Simulation and Surveillance: The Transformation of Government and Control in Late Modernity

Simulation and Surveillance: The logic of Prediction and the Transformation of Government and Control in Late Modernity

Title:

Simulation and Surveillance: The Logic of Prediction and the
Transformation of Government and Control in Late Modernity

Author: Nikolaos Filippos Vaslamatzis

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the MSc in Information
Technology, Management and Organisational Change degree of Lancaster University

Date: 12/09/2005

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii

Ch. 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Prologue …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
1.2 Purpose of the paper ……………………………………………………………………………………… 4
1.3 Structure of the paper …………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Ch. 2: SURVEILLANCE, GOVERNMENTALITY AND SIMULATION 6
2.1 Surveillance Studies ……………………………………………………………………………………… 7
2.1.1 Surveillance and Social Theory…………………………………………………………………… 7
2.1.2 Informationalisation and Data Surveillance …………………………………………………….. 9
2.2 The Nation-State, Governance and Governmentality ………………………………………………. 12
2.2.1 The Nation-State and Governance ……………………………………………………………… 12
2.2.2 Governmentality and the Art of Government …………………………………………………… 13
2.3 Simulation and Hypersurveillant Control ……………………………………………………………… 16
Ch. 3: METHODOLOGY 18
3.1 Research Framework ……………………………………………………………………………………… 19
3.2 Methodological Approach ……………………………………………………………………………….. 19
Ch. 4: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 21
4.1 Summary of Findings ……………………………………………………………………………………… 22
4.2 An Analytics of Government and Political Discourse……………………………………………….. 25
4.2.1 Panic State Regimes, the Politics of Reassurance and Knowledge…………………………. 26
4.2.2 Private Sector Influence and the „Resistance Frontier‟………………………………………… 28
4.2.3 Concluding Remarks ……………………………………………………………………………… 32
Ch. 5: LATE MODERN SCHEMAS OF GOVERNMENT AND CONTROL 33
5.1 Synopsis …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 34
5.2 Networks, Passage Points and Exclusion/Inclusion Circuits in the Airport ……………………. 35
5.3 Risk Rationalities, Actuarialism and Government Through Information………………………… 38
5.4 Designing Modern ‘Diagrams of Control’ ……………………………………………………………… 41
Ch. 6: EPILOGUE 42
Ch. 7: BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 46

APPENDIX: [Whitepaper] AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS OF IDENTITY MANAGEMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM ………………………………

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Acknowledgments To:

 my supervisor for the pleasant and valuable conversations
 my father, mother and sister for their invaluable support and understanding
 my friends for respecting my choices and supporting me the last three months

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Chapter 1: Introduction

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1.1 Prologue

Towards the end of the millennium, the basis of contemporary societies has been transformed by a
technological revolution the focus of which is information. Or better, this revolution based on information and
communication technologies has reshaped the economy-state-society triangle in all the direct and indirect
relationships between them. A major characteristic of the so called technological or digital revolution is the
development and exponential evolution of interactive computer/information networks that surpass geographical
barriers and enable new forms and channels of communication. Increasingly these information networks that
support the activities of monitoring humans (or simply surveillance) pervade all aspects of human activity.
Behind the virtualisation - informationalisation paradigm called upon, there stands a hypothesis that services
and their provision can be reduced into information flows and knowledge generation. Following Castells on the
recurring nature of informationalism, we can argue that the development of information processing
technologies can be seen as a circular process of self-improvement (Castells, 1996). The temporal orientation
of „the impossible real‟ (or the imaginary according to Bogard, 1996) of the informationalisation of surveillance
and simulation is the perfect recording of information and perfect control over this information – total
knowledge through complete transparency. This is neither an „alarm‟ sounding for the development of
totalitarian structures/organisms nor similar to the dystopic visions of Orwell. Rather, both the collection of
information (including personal information) and the adoption of surveillance technologies (covert or overt) are
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arranged as necessary conditions to tackle social and political problems , in the current social, economic and
political locale.

While surveillance can be interpreted as a phenomenon of capitalism, its origins or causal
relationships can be equally traced to the development of the (Western) European nation-state as well as
democracy; on the basis of which industrial and post industrial capitalism thrives (Giddens, 1981). Today
surveillance as computers is everywhere: the workplace (the employee), the organisation (the consumer), the
state (the citizen). Of interest to this paper are digital and data surveillance techniques; one the one hand they
shape the social conditions and social life that is organised around them, and on the other these technological
developments „embody‟ the rationalities of the socio-political context that make possible their development,
emergence and diffusion. Nonetheless, it is important to mention that data surveillance in the Information Age
is qualitatively and quantitatively different. It transcends distance (and other physical barriers) and time, is
capital rather than labour intensive, triggers a shift away from targeting towards categorical suspicion, focuses
on the prevention of violations, can be decentralised, encourages self-policing, is invisible and impersonalised,
becomes more intensive (e.g. through the use of biometrics for example) and covers increasingly more areas
of social life (G.T.Marx, 1988). For these reasons, Lyon, one of the most influential commentators of
surveillance literature, sees in the modern the rise of a „surveillance society‟.

