Yeah, you're probably being watched.

Another installment of the BCM blog.

Think about surveillance - where and how do you give away information about yourself online, and in what other ways do you undergo routine surveillance in your everyday life? Do we live in a "surveillance society".

I know who’s going out with who. I know who’s in a bad mood and who is in a good mood. I know every single one of my friends emails and phone numbers. I know when their birthdays are, I know what happened last night, throughout today, and what is happening tonight. I know when major events happen at college, at home, overseas and everywhere in between.

I am not a stalker, but I do have a facebook account. And if I can access all this information, about all 500 of my friends, so can their employers, their families, their other friends, and if they have their profiles off private, everyone else in the world.  Anyone, in any part of the world, could get on to my facebook and know that right now, as of “a few seconds ago” I would rather be watching television than doing an assignment. They also know, that a few hours ago, I went for a bike ride. That’s just on the internet.

Moving away from the internet, living on campus, there are cameras virtually everywhere. A fellow resident came up to me a few weeks ago and said “Hey what were you doing out running at 3 am this morning?” In this sense, I am under constant surveillance. The only place I am free from scrutiny is essentially the bathroom… unless I take my phone in there, and update my facebook status that way.

If I am anything to go by at all, I think we are definitely living in a surveillance society. We are always being watched. Scrutinized. Judged. Not just by one or two people, but by an entire world.