Short BIO

Martin Pekárek is currently conducting his Ph.D. research on privacy-enhanced e-ticketing solutions using location-based services at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society. He is also involved in the EU COST Action "Living in Surveillance Societies", with the objective to increase and deepen knowledge about living and working in the surveillance age. Previously, he has researched the privacy aspects of social network sites in the FP7 PrimeLife project. Before joining Tilburg University, Martin was employed as a management consultant to the telecommunications industry.

 

CPCP Conference 2012 presentation

Surveillance as a service

For law enforcement purposes, authorities may either use a method of indiscriminate control or an investigative approach aimed at (finding) a particular suspect of law-breaking behavior. By applying data matching technologies, indiscriminately collected surveillance data are combined with data from other sources to select individual citizens. Inspired by insights from behavioral research, these citizens may be proactively approached in order to steer them towards desired behavior. The authorities present their communications as a service. However, selecting and addressing individual citizens tends towards investigative practices without the demonstration of any law-breaking behavior, thus straining legal certainties related to the distinction between control and investigation.