Bureaucratic Surveillance

In modern societies, the quintessential formal organization is the bureaucracy, defined by Max Weber as a hierarchical entity with power concentrated at the top, that required written rules, information control, and salaried officials. Although the successful functioning of a bureaucracy is dependent on a number of things (e.g., clear-cut lines of authority and written rules), its capacity to watch over and keep control over its members is important. Such surveillance is made possible through the accumulation of information and direct supervision and provides a means of procuring efficiency, especially in the large- scale and unwieldy tasks that confront any expanding modern nation-states. Because there is growing concern among organizations in terms of their liability for the actions of their employees, bureaucratic surveillance techniques are being explored by many businesses globally. However, the growth of surveillance has also contributed to public policy concerns about individual privacy.

Keywords Bureaucracy; Bureaucractic Surveillance; Disciplinary Power; Desktop Monitoring Programs; Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986; Governance; Panopticon

Social Interaction in Groups & Organizations > Bureaucratic Surveillance

Overview

The expansion of industrial societies was accompanied, among other things, by the growth in large-scale organizations such as the factory and the state. In modern societies, formal organizations exist to coordinate the activities of its members in a stable way across space and time (Giddens, 1990). The quintessentially formal organization is the bureaucracy, defined by Max Weber as a hierarchical entity with power concentrated at the top, that requires written rules, information control, and salaried officials. Weber not only viewed bureaucratic organization as the most efficient organizational structure for modern societies (as a sophisticated machine), but also as an inevitable aspect of modern life. Although the successful functioning of a bureaucracy is dependent on a number of things (e.g., clear-cut lines of authority and written rules), its capacity to watch over and keep control over its members is important. This monitoring is known as surveillance, and is made possible through the accumulation of information and direct supervision. Because there is growing concern among organizations in terms of their liability for the actions of their employees, bureaucratic surveillance techniques are being explored by many businesses globally. However, the growth of surveillance has also contributed to public policy concerns about individual privacy.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is a type of formal organization that is equipped to accomplish large-scale administrative tasks in a rational way (Du Bois & Berg, 2002). Bureaucracies are typically large, impersonal organizations with a complex hierarchy. Power within such organizations lies with the institutional structure rather than with particular individuals, although there are clear lines of authority and a highly specialized division of labor. Job tasks are allocated to particular officials, and regulated through specific rules. People who work in bureaucratic organizations are expected to subsume their thoughts and feelings to our duties and responsibilities; the job or position occupied by a person is separate and distinct from the person herself, to the extent that bureaucracies are generally criticized as being impersonal places to work (Weber, 1946).

Although the contemporary experience of bureaucratic organizations is typically negative (people see them as slow, impersonal, and inefficient, with too much "red tape"), Weber viewed bureaucracy as a rational administrative structure that would govern and regulate the human nature of employees. For Weber, bureaucratic surveillance was a means of procuring efficiency, especially in the large scale and unwieldy tasks that confront any expanding modern nation-state (Webster & Blom, 2004, p. 330). Moreover, his ideal type emphasized practices and arrangements that depend on codified information (written rules and duties) and direct supervision. However, these are relatively under-explored dimensions within his work, which were taken up in more detail by the French philosopher-historian Michel Foucault.

Surveillance

Foucault studied at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1940s and developed what is widely acknowledged as an eclectic and unconventional approach to scholarly study (Eribon, 1994). His work deals with diverse topics (sexuality, madness, medicine, and penality) that are connected to each other through his interest in social order and power. In particular, he was interested in how things come to be known and accepted as facts; or rather, how some groups and not others seem to be able to establish claims that come to be regarded as truth. He studied how language, cultural practices, and social perceptions help people exercise power and exert control over others. However, he didn't see power and control as "them" and "us" issues; as resources that some groups have and others don't. Rather, he saw power as constituted via specific practices that characterize modern societies: surveillance, specialized knowledge, and corrective measures (e.g., Foucault, 1973). Together, these social practices constitute a form of power over people that does not use force (as is evident in traditional forms of power, argued Foucault) but rather, makes people visible to those in authority, and in so doing, makes them amenable to degrees of control and regulation.

