Is surveillance that is targeted towards specific individuals easier to justify than surveillance that targets broad categories of people? Untargeted surveillance is routinely accused of treating innocent people as suspects in ways that are unfair and of failing to pursue security effectively. I argue that in a wide range of cases untargeted surveillance treats people less like suspects than more targeted alternatives. I also argue that it often deters unwanted behaviour more effectively than targeted alternatives, including profiling. In practice, untargeted (...) surveillance is likely to be least costly morally and most efficient when used as a means of enforcing the rules of a specific activity or institution. Targeted alternatives are likely to be more appropriate means of law enforcement. (shrink)

The potential of surveillance practices to undermine the presumption of innocence is a growing concern amongst critics of surveillance. This paper attempts to assess the impact of surveillance on the presumption of innocence. It defends an account of the presumption of innocence as a protection against wrongful criminalisation against alternatives, and considers both the ways in which surveillance might undermine that protection and the—hitherto overlooked—ways in which it might promote it. It draws on empirical work on the causes of erroneous (...) convictions to suggest that surveillance can be used in ways that prevent innocent people being erroneously charged and convicted with crimes, by providing a source of exculpatory evidence for use in police investigations. It is argued that surveillance practices do not necessarily undermine the presumption of innocence but can be reformed in ways that both reduce the risk that they will cause wrongful criminalisation and increase their power to protect those already under suspicion. (shrink)