Lyon 1 David Lyon, prof of sociology, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario 2001 Surveillance Society p.2
What is surveillance? In this context, it is any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purpose of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered. Notice immediately that I used the words 'personal data'. The surveillance discussed here does not usually involve embodied persons watching each other. Rather, it seeks out factual fragments abstracted from individuals. Today, the most important means of surveillance reside in computer power, which allows collected data to be stored, matched, retrieved, processed, marketed and circulated. Even if the data go beyond mere numbers or names to DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) codes or photographic images, the technologies that enable surveillance to occur involve computer power. It is the massive growth in computer application areas and technical enhancement that makes communication and information technologies central to surveillance.