Foucault drew on a particular metaphor to describe his vision of shifts in forms of power and to illustrate his argument that visibility was especially important in what he termed disciplinary power (Foucault, 1979). This metaphor involves the "panopticon," a circular building designed by the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century with the goal of establishing order and conformity in prisons. The panopticon was a circular building with cells built around its edge and an inspection tower in the center, from which a guard could see all prisoners, and also could be seen by them. The goal of this design was control through isolation and the possibility of constant (invisible) surveillance. Although the design was never fully implemented, Foucault saw it as a metaphor for how modern power worked; by encouraging people to conform to dominant ideas and norms by regulating or correcting their own behaviors (Foucault, 1979). Because people never know when they are being watched, they have little choice but to ensure that they are behaving in conforming or appropriate ways. Thus, power for Foucault is productive; it works by persuading people to undertake activities and practices because they believe them to be in their best interests (Greco, 1993).

Surveillance & Bureaucratic Organizations

Accordingly, in Foucault's framework, the physical settings of organizations play an important role in establishing the visibility of one group by another (Foucault, 1973, 1979). There are many architectural similarities in buildings that are typical of modern societies, such as hospitals, schools, and prisons. In the nineteenth century, when these kinds of institutions expanded, the buildings that housed them represented new points of collection where people could be monitored and those in authority could observe them with minimum effort (Nettleton, 1992). The spatial layout — many rooms connected by walkways and halls — made it possible for one person to watch over a number of people. Moreover, such buildings were often designed with a social hierarchy in mind. The more elevated one's professional position, the closer one might be located to the top of the building. Therefore, Foucault argued that physical layout both reinforced a social hierarchy and established a spatial and widely recognized (given the uniform architecture associated with these organizations and buildings) form of authority. In turn, this authority was possible because of the degree of visibility supported by physical layout.

Foucault considered visibility important because of the degree of supervision it permits. For instance, in organizations where work is characterized by being dull, routine, and repetitive, it is not unusual to find that the employees work in relatively open spaces, where they are visible not only to each other, but also, crucially, to superiors. In such settings, employees need to give the appearance of being alert and absorbed in their work (Giddens, 1997). Moreover, when the activities of employees in organizations are coordinated (e.g. through timetables, such as in schools) efficient use is made of both space and people.

However, visibility is not only dependent on physical layout, but also on the extent and nature of information that is available about people. In organizations, such information could include employee records that might be used to evaluate performance, or the kinds of information held by the state about its population. The growth of this information has led many researchers to argue that modern societies are now surveillance societies (Lyon, 1994).

Further Insights

The Surveillance Society

Although Daniel Bell (1973) identified the explosion of information as the chief characteristic of modern society, other social scientists have pointed to the sources of information, the technologies used to procure information and the implications of such information for self-identity and social relations. For instance, Lyon (1994) has pointed to the dystopian dimensions of information; that is, the ways in which information has the potential to make some people visible to others, in ways that those whom information is held about may not be aware. Such information includes documents and records (as Weber identified) held by hospitals and medical clinics, schools, employers, and the state, and visual information, such as video tapes of people using public spaces like shopping malls, parks, and stadia.

This kind of "big brother" monitoring is illustrated by governments, which increasingly hold a wide range of information about people about their economic and commercial transactions, communications, and travel. Such governments are not only those associated with dictatorships but are also those associated with democracy. For instance, Lyon (1994) observes that the Canadian government holds, on average, 20 files on each of its citizens. Information storage and aggregation is important in retail too, where checkouts have the capacity to collect information about inventory, credit worthiness and personal shopping preferences in order to help businesses track sales and target customers in their marketing efforts (Staples, 2000).

City life in particular is increasingly accompanied by ever-present surveillance, as video cameras track and monitor the comings and goings of people in public spaces, often justified by maintaining security and public safety. In California, every citizen issued with a driver's license also has her thumb print computer scanned (Staples, 2000). Such tracking is also associated with the criminal justice system. For instance, in many states, those who have been found guilty of crime are placed under house arrest and their movements are monitored via electronic transmitter. And even reproductive choices can be placed under surveillance, in states where women on welfare or have been convicted of crime, courts can order the surgical implantation of contraceptive devices to prevent pregnancy (Staples, 2000).

Since Lyon wrote The Electronic Eye in 1994, the technological potential for surveillance has expanded and much more information can be held about people on electronic databases. New information computer technology (ICT) enables massive information storage capacity, improved processing potential, and makes it easier for individuals or organizations to retrieve data. This expansion raises issues about privacy and civil liberties. For Foucault, however, the existence of technologies of surveillance was not in itself a bad thing. As he put it:

What Foucault means is that in modern, surveillance society, people are not only monitored or watched by various technologies but also encouraged to monitor themselves and engage in self-correction to norms. This self-monitoring is highly evident in the workplace in the context of bureaucratic surveillance.

