Setting the watch: privacy and ethics of CCTV surveillance

Abstract

Setting the Watch comes to give answers to such kind of privacy issues, which are necessarily growing in a digital era. Technology makes the process of setting the watch a significantly more relevant element of analysis. In her book, Beatrice von Silva-Tarouca Larsen examines in depth the core concept of privacy in public space. By dealing with CCTV’s impact on privacy interests in public space, the author analyses a range of legal and ethical issues around the conflict between public interests in implementing public CCTV on the one hand and claims relating to an individual’s privacy interests on the other. Through her very well-written book, she shows the reader how in our society the demands for knowledge and control to advance public welfare often conflict with the private interests of the individual in relation to their secrecy, seclusion and anonymity (p. 12).