Some believe that the management and operation methods within a corporate context are superior to those of politics. As for my reservations, I’m not sure if I think it’s brilliant or not. The author highlights the role of Google Operation Alphabet in her words. She analyzes the internal dynamics of the corporation and suggests that the critical components of “surveillance capitalism” may have been developed within Google. Although further research in this area may reveal how other corporations have similar aspirations, Google has certainly set an example for others by demonstrating how data that was once considered waste can be valuable. However, I believe the author underestimates the importance and significance of her theory in some ways. For example, she sees “surveillance capitalism” as what she calls “rogue capitalism.” In other words, it is an aberrant sort of capitalism that isn’t the real thing or how things should be. Yet, it seems to me that there are good arguments for saying that this “surveillance capitalism” development was predictable within classical capitalism. I believe that’s part of classical capitalism in just a new set of roads. Also, one of my Brazilian colleagues, Raphael Evangelista, points out what she calls “instrumentarian approaches,” which is a bit like the “technicism” I explained or something very closely similar. There is actually violence in some contexts, too, especially in his own country, Brazil. So, whereas Zuboff suggests that “instrumentarilalism” has not spilled over into violent consequences, Evangelista argues that violence in Brazil is precisely where it has taken some surveillance operations within. Those are the reservations detailed about the key underlying argument that Zuboff is making in “surveillance capitalism.” If somebody writes a book that is this thick, then when it’s bound to find some things that he disagrees with, or if one was saying, one wouldn’t know it in quite that way. So, in a sense, some of my reservations are niggling ones. The ones I mentioned are perhaps more important, like the character of capitalism. Therefore, that’s the kind of reservation I believe the “surveillance capitalism” concept is critical for understanding these activities in the 21st century, as we are experiencing it right now.
Paola Cantarini: Thank you, Professor. I also remember what shocked me when I first read her book. Zuboff mentions that since Google changed its activities to “surveillance capitalism,” we are not living in a Democratic State of Law, as if we were in an Exception State. Some philosophers studied these phenomena a long time ago regarding supposed societies that are not living anymore in a Democracy. Even though this is a problem, in some parts of the world more than others, this will lead us to the next question. Do you think the surveillance problem is more severely affecting countries like Brazil due to a possible greater institutional and democratic weakness and, therefore, more concern about groups of people?
David Lyon: Well, this is another good question, and it’s undoubtedly the case that surveillance activities display very different faces in different socio-political contexts, such as those in the so-called global South. When you say greater institutional and democratic weaknesses, perhaps we should be more specific. That’s because massive democratic weaknesses have been shown in recent years and have characterized several countries that were once looked at as models of democratic governance. Countries like the US or the UK, once admired for their democratic activities, show we have some terrible democratic weaknesses in those two countries, so that’s a candy ad. As we look at this question now, not only do we have to be careful about generalizations here, but we are also very aware of the common issues that we face as well as the unique circumstances within which each country finds itself at present and in research terms. Since I’m a researcher, let me explain in research terms. What this means is that we must do two things simultaneously. First, to support and encourage the work of international bodies that exist to share experience and knowledge of surveillance trends, as pointed out in this case. Secondly, we should devote great attention to the specific issues confronting each of the countries and regions that we belong to and that we are apart from so that we can have specific responsibilities. So, the question underscores the need for both things: a global sense of some key trends that are happening, regardless of the specific context, and, at the same time, being meticulous not to generalize. That’s the reason I’m impressed with studies on surveillance by colleagues in Brazil, for example, for this specificity of their work in the Brazilian context, which is, in some respects, quite different from experiences in other countries and my country. Canada, along with Brazil, shares some of these more specific kinds of questions about surveillance. For example, we are in central colonial countries, both in colonial settings, and each of which originated in European settings, so we do have some similarities between these two countries. That invites us to share, perhaps even more than some other countries might, since they don’t have our characteristic similar backgrounds. It has changed each of our countries at many levels, including how sectors organize surveillance, affecting indigenous peoples in ways that are frequently found to be more harmful than in other fields of the population. As we know, different parts of each country have become increasingly associated with indigenous groups, which is a central part of the colonialism that has driven them away from their traditional sites. The same place they may have lived and chose to place themselves, thereby pushing the indigenous population into areas where the conditions are not so good and the possibilities for life are somewhat more restricted. Sadly, these adaptations show that we have the same concerns in common. That’s why I think we need to pay particular attention to such contexts in areas of increased inequality. Just different possibilities or different life chances are available to people in indigenous groups, especially in places like health care provision and policing. Just to take two examples, it becomes a very appropriate question to ask ourselves: how far are indigenous people inside the provision for public health or policing activities? How far are their perspectives permitted to become part of the discussion of how those kinds of surveillance are developed? Certainly, in Canada, there are some quite admirable efforts to include indigenous voices in the very setting of surveillance situations, such as in public health. For example, as a people within the indigenous population, they deserve priority if having been neglected or actively opposed in their development for many decades to access these services. Of course, it is not only seen in how some kinds of surveillance have been too heavy but also in some contexts, the surveillance has been insufficient. In other words, not only might some indigenous groups be made unnecessarily more visible than others in the population, but some may be less visible precisely the other way around, making their experiences need to be more visible.
