Demonstrating the Potential for Covert Policing in the Community: Five Stakeholder Scenarios

Roba Abbas, University of Wollongong
K. Michael, University of Wollongong
M.G. Michael, University of Wollongong

Abstract

This paper presents the very real possibility that commercial mobile tracking and monitoring solutions will become widely adopted for the practice of non traditional covert policing within a community setting. While community policing is generally considered “policing the police”, community policing in this paper has more to do with covert policing of family, friends, or acquaintances. This paper investigates five stakeholder relationships using scenarios to demonstrate the potential socio-ethical implications that tracking and monitoring people will have on society at large. The five stakeholder types explored in this paper include: (i) husband-wife, (ii) parent-child, (iii) employer-employee, (iv) friend-friend, and (v) stranger-stranger. Mobile technologies such as mobile camera phones, global positioning system data loggers, spatial street data, radio-frequency identification and other pervasive computing that can be used ‘on the go’ can all gather detailed evidence for or against a given position. However, there are currently limited laws and ethical guidelines for members of the community to follow when it comes to what is or is not permitted when using unobtrusive technologies to capture multimedia, and other data that can be electronically chronicled. The risks associated with such practices are explored.