Bureaucratic Surveillance

While Weber argued that bureaucracy was a modern phenomenon, the same cannot be said for surveillance, whose historical legacy stretches across at least three centuries. However, it can be said that bureaucracy, as a critical mode of power for the state and capitalism, is also the modern mode of surveillance through its dependence on and use of knowledge to dominate and discipline (Dandeker, 1990). In modern societies, surveillance has grown in response to bureaucratic needs for rationality and discipline (Lyon, 1994) as well as in response to the expansion of professional expertise and new technologies that present opportunities for information collection and control. Such surveillance manifests itself in many areas of social life, such as among welfare recipients, financial transactions, and employment (Gilliom, 2001).

In the workplace, surveillance has emerged out of a need to minimize risk (Lyon, 2001) and maximize employee compliance. For instance, employers are concerned with many issues associated with the actions of their employees, such as:

• The growing use of company computers for personal business;
• Employees who share sensitive company information with those outside the organization; and
• The potential of employees to send offensive emails that may result in the organization being sued.

Research suggests that approximately 75 percent of US major employers will use some type of surveillance system to monitor employees. Such systems include storing and reviewing computer files; video-recording employees; recording and reviewing phone calls; and storing and reviewing voice mail (Staples, 2000; AMA, 2001). A majority of manufacturers test their employees for drugs (Staples, 2000). In some organizations that make extensive use of computer networks and systems, employers have implemented "continuous systematic surveillance" in their organizations. This system monitors the entire work environment and creates a trail of activity that employers can use to track employee behavior. For instance, this form of surveillance can identify which websites are visited by employees, what they look at within a website, to whom employees send email, and so on.

The American Management Association (2008) conducts research on how employers monitor their organizations. Survey results from 2007, of more than 300 companies from small to large, show that:

• Almost half of the companies surveyed use video monitoring to prevent theft, violence, and sabotage.
• Seven percent of companies use video surveillance to track employees' job performance.
• Eighty-nine percent of organizations that use video surveillance to track performance notify their employees of its use.
• Sixty-six percent of organizations monitor employee Internet connections
• Twenty-eight percent have terminated employees for misuse of e-mail
• Thirty percent have terminated employees for misuse of the Internet.

Employers justify the use of surveillance technologies in the workplace because they need to manage risk, maintain productivity and reduce workplace theft (Lyon, 1994). However, for many people, this form of bureaucratic surveillance evokes an Orwellian culture in which "big brother" is watching every move.

Viewpoints

Big Brother & Privacy Issues

The expansion of surveillance technologies and people's experience of bureaucratic surveillance is evoked in popular discourse as an example of the "Big Brother" George Orwell created in his novel 1984. In addition, since the mid-1970s public policy has been increasingly concerned with the ways that surveillance in general undermines citizenship and how information storage and retrieval has the capacity to threaten individual privacy. Certainly there is some consensus that, like "big brother," contemporary surveillance technologies and capabilities are complex, far-reaching, and, above all, subtle.

For instance, in the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has focused its resources on tracing the development of surveillance technologies and their potential impact on privacy in ways that many people do not realize. The ACLU (2004) refers to the "surveillance-industrial complex" to highlight the ways that civil liberties are compromised by information creation and sharing. For instance, searchable databases are used in conjunction with communications networks to obtain, store, retrieve, and classify personal data in order to enable organizations to influence, manage, and control people's behaviors (Lyon, 2006).

Such surveillance contributes to discrimination and social sorting in the name of governance (Rose, 1999). As Foucault argued, governance is not necessarily exercised only by the state, but also by other organizations such as marketers, who use records about consumer behaviors (encoded, for instance, in reward cards) to target advertising and persuade consumers to redirect their spending toward more profitable purchases. Yet, such surveillance technology also allows organizations to identify and isolate potentially problematic groups as potential terrorists (Lyon, 2006), as many groups in the US already do (ACLU, 2004). Indeed, the US government has expanded its capacity to monitor the activities of its population by involving the private sector in collecting such information.

