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Who Watches the Watchers in International Geneva

"Who Watches the Watchers" explores the presence of private surveillance actors in public spaces and its impact on the urban social contract in international Geneva. It highlights the contradictory views and feelings of those being surveilled and raises important questions around the transparency of the use of CCTV cameras and its impacts on civil society’s ability to create an effective and transparent dialogue between the private sector, civil society, and the public sector.

Problematic: Our research identified the problem of the rising number of private CCTV cameras in International Geneva. While CCTV cameras are installed to provide security in the area, there is a lack of transparency in how the data it captures is regulated. This creates uncertainty around the evolution of the social contract in the digital age, where the roles of private and State actors become blurred, and agency for privacy becomes constrained.

Methodology: We explored the awareness and sentiments of people in International Geneva towards CCTV cameras through surveys and field interviews, where we asked participants about their knowledge of CCTV cameras, how it affected them, and what they believed their purpose to be.

Results: The respondents had an ambivalent attitude towards CCTV cameras. Whilst CCTVs were perceived as intrusive by some, many were also willing to make the trade-off of being surveilled for the sake of security. Regardless of their stance, the majority of all respondents acknowledged that being surveilled would alter their behaviour. In parallel, many respondents held the belief that CCTV cameras are overseen by Swiss law enforcement agencies and are therefore less intrusive than in other parts of the world. However, almost no one knew how many CCTV cameras there were, nor who monitored the data being collected. The results reveal a misalignment of the social contract in international Geneva, whereby civil society’s understanding of surveillance through CCTV cameras is sparse. Addressing this misalignment is made difficult with the general lack of transparency around the implementation of CCTV cameras by private actors within the current legal norms and State practices.