“Do we want our lives to be documented from A to Z?”

For years, security cameras have been appearing in private and public spaces alike, usually without as much hullabaloo. Our societies, however, might be at a tipping point. Video surveillance, once limited to passive recording, is becoming “intelligent”. What was once human-monitored is now algorithm-driven. Will this help avoid human mistakes and drifts? Or are we replacing these with algorithmic biases? And are our societies ready for an Orwellian future?

A PhD in law and a philosopher, Johan Rochel is a lecturer at the EPFL’s College of Humanities and the co-founder of Ethix, a Zurich-based consulting firm specializing in the law and ethics of innovation.

Is the use of video surveillance on the rise?

Yes. And it’s happening both visibly and more discreetly. For local authorities, installing video surveillance cameras has now become very affordable. It can turn into a kind of reflex when facing a problem: “People are dealing drugs around the train station? Let’s install cameras.” What’s really new is the combination of cheap, widely available cameras and powerful AI tools. Surveillance is no longer passive; it’s now automated, intelligent. Users can detect movement, identify behaviors, make searches for specific faces.

Is this happening on private property as well?

Yes, that’s another facet of the issue. A lot of people are installing cameras to monitor the entrances to their houses. For this kind of surveillance, there are precise laws and regulations. The portion of the public space that private citizens are allowed to film is very limited.

Does it all amount to a question of freedom vs safety?

The debate is often framed like this, a zero-sum game between liberties and security: more of one means less of the other. But I’m not sure that’s the right way to see it. Do surveillance cameras really make us safer? They may create an impression of security, but the cost in terms of freedom isn’t shared equally. Technology doesn’t impact everyone the same way. If you’re a young white man in a suit coming home from work, you might not even notice the cameras. And it’s unlikely you’re the one being watched. This is the old question of racial and social profiling, but now this tendency is embedded in the technology itself.

Can technology be biased?

Technology is always biased in the sense of reflecting objectives and values. This has to do with the way these tools are trained and calibrated. For example, they are often fed data that reflect a limited segment of the population — often white. As a result, these systems are less accurate at identifying people with darker skin tones. There are many documented cases, especially in the United States, where individuals were wrongly accused because the software misidentified them. I’m not saying the police are racists — it’s the tools that are flawed. But even if recognition technology were perfect, its deployment is rarely neutral.

As a philosopher, what do you think our inclination for surveillance says about us as a society?

The issue of surveillance brings me to a broader question: to what extent are we ready to have our lives documented from A to Z, everywhere, all the time? There’s a deep trend toward turning every aspect of our existence into data. Surveillance cameras are just one piece of this puzzle, they contribute to the same logic of documentation. Being filmed at a train station may not seem like a big deal. But the real question is: when we add up all the places we are being monitored, is there still a part of our life that escapes data capture? For many people, the answer is no.

This has profound consequences. Not just in terms of privacy, but in how we behave. How does it affect us to know we’re being watched? Do we act differently? What happens to trust, to spontaneity, when we live under potential observation? We don’t yet know what it does to human relationships, or to relationships between individuals and the state, when everything is monitored and archived. But history suggests that when too much information is collected about people, things rarely go well.

You seem pretty pessimistic.

Yes. There’s a structural reason for that. A lot of people around me focus on promoting new technologies — industry players, private actors, those who sell these tools. But far fewer people emphasize the risks, the need to slow down and think carefully. I see that as my role. I’m kind of “Mr Bad News,” and I’m fine with that. It’s not that I’m against technology — on the contrary, it offers amazing possibilities. But my political conviction, rooted in liberalism, reminds me that when others — states, companies, even individuals — hold too much information about me, they gain power. And power can be misused.

This interview has been edited and first published in C4DT Focus#9.