The ACLU documented the expansion of state surveillance from the Cold War era, alongside a decline in legislation that protects individual privacy and the growth of public-private surveillance, in which private individuals and organizations are recruited to provide information to the government. According to the ACLU, the government could purchase such information from organizations, or it could request that organizations voluntarily provide information (which many organizations do because they fear any government repercussions), or organizations could be required by law to provide information on individuals to the government (ACLU, 2004).

Much of the information identified by the ACLU produced through stealth surveillance is oriented toward national (or homeland) security and is a consequence of the shift toward what Raab (2005, as cited in Lyon, 2006) refers to as the safety society in a post 9/11 world. For instance, one government project identified by ACLU proposes to require commercial airlines to standardize their reservation systems and identity capturing mechanisms so that passengers can be profiled; or, as Lyon (2006) might put it, "sorted" for the purpose of being targeted as a potential threat to homeland security.

Increased surveillance imposes conformity, threatens civil liberties and individual freedoms, and introduces the uneasy feeling of constantly being watched. Thus, because surveillance technologies are subtle, complex, and therefore difficult to expose, according to organizations such as ACLU, the expansion of integrated and aggregated information has the potential to undermine not only individual privacy but also freedom, due to the way such surveillance creates social suspicion and potentially damages social trust.

Conclusion

As O'Harrow (2004) details in No Place to Hide, Americans are "increasingly exposed to private and governmental forms of surveillance as they are tracked via seemingly routine data, such as detailed phone records, credit card purchases, cars with tracking systems, ATM purchases, automobiles with E-Z Pass, and magnetic strip identification cards" (as cited in Delaney, 2004, p. 140). For many, such bureaucratic surveillance evokes a sense of being watched by "big brother." However, "advanced technology surveillance has both positive and negative consequences" (Delaney, 2004, p. 140). For instance, we all like the convenience of using a credit card but may resent it when we are denied a loan or mortgage based on records of late payments or outstanding balances. The EZ Pass enables us to zip through highway toll booths, but we may feel uneasy that it records the speed, time, and date of each passing. Therefore, Lyon suggests (1994) that since surveillance seems to enable as well as constrain, people experience it with ambivalence. It is, as he puts it (2001), "Janus-faced" because it offers certain advantages (e.g. convenience, security, ease of communication) but also enhances the power of modern organizations, especially, though not exclusively, in the workplace. Yet, as Foucault noted, the expansion of surveillance is not necessarily bad, although it is dangerous, and so "we always have something to do" (Foucault 1983, p.231), whether that means lobbying for expanded privacy legislation, as suggested by the ACLU (2004), or engaging with employers and other organizations in ways that foster social trust (Lyon, 2006).

Terms & Concepts

Bureaucracy: A large, impersonal organization with a complex hierarchy. Power within such organizations lies with the institutional structure rather than with particular individuals, although there are clear lines of authority and a highly specialized division of labor.

Bureaucratic Surveillance: A means of procuring efficiency, especially in the large-scale and unwieldy tasks that confront any expanding modern nation-state.

Desktop Monitoring Programs: A computer software system used to track all activity being transmitted over a network.

Disciplinary Power: A subtle form of power described by Michel Foucault, associated with modern societies and accompanied by surveillance, specialized knowledge, and corrective measures.

Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986: Legislation that allows employers to listen to job-related conversations.

Governance: Activities and social dimensions of managing human affairs.

Panopticon: A circular building with cells built around its edge and an inspection tower in the center, from which a guard could see all prisoners, but could not be seen. The goal was of this design was control through isolation and the possibility of constant (invisible) surveillance.

Surveillance: Routine and focused attention to personal details for the purposes of influence, management, care, and control (Lyon, 2006).

Bibliography

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Suggested Reading

Bajc, V. (2007). Debating surveillance in the age of security. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1567–1591.

Ball, K., & Snider, L. (Eds.). (2013). The surveillance-industrial complex: A political economy of surveillance. New York: Routledge.

Briand, L., & Bellemare, G. (2006). A structurationist analysis of post-bureaucracy in modernity and late modernity. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 19, 65–79.

Smith, E., & Lyon, D. (2013). Comparison of survey findings from Canada and the USA on surveillance and privacy from 2006 and 2012. Surveillance & Society, 11(1/2), 190–203. Retrieved November 5, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=90656735

The world practices for the horrors of war. (2003). Maclean's, 116 , 11. Retrieved May 6, 2008, from EBSCO online database Business Source Complete: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9273041&site=ehost-live