Singapore - Future of surveillance and transparency?
Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology @ University of Toronto
It is clear that Seoul and Singapore have taken the international lead in turning genuinely smart. This entails knowing everything possible about not just the city but also its inhabitants. The effect is to make people transparent and to hold them accountable for eventual misdeed or misbehaviour. I intend to show how this is done in Singapore. To be fair, the city administration is also keen to be transparent. The people seem to be happy in general with this situation. So the question is: forced by rising worldwide insecurity, will cities such as Paris or Rome, or any other human agglomeration not feel obliged to follow Singapore’s example simply to protect its citizens? What would be the consequences on social behaviour and the people’s welfare? I do not pretend to answer this question myself but to invite a debate either then and there with the audience, or invite the conference planners to set one up.