Paola Cantarini: Thank you, Professor. So, I wonder if we can say that we’re still living in the liquid surveillance phase based on this book you wrote with Bauman. You also say many times that surveillance is constantly changing, and what character design characterizes this phase of liquid surveillance?
David Lyon: Well, this was written before we had other concepts to think about regarding how all liquid lives are organized, and so it was partly about apparent disorganization or even anarchic development of certain new technologies. Particularly those that led us to think maybe we should continue recording our discussion so that it can be shared. I mean, it was an e-mail conversation between Kingston and England when we were looking at the many forms of liquidity, the slippery and rapidly shifting contexts for social life. It quickly eats away at the long-term, worthwhile human relationships and commitments to culturally specific elements of one’s own world. All these kinds of things we were talking about liquidity, as something that is being produced by an uncertain goal and a very free moving political-economic world. More specifically, we were talking about surveillance when I would say back to the first question: surveillance capitalism both accelerates and accentuates. So, it makes it go faster, and it makes the impact more significant by the ways in which visibility moves and how we are being visible to other agencies, which is something that accelerates. Yes, it is accentuated, but it is also very agile. As our world continues to change, it becomes more fluid and unpredictable. This concept of fluidity is similar to the liquidity found in a fast-moving river. The colors, speed, and movement are constantly in flux, much like the unpredictable nature of our society. However, while surveillance may help to increase this sense of liquidity, it ultimately distracts us from what truly matters, which is human connections. In my work for justice, freedom, and peace, I prioritize solid and lasting relationships. These relationships are not just temporary associations based on likes, friends, and followers but deep connections critical to building trust within our society. Social media platforms can sometimes support these long-term relationships, but frequently they do not. They can often shorten the life of a solid long-term relationship. I believe that to build a stronger, more trustworthy society, we must prioritize our relationships with each other above our online presence. Perhaps I am old-fashioned? I don’t know, but I do believe, as somebody who’s spent a lot of time studying sociology and thinking primarily about surveillance, that these characteristics of what we need in a truly human society are in peril. Because of the liquid world we find ourselves in, current conditions make it very hard to conceive of a better world. Just in discussions with students this week, it seemed to me that the question of really conceiving a better world, there could be something better than what we currently experience, is hard to conceive, and that’s also why hope is so hard to find except paradoxically, among those who have nothing more to lose. It’s something with people, as I have talked with very, very poor, very, very disadvantaged people who are under threat, sometimes from their government. Perhaps when we are reduced to almost nothing, we can see that another world could be possible. I don’t know, but those are the things that I think are thinking about the surveillance dimensions when we’re discussing liquidity and liquidity of our world.
Paola Cantarini: Thank you, Professor, for your comments. It is concerning that vulnerable individuals may have their vulnerability heightened by surveillance measures. Could you please elaborate on this issue? The matter of refugees is undoubtedly crucial, with over 110 million people moving from one place to another, many of whom are stateless and lack the freedom to travel. In some countries, they have no means of identification or support for their daily needs. This is a significant obstacle that must be addressed.
David Lyon: Yes, already vulnerable people whose vulnerability may be increased rather than decreased by certain kinds of surveillance, and the question of refugees is, of course, tremendously important surveillance developed under the sign of a technician, as I would think of it as surveillance frequently going to fall into precisely this trap of going, to other priorities than the relief of pain and deprivation among the poorest and most vulnerable within our societies. One of the most apparent efforts of this is in how people try to relieve the suffering of migrant populations in our present world. More than 110 million people are moving from one place to another, and many of them are stateless. They don’t even have the means of showing who can travel freely in many countries using a passport. They have no means of showing who they are, where they belong, and to whom they can be claimed for their everyday subsistence, so that’s a massive problem, and of course, that is just the official figures. Those 110 million people are searching for someplace that they can call home, someplace where they can develop new kinds of relationships within their families while engaging with a population that is new to them. But, where they can find some hope for the future, one of the most critical areas for surveillance in today’s world is, in fact, among such groups in a population, and it’s for organizing assistance in ways that themselves do not add to the pain that these people already experience, and they can be further disadvantaged by the systems that are supposedly there to help them. Despite efforts to reduce the number of migrants from specific countries, many governments have set up border controls under the guise of security issues. These controls include surveillance systems that negatively distinguish between those who can enter and those who cannot. However, some researchers are committed to data justice and algorithmic fairness rather than the convenience of surveillance. There are initiatives and networks of people operating globally to encourage the development of appropriate surveillance technologies, including biometric registration. While this is a sensitive area that can increase disadvantage, some respected researchers and organizations are working with the United Nations and other relief organizations to find surveillant methods that prioritize human needs. Unfortunately, many countries can be seen to be using border controls, for example, claiming that there are security issues or whatever is intended to reduce the number of migrants from particular countries, whether Syria, Afghanistan, Guatemala, or Central America. Wherever it’s from, some governments set up surveillance systems to distinguish in very negative ways between those who may enter and those who may not. Nonetheless, there are researchers from respectful research organizations that are constantly working to find good ways to surveillance based on humans. I hope that helps with that question.
Paola Cantarini: Thank you so much again. Professor David Lyon, it was a great honor. I learned a lot in your classes and with this interview. Thank you a lot, and I hope you have a good day.
David Lyon: Thank you for the chance to work with you. Very grateful.