In the study of state surveillance, the researcher comes about many paradoxes. On the one hand,
surveillance is necessary for the protection of rights emerging from the state-citizen relationship, but also
invades citizens‟ private spheres. Better administration of services that will benefit those who need it most (i.e.
welfare resources are better allocated to those unemployed who have a greater need and the more chances of

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The UK Home Office has already insisted from 1995 that new identification mechanisms are needed in order to tackle
these social and political problems.

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being employed) is necessarily accompanied by social sorting techniques that may lead to unwanted negative
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administration . In other words, surveillance is simultaneously a means of social control and a means of
ensuring that citizens‟ rights are respected. As a result surveillance can be seen as the outcome of both the
quest of citizenship and of strategies to increase the level of control, having positive, as well as negative,
ramifications (Lyon, 1994).

The emergence of what has been termed „the new surveillance‟ supports the processes of
individualisation, commodification and consumerism (Graham and Marvin in Graham and Wood, 2003) that are
trends of a broader political-economic environmental shift towards liberalization and privatization of public
services and spaces. In the European West that is, advanced liberalism is the emergent „diagram of
government‟ (Rose, 1999). In this context, we witness a steadily rising recognition of simulation technologies
and pre-emptive techniques as important features of institutional practices (ranging from business systems re
engineering, organisational design and architectural design to risk management, customer relationship
management, deterrence strategy, military training, product quality control and other). Another feature of late
modernity has been that personal experiences of life are increasingly being shaped, among other things, by
relationships with organized social life, and this includes how organizations try to influence, manage, and
control individuals and populations through surveillant apparatuses. Because of the transformation of
techniques of subjectification the author argues that essentially it is methods of control that have changed. The
author will argue that this is because we do not live in disciplinary societies as Foucault has suggested; but at
a different epoch in which the logic of prediction is more important than that of diagnosis. If it is not risk
societies that we live in we cannot ignore the pervading effects of risk rationalities in a variety of institutions
(including nation state agencies such as the policing system and the welfare state, as well as other
organisations such as insurance companies and large service providers) that want to ensure their prolonged
survival by regulating levels of deviance and by devising strategies of anticipation and prevention.

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Surveillance is both an enabler as well as a constrainer in the various facets of the citizen-state relationship.

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1.2 Purpose of the paper

The purpose of the research undertaken and presented in this document under the title “” is to explore
theories of social control in the specific context of the UK Identity Cards Bill proposal. In order to fulfil the
stated purpose, the author will use empirical observations as they were derived through the undertaking of a
joint research project with Accenture as part of the requirements of the MSc in Information Technology,
Management and Organisational Change (MSc ITMOC) degree of the Lancaster University. This joint research
st th
was performed during the period June 1 – August 5 , 2005 and materialised into a whitepaper under the title
”An Analysis of the Social and Political Implications of Identity Management in the UK”.

The purpose of this paper is twofold.

The first objective is to explore the various worldviews, modes of thought and strategies that play an
important role in understanding the development of the identity management proposal. In other words the
author will investigate into the political regime in which the rationalities of different actors (i.e. the nation state,
high tech private organisations and opposition groups) emerge. In order to achieve that objective the author
will draw on secondary data mainly derived from his interaction with the Accenture consultant, and information
published on the topic by a variety of sources ranging from official government documents to academic papers.

The second objective will be to analyse at a theoretical level the transformation of social control
through the introduction of new data surveillance practices enabled by the UK Identity Management Scheme.
complex pattern or dialectic of interaction between society and technology in late modern modes of
government and control. In order to achieve that objective the author will draw first on the study of control in
airports and second on the emergence of risk rationalities and actuarialism in the public sector (i.e. in the
welfare state). Blending this with the theories of simulation (see Baudrillard, Bogard) and societies of control
(see Deleuze), the author will further reason about the „diagram‟ of control in late modern societies.

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1.3 The structure of this paper

To facilitate the reader, this section contains a brief description of the remaining chapters of the report.
Along with the description, the main points of each chapter are summarised and presented.

Chapter 2 is concerned with building the theoretical foundings of the paper. After a brief summary of the four
traditional theoretical strands of surveillance studies, the author proceeds into a review of literature concerned
with the informationalisation or virtualisation of surveillance. Then the author moves on to review literature
regarding the nation state and government. In specific interest to the paper are the concepts of the conduct of
conduct or the way in which subjects are formed, as well as analytics of government. Within this review the
author introduces two areas of problematisations particularly relevant to the coherence of the paper, the risk
society and advanced liberalism. This chapter concludes with the review of Baudrillard‟s and Bogard‟s theories
of simulation as an important element of understanding modern surveillance.

Chapter 3 presents the methodological approach to the paper in simple terms and tries to make evident the
linkage between identity management and advanced liberal governmentality. It also includes a presentation of
the strategy followed in the whitepaper as well as factual details of the research project.

Chapter 4 comprises of the presentation of the summary of findings of our research project (i.e. the joint with
Accenture whitepaper) as well as an analytics of government. Regarding the latter, the author will try to
investigate into the episteme and techne of government analytics (Dean, 1999); the interpretations will be
studied through the prism of and linked to the concepts of rationality, rationalisation and knowledge and the
expression of their dynamic interplay by the major actors of the UK Id Cards Bill.

In Chapter 5 the author will place the resultant from the previous chapter government modes of thought into
institutional contexts aiming to see how the surveillance and simulation apparatuses that operate there support
and are supported by these mentalities. This analysis is based directly and indirectly on the findings of the
government analytics of the identity management proposal, but aims at moving away from a traditional
interpretative framework that would suggest an analysis based on the authoritarian potential of these
technologies. This section aims at presenting a conceptualisation of late modern regimes of control, based on
theories of simulation and deterrence, and reasoning on two themes, namely (a) the emergence of networks
as and (b) the risk based rationalities that underpin actuarial practices, as the most effective way of exercising
control.

Finally, chapter 6 is an epilogue that can be described as a critical reflection on other issues that complement
the author‟s analysis and support his view of modern control. In this section the author will also try to comment
on the impact of his project on future direction of studies of surveillance and control.

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Chapter 2: Surveillance, Governmentality and Simulation

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2.1 Surveillance Studies

2.1.1. Surveillance and Social Theory

Surveillance can be defined as „the coding of information‟ (Giddens, 1985) or „any collection and
processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those
whose data have been garnered‟ (Lyon, 2001). Dandeker (1999, pp.37) regards surveillance as a „feature of all
social relationships‟ that involves the management of information and the supervision of individuals‟ activities.
Surveillance can also be considered as a capacity that enables the reinforcement of social and economic
divisions, to channel choices, direct desires as well as constrain and control. As with the emergence of any
th 3
new social science field (during mid 19 century ), the field of surveillance studies has received interest from
and created tension between a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives. In this section, the author wishes to
explore four distinct surveillance „themes‟, namely political economy, bureaucracy, technological logic and
power.

The first theoretical perspective derives mainly from Marxian ideas. The inertia of surveillance is
closely connected with capitalist drives (for greater profit) in their various forms ranging from the constant
renewal of technology to increase efficiency to the efforts of managing consumption, to current business
imperatives of managing customer relationships (D.Lyon and E.Zureik in D.Lyon and E.Zureik, 1996). In this
theme, surveillance is seen as a strategic means for the reproduction of one class and its interest over
another. Second, Weberian studies of surveillance focus on the processes of rationalisation in the
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development of organisations . Weber‟s analysis showed that surveillance is not an issue of control driven by
capitalist dynamics but by processes of rationalisation inherent in the survival, adaptation and development of
modern organisations (Dandeker, 1999). Surveillance is seen as a necessary component to successfully
eliminate irrationalities by enabling bureaucratic means that produce rationally calculable administrative action
(Lyon, 2001). The third theoretical strand is that of technological logic, represented by the work of J.Ellul and
his concept of la technique. La technique is an orientation towards means and not ends, that seeks the
optimum way to operate and in doing so removes human agency from the equation. The apparent
technological determinism of this approach is summarised in the notion of „self-completing system‟ (Ellul,1980).
The Ellulian argument has strong psychological orientations such as the self-justifying, self-augmenting
characterisations of technology; in this respect surveillance‟s imaginary of perfect technologically-mediated
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perception is driven by desire (Lyon, 2001). Finally, the theme of power is mainly represented by Foucault and
his work centred on the diffusion of disciplinary practices throughout modern social institutions. For Foucault,
power is an essentially ubiquitous element of all social relationships, though not necessarily negative. In his
work, the prevailing „diagram‟ of power is Bentham‟s architectural design of the panopticon as the physical
embodiment of a disciplinary ideal (Foucault, 1979). The panopticon is an observatory, based on utilitarian
principles; its operative logic is the inspection from a central hub of the activities of those at the periphery

3
Sewell (1999) argues its history can be taken to coincide with the manifestation of proto-modern organizations associated
with the industrial revolution
4
The state is also considered here to be a form of organisation or an assemblage of complex bureaucracies.
5
Desire is a field of immanence, the inner will of all processes and events (Deleuze and Guattari, ).

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(B.Simon, 2005). As Zuboff (1988, p.321) rightly observes, the panopticon represents „a form of power that
displays itself automatically and continuously‟ and „produces the twin possibilities of observation and control„.
Thereafter, surveillance in the sense of Foucault does not only include the supervisory process but also the
collection, ordering and deployment of information and knowledge.

The above theoretical strands and especially the work of Foucault place the theoretical basis to
develop theories of social control. Bentham‟s diagram of the panopticon has been one of the most influential
metaphors in surveillance studies (Norris, 2003 in Lyon, 2003). The panopticon as Foucault observed, has the
potential „to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power‟ (Foucault, 1977), and thus is more than an architectural form of visualisation. According
6
to Foucault, societies of the present operate according to a disciplinarian schema (Foucault, 1979);
th
disciplinary technologies, in the 20 century, do not simply diffuse from the institution (the prison) outwards to
the world but rather the transformation of the prison is a concrete form of the diffusive process (Bogard, 1991).
7
In synthesising the above theoretical streams, surveillance helps explain modernity in terms of the following
features. First, the capitalist organisation is both a bureaucratic system for administering the internal
operations of the firm and a means of monitoring its external relations with other organisations and its
customers. Second, in post industrial societies we can talk about the transformation of the relations between
society and institutions. Third, the nation-state is both an internally pacified „citizenship state‟ and a
geopolitical and military actor in a world of competing nation-states (Giddens, 1985). Fourth, the growth of
bureaucratic surveillance is the basis of systems of administrative power, particularly in strategic organisations
of the nation state and the capitalist business enterprise (Dandeker, 1999). Fifth, the magnification of
surveillance functions as well as their extension into other spheres is seen as an immediate result of its
computerisation (Lyon, 2001; G.T.Marx, 1988).

6
Schema or „diagram‟ of the forces and power relations – the diagram for Foucault is embedded the social relations it
constitutes „as an immanent cause‟ (Bogard, 1991)
7
For Giddens surveillance is taken up as one of the four institutions of modernity (Giddens, 1985)

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2.1.2 Informationalisation and Data Surveillance

Moving in what many have termed the Information Age, surveillance has itself entered a new period that many
commentators have characterised as the new surveillance (G.T.Marx, 2003), electronic surveillance (D.Lyon,
1996) or ,to relate to the panopticon, superpanopticon (M.Poster, 1990) and post panopticism (R.Boyne,
2000). Modern, computerised, surveillance technologies not only resemble but also surpass the dystopic
visions of science fiction writers such as G.Orwell and P.K.Dick. In the future, assuming that the relationship
between cost and computational power of technology remains based on Moore‟s law, technologically mediated
surveillance will have the ever-increasing capacity to intensify, expand and make denser its gaze and
practices.

In contemporary societies individuals „reside‟ in a multiplicity of database systems ranging from
commercial databases to government agencies (the welfare system). Databases from a Foucaultian
perspective of discourse are

[…] carefully arranged lists, digitalised to take advantage of the electronic speed (my comment:
and power in general) of computers. The list is partitioned vertically into “fields” for items such as
name, address, sex and horizontally into “records” that designate each entry. (M.Poster, 1996)

In each database, profiles of individuals are constructed in the form of their „data double‟, „digital persona‟
(R.Clarke, 1988), „database self‟ or „dividual‟ (Deleuze, 1990). Because modern daily life involves interactions
8
and transactions that generate electronic records (with constantly increasing intensity) individuals become
fixed in media that can be examined and reviewed at will. Dataveillance (or data surveillance) refers to „the
systematic monitoring of people‟s actions or communications through the application of information technology‟
(R.Clarke, 1988). This definition confirms a general move away from processes of human supervision and
physical co-location; in essence, the importance of dataveillance lies in the application of codes on data to
mine, manipulate, sort, cluster and forecast information about populations. A number of commentators have
suggested that the introduction of more sophisticated digital technologies and software architectures enables
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the perfection of Foucault‟s panopticon . Modern surveillance practices do not only focus their gaze to its
subjects but also to the context through „a more passive and mundane gathering and collation, by bureaucratic
and commercial organizations of what has been called „transactional information‟‟ (Robins & Webster, 1988).
This dual nature of the use of information and communications technologies makes individuals increasingly
visible, considering that our everyday life is increasingly mediated by both institutions and technologies. Data
surveillance literature drawing from the aforementioned basic surveillance theory streams (revert to section
2.1.1) emphasises the use of databases, data matching, profiling and the resulting social sorting. Within this
new emphasis, it is argued that social life and social control are transformed in a variety of ways.

A growing body of literature, has been concerned with the economic and political consequences,
emphasising processes of discrimination and social sorting, that flow from the loss of control over personal

8
One should better argue that technology is becoming the means of social relationships.
9
see Poster‟s discursive interpretation of the panopticon (Poster, 1996)

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information (see D.Lyon, 2001; Lyon, 1996; Lyon, 2003 O.H. Gandy, 1993; Graham and Wood, 2003;
G.C.Bowker and S.L.Star, 1999). By operating both overtly and covertly, existing surveillance systems aim at
sorting the population in order to permit access or exclude from the participation in a multitude of events,
experiences and processes (Lyon, 2003). This classification process is used to determine who should be
targeted for special treatment, eligibility, access, etc. In contrast to traditional forms of control that aimed at
apprehending and normalising the offender ex post facto, surveillance monitors conduct by logics embedded
or designed in the flows and networks of everyday existence and practice (N.Rose, 1999). These logics
undermine the presumption of innocence, eventually shifting the burden of proof to the individual (G.T.Marx,
1986). Conventional perspectives on the evolution of social control are commonly portrayed as the shift from
overt, external and corrective to covert, internal and preventive control; this is considered as a shift from
reactive to proactive form of discipline and social control (Kim, 2004). This can also be interpreted as a shift
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towards pre-emptive surveillance and categorical suspicion . In the context of the welfare administration (and
not only), some checking takes place before an individual receives a government benefit or service
(C.J.Bennett, 1996). This means that data surveillance can be both anticipatory and include an element of
continuous sorting and refining the database self through recorded operations of embodied individuals.

The quality of life of most individuals has therefore changed because (a) institutions make decisions
„on the basis of information about them or someone “like” them‟ and (b) the whole process occurs outside the
population‟s conscious awareness (O.H. Gandy, 1995). Gandy draws mainly on Weberian approaches (e.g.
the rationalisation of marketing) and uses Foucault‟s panopticon as an analytical tool to define the panoptic
sort as

a discriminatory technology that assigns people to groups of winners or losers on the basis of
countless bits of personal information that have been collected, stored, processed and shared
through an intelligent network (O.H. Gandy, 1995)

This „difference engine‟ (which according to Gandy‟s work is „discriminatory by definition‟ and „is guided by a
utilitarian rather than an ethical standard‟) depends upon digital technologies and technical rationalisation to
collect evaluate and store and retrieve personal information and control human behaviour (M.Kim, 2004).
These processes serve the rationalisation and efficiency imperatives of the risk-avoiding and opportunity-
seeking institution (through processes of intelligent narrowing), but also pervades all aspects of individuals‟
existence – employment, citizenry and consumption.

Another important contribution to emerging surveillance literature is that of the concept of surveillant
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assemblages . The convergence of (once discrete) surveillance systems functions by abstracting human
bodies from territorial settings, separating them into flows and then reassembling them at centres of calculation
into their data double or dividual that can be scrutinized, targeted for intervention, classified, etc (K.D.Haggerty

10
Closely related to the increased intensity and scope of surveillant assemblages
11
This can be also found in Gandy‟s problematisations (Gandy, 1995) is that of categorical vulnerability; members of
classes and groups today are unaware of their membership and of the rules (codes) that define their inclusion/exclusion,
and thus cannot create class consciousness, solidarity and group identification (sociology studies recognise all these as
fundamental characteristics of group and classes). In practice, both beneficiaries and disadvantaged individuals are
unaware about the digital prioritization processes that have taken place subtly, in the background; this eventually gives
these processes an invisible and opaque quality.
12
An assemblage is defined as a multiplicity of heterogeneous objects whose unity relies on the fact that they work
together as a functional entity (Patton, 1994 in K.D.Haggerty and R.V.Ericson, 2000)

13


and R.V.Ericson, 2000). The nature of surveillant systems according to Deleuze and Guattari (1987) is
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rhizomic in two ways: first they spread out and second they have a leveling effect on hierarchies. These
emphasise that the level of scrutiny (depth and intensity) increases (as contact with institutions increases, but
also through participation in citizenship activities), as well that it is directed uniformly towards all groups and
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classes (the idea of synopticon ). As a result, surveillance is democratized; in principle the many are watching
the few as much as the many are watched by the few (R.Boyne, 2000).

Furthermore, the virtualisation of surveillance has promoted a new round of space-time distanciation.
Not only is it possible for the observer to be far away in time and space but also there can be no observer at
all. Eligibility of access, entitlement of services or punishment (extreme but existing form) can be coded into
software that as political artifacts represent the interest of its creators and fulfill a social need, through the
crystalisation of non-acceptable norms as algorithmic conditions. The evolving problematisations of automated
systems are that they aim to facilitate exclusionary rather than inclusionary goals (Norris, 2002 in Graham and
Wood, 2003), as well as that there is a shift in the orientation from salient towards silent technologies (Introna
15
and Wood, 2004) . Furthermore, post-modern emphasis of surveillance systems is not only in facilitating the
making of the past visible but mainly of the future. Software models applied on collected information seek to
extrapolate the future from the present and immediate past; they seek to predict the future (C.Norris, 2003). As
the major author of CCTV monitoring literature suggests,

What is more certain, especially after the events of 11 September 2001, is that there will be
increased investment in a whole raft of biometric surveillance technologies, and that the ability to
identify a face and track an individual through space will be increasingly perfected (C.Norris, 2003)

As a result, most commentators argue that patterns of control in informational societies have been enhanced
by new and more powerful computer and information based techniques.

Finally, any type of information transfer implies the decontextualisation of the information from the
environment it was collected and its recontextualisation at a different physical or virtual space. That means that
what was actually captured was not simple data but information i.e. „information is data that have been put into
a meaningful and useful context‟ (see Burch and Grudniski, 1989 ,p.4). The meaning comes from the context
surrounding the information or, said in another way, it is only within context that the information is meaningful.
So, if the structures and relationships are removed (or altered) from the original context of the information
(Lyon, 2003 in Lyon, 2003), this information abandons its meaning. Following, when this information is
reconstituted within a second context of interpretation it is assigned new meaning.

13
A rhizome is a plant that grows in surface extensions through interconnected vertical root systems (K.D.Haggerty and
R.V.Ericson, 2000)
14
For an account of the synopticon see T.Mathiesen (1997) „The Viewer Society‟
15
The distinction between silent and salient technologies is not necessarily a dichotomy as the authors argue
but a continuum
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2.2 The Nation-State, Governance and Governmentality

2.2.1 The Nation State and Governance

It has been argued that states have the authority over the legitimate „means of movement‟ (Torpey,
2000), a thesis that flows in accordance with the evolution of new architectures of governance – based on
surveillance and control – after the 9/11 attacks that in effect serve to protect citizens from mobile threats that
transcend traditional dangers to states (Carter, 2002 IN P.Adey, 2003). Additionally, the modern nation-state is
also seen as „the pre-eminent form of power container, as a territorially bounded (although internally highly
regionalised) administrative unity‟ (Giddens, 1985). The object of government is the population and the
purpose of government embraces a wide array of methods of satisfying the needs and aspirations of its object
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(Foucault, 1978); the welfare of the population, the increase of its health, the security of its properties , etc.
Modern approaches to social and political analyses in the field of governance portray a change of direction in
the thinking of political power away from the concept of the hegemonic role of the state. In normative
approaches to governance, governance tends to be judged as good if political strategies aim at minimising the
role of the nation-state (the motif is: „to govern better the state must govern less‟), encouraging non-state
mechanisms of regulation, reducing the size of the political apparatus and civil service and changing the role of
politics in the management of social and economic affairs (N.Rose, 1999).

Government analytics must take into consideration what have been described as liberal styles of
government. Throughout the history of the nation-state, strategies of political rule entailed complex, interrelated
and variable relationships between the actions of seeking to exercise rule over a territory/ population/nation
and „a microphysics of power acting at a capillary level within a multitude of practices of control that proliferate
across a territory‟ (N.Rose, 1999). This historical observation does not mean that we should think of the
political power of the apparatuses of the nation-state as non existent but that the place of the state within
specific strategies and practices of governing is one element in multiple circuits of power, within a variety of
complex assemblages, and ultimately a question of empirical study. It is also important to add that liberal
rationalities of government consider „the optimum performance of the economy at minimum economic and
17
sociopolitical cost‟ (Burchell, 1996) . In doing so liberalism becomes not a theory or ideology but a practice
that aims at regulating itself by means of a sustained reflection (J.Z.Bratich, ) and as a result its object of
concern becomes its own activity and its limits (Burchell, 1991 in .Z.Bratich, ).

So, an analytics of government examines the conditions through which regimes of practices emerge,
are maintained and are transformed (Dean, 1999). In this respect, any study of the nation-state should
pressupose its ineluctable tendency to centralise, control, regulate and manage the population within its
geographical territories. The nation-state is inclined to create bounded physical and cognitive spaces and then
introduce processes designed to capture flows. In seeking to „striate the space over which it reigns‟ (Deleuze
and Guattari, 1987, pp.158), the state faces the imperative of introducing breaks and divisions into free flowing

16
In contrast to sovereignty that has as a purpose the act of government
17
A descriptive account of the field of liberalism, neo (advanced) liberalism and the different schools (Ordoliberalen, the
Chicago school of economic liberalism) of liberal government, is out of the scope of this paper: the presented work suffices
for the purposes of this paper

15


phenomena (K.D.Haggerty and R.V.Ericson, 2000). The nation-state depends upon surveillance for the
management of flows to ensure its survival – three modern social processes can be identified to underlie their
relationship. First, control shifting from personal and targeted to impersonal leads to what has been termed
„formal-legal rationalisation‟ (Dandeker, 1999) of the legitimisation of rule within institutions. Second, there is a
shift (not necessarily displacing but also complementing) from personal and direct exercise of surveillance
powers (supervisory and disciplinary) to systems of deterrence and prevention (Lyon, as social sorting;
Bogard, 1991). Lastly, the development of increasingly elaborate systems of collecting, storing and processing
(sorting) information regarding both the internal and external environment of the agency or organisation
(Dandeker, 1999).

Modern governmental modes and ways of ruling for Rose, entail a process of thought and a certain
form of reason, the basis of which have been a variety of (empirical and normative) studies of the emergence
of modern institutions such as crime control, social insurance, welfare state and airport (see M.Auge, ;1995)
institutions. Based on the literature presented in the previous section (data surveillance), the central motif of
advanced liberal governance becomes „to rule efficiently it is necessary to rule in light of knowledge of the
subject that rule is exercised upon‟ (N.Rose, 1999). In the last couple of decades, subtle less coercive forms of
control have emerged while societies have not become less democratic and (western European) nation-states
make admittedly less use of violence. This decline in the use of violent and heavily coercive means has been
associated, with increased use of softer and embedded and remote forms of control (G.T.Marx, 2001).
Furthermore, the information gathering processes of the nation-state have been extended from focused and
direct coercion used ex post facto and against a particular target, to anticipatory actions of a categorically
suspicious population entailing diffused panoptic vision (in this view technical innovations are seen as enablers
of the transformation of social control) (G.T.Marx, 1986). So, policing systems and other institutions (e.g.
special attention has been paid to advanced liberal government in welfare systems) are symptomatic of
broader trends towards attempted prediction and pre-emption of behaviours that signify a shift towards
actuarialism or actuarial justice (Lyon, 2003) also termed new penology seeking „techniques for identifying,
classifying and managing groups sorted by levels of dangerousness‟ (Feeley and Simon, 1994, in F.Stadler
and D.Lyon, 2003).

2.2.2 Governmentality and the Art of Government

18
The semantic linking of gouverner (governing) and mentalité (mode of thought or mentality ) in the
concept of governmentality indicates that technologies of power are closely interrelated to the political
mentalities underpinning them. It is also important to acknowledge that the word government for Foucault is
not restricted to its pure political meaning but is a concept encountered in a variety of contexts including the
th
management of the state and until the 18 century signified problems of self control, management of the
household, directing the soul, etc (Lemke, 2000).

Governmentality is an area of inquiry that does not address directly the strategies of government,
questions of power or relations of force nor is concerned with law. It is concerned with the epistemological
18
Wrongly termed sometimes rationality

16


presuppositions and their institutionalisation in specific knowledge processes and practices by which subjects
and things (including of course subjectified human beings) are administered (M.Dillon, 1995, pp.330). Thus,
governmentality is a domain of cognition concerned with the conduct of conduct, not simply making use of
19
knowledge but also comprising of it . So, the notions of government and governmentality mark a field of
inquiry of modern operations of power/knowledge (N.Rose, 1999). Governmentality in this view is seen as
20
encompassing the thematics of sovereignty, discipline and bio-power , rather than being part of the „triangle‟
21
sovereignty-discipline-governmentality .

Each is reorganised in the context of the general problematics of government, which concerns
the best way to exercise powers over conduct individually and en masse so as to secure the
good of each and of all. It is not a question of a succession of forms but of the ways in which the
discovery of new problems for government – and the invention of new forms of government –
embraces, recodes, reshapes those that pre-exist them. (ibid, pp.23-24)

The aim of governmentality studies is to unveil the underlying rationality of government. In other words, they
investigate the manners and rationales of government or better the manner in which government seeks to
shape conduct by working through the public‟s beliefs, aspirations, interests and desires (Marlow, 2002). As a
result, Marlow continues, government is perceived as an ongoing, intentional (purposeful) course of action.
22
And as such it is an art since it involves the mobilisation of tacit and explicit knowledge that crystalises
through political decisions into the pragmatics of government. Therefore the emergence of a line of questioning
concerned with the ways in which programmes of government are formulated and articulated within broad
discourses of „political rationalities‟ (P.O‟Malley et al., 1997). Finally, an analytics of government can also be
characterised as „materialist analysis‟ (Dean, 1999) because, in a way, places regimes of government at the
centre of the analysis and seeks to elucidate on their logic.

One of the most interesting and controversial extensions of (rather than direct contributions to)
23
governmentality literature can be summarised under the concept of the „risk society‟ (R.V.Ericson and
K.D.Haggerty, 1997). In this context, the governance of all aspects of institutional domains is organised as the
management of potential dangers (or risks). To illustrate this thesis the authors explore police as „an especially
instructive vehicle for understanding risk society‟. Then they generalise to all modern institutions by saying that

19
This is that mentalities of government are influenced by the forms of knowledge that are part of our social, and cultural
products (Dean, 1999 ,p.17)
20
Bio-power operates at social spaces making up people and fabricating them into the logic of the norm
21
Dean (1999, p.19) suggests that governmentality implies a relationship with other forms of power (i.e. sovereignty and
discipline)
22
The historical evolution of prisons from the oubliette (from the French verb oublier which means to forget, this
characterization of medieval prisons highlights that prisoners were locked away and forgotten) to penitentiaries (places
designed in such a way that inmates become repenting of their crimes) is for Foucault a sound example of describing the
transformation of power regimes and governmentality from the pre-modern to modernity. Furthermore, for Foucault (1978),
th th
after a series of observations regarding state transformations that took place from the 16 to the 18 century, the art of
government involves two dimensions. It is essentially concerned with transliterating the economic principles of family
management (the economy involved in the management of goods, wealth and individuals in a family, by the paternal figure)
onto the state and political practices. In addition, the art of government is concerned with the right disposition of things
(men and their relations to things; an ‟imbrication of men and things‟) through the employment of tactics – not laws –, to an
end convenient to each of these things. It can be argued that contemporary modes of government have been centred
around these two pivotal themes
23
Risk is not a static or objective phenomenon but rather is constructed and negotiated within a network of social
interaction (D.Lupton, 1999), a definition that is favoured by the author is „incalculable uncertainties‟ as used by U.Beck
(1995)

17


risks, lie at the root of everything and as a result risk – knowledge structures govern social life. Surveillance in
this theory is driven from the imperatives of risk management (Lyon, 2001). In current institutional
environments, we witness the emergence of risk rationalities (increasingly pervading all aspects of routine life)
that are designed to reduce the uncertainties that organisations face, and in order to do so „bring imagined
futures to the present‟ (R.V.Ericson and K.D.Haggerty, 1997, pp.87). Therefore, institutions organise
themselves around the accumulation of information about risks increasing their awareness about further risks
and, in the process, the risk-knowledge dialectic creates its own internal momentum. However, the recognition
of the risks associated with their management also means the recognition of the receding ideals of security
and control (Andrejevic, 2005). It is through uncertainty and knowledge seeking that risk rationalities surface
and are sustained; the more importance is given to risks the greater the need for more knowledge to reveal
new risks and better treat/manage/prevent current risks – this is how „the risk-knowledge process gains its
internal momentum‟ (O‟Malley in Andrejevic, 2005). Risk based regimes draw attention to the riskiness of
everything and the certainty of nothing to initiate a circle of unending demand for knowledge and governance
as new risks are discovered and previous risks are re-evaluated (P.O‟Malley, 1999).

In way of conclusion, I will summarise the emerging themes in the study of governmentality. First,
governing involves much more than the activities of government (N.Rose, 1999). Moreover, the conduct of
conduct is a more general term for any calculated direction of human conduct. Governmentality what is more,
emerges at the contact point between technologies of domination of others and technologies of the self
(Foucault, 1988) thus stressing the relationship between the constitution of the subject and the formation of the
state. The question then shifts from „how does government governs us‟ to „how do we govern ourselves‟
(H.K.Colebatch, 2002). A governmentality approach also offers a view on power that encompasses and goes
beyond perspectives centred on consensus or violence. Within governmentality, emphