---
title: "Equiveillance"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equiveillance"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:23:01.481298+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Inequiveillance (disequiveillance) ==
Equiveillance represents a balance of the power relationships that surveillance and sousveillance touch upon. When there is an imbalance, social consequences can range from loss of privacy, to social reactions that in the aggregate lead to unrest and political instability. The idea of disequiveillance is described by Paul Virilio in his treatise on Dromology and the possibility of freedom loss as an accident of our modern world and how it relates to terrorism and war. In this context, the lack of equiveillance (disequiveillance) refers to the anthropological consequences of a world filled with continuous recording devices that encourage a despotic form of government with a tendency to intrude upon the lives of its citizens.
The evolving field of sousveillance, stems in part from recent research on the topic of surveillance and inverse-surveillance, shedding light on how media technology is changing our sense of privacy and human freedom. Privacy becomes increasingly a measure of freedom and its control central to personal autonomy.
Increasingly, remembering is influenced by both personal and public search engines, as computing is becoming increasingly dependent upon the human–computer interaction. The issue of being able to control the amount of personal information that escapes and is recorded in the many machines that make up evolving ubiquitous computing world stresses the importance of equiveillance. The impact of surveillance will be increasingly related to the impact of increasing computer storage space and data mining processing speed.
A 2005 article by Margaret Papandreou entitled "Is nothing Sacred"  also highlights the issue of disequiveillance and how the theft of personal communications with her son undermined her freedom of thought. Mrs Papandreou's personal computer was entered by hackers with malicious intent, with multiple emails, and personal information downloaded and eventually published in book form. The issue of freedom of the press, vs theft of personal property and electronic trespassing, developed into a subsequent legal action against the journalist and member of the Greek Parliament, Liana Kanelli. The issue of public vs. private space comes into the debate. The practice of spying as a political technique creates a flashback to how previous Greek politicians where undermined via covert eavesdropping and a subsequent outcome from the previous decades of the Greek Civil War. The complexity of this case becomes twofold when the person surveillanced is a concerned citizen, and not a politician. Furthermore, the issue of taking personal electronic communication out of context for political and financial gain creates the issue of disequiveillance. This can happen on a personal level, or on a larger social, or institutional level.
"The correspondence, which included e-mails, was published in late 2000 and early 2001, in the Nemesis magazine, which was run by journalist and MP Liana Kanelli. It was unclear how Kanelli laid hands on the letters, in which the US-born Papandreou advised the FM on his political career, urging him to make use of non-governmental organizations such as the Andreas Papandreou Foundation  and the Andreas Papandreou Institute for Strategic and
Development Studies (ISTAME).  Nemesis claimed Papandreou had been trying to influence Greek politics."
The foundations of human freedom also are rooted in the idea of social contract. Biased comments from the conclusion of documents obtained without a search warrant, and against the principles of legal procedure create an unfair forum for judging and condemnation and expose some of the problems of how electronic freedom can be misused towards a systemic persecution and misrepresentation. It also exposes how social instability can rapidly cause a society to evolve into a prison state. Order is maintained in systematic dissolution of freedom towards a government that operates more like a prison rather than a body of persons made up of "free individuals" with an overemphasis of everyone watching everyone, with anyone becoming an informant for whatever side that may be competing for power.
Unbalanced surveillance, and disequiveillance can rapidly devolve society towards the en-masse phenomena such as racism, scapegoating and even mob reactions towards an individual.  It is also of importance to realize that justice is not rooted in vengeance, but rather, the law.
The Margaret Papandreou case highlights the issue of victimization through use of the media as a form of propaganda. The social emphasis of a big brother society is rapidly transitioning Balkan nations via the prevalence of  media support of such systems with an increasingly legal disregard for individual privacy.
The issue of privacy as part of freedom is in conflict with an absolutely transparent society where all things become recorded and available. The ability to mediate one's visibility increasingly intersects with the concept of wearable computing, as a form of sheltering the individual from a world filled with recorders and sensors. The ability to control one's personal information is increasingly part of how one is to maintain one's personal and free space. Hence protecting one's privacy also intersects with the concept of sousveillance.

== References ==

== External links ==
[3] Surveillance-and-Society: Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments", Volume 1, Issue 3; pp. 331–55. Steve Mann, Jason Nolan and Barry Wellman.
Exploring Equiveillance (Anonequiveillance, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law)
Despotism: An Epic Classroom Film, Encyclopædia Britannica Internet Film Archives
William J. Mitchell: On Line Lecture on Me++
William J. Mitchell City of Bits: Space, Place and the InfoBahn
Equiveillance Table comparing Surveillance and Sousveillance
Ten Hypothesis of Equiveillance
Continuous Lifelong Capture of Personal Experience with Eyetap (see sections 7 and 8) Archived 2006-02-06 at the Wayback Machine
Surveillance Works Both Ways. Wired.com.
Publisher acquitted over letters
[4]
Athens News Agency on the Theft of Mrs Papandreou's letters
BBC article on Big Brother TV Show in Greece
BBC article on Big Brother TV show in Greece
Constitution of Greece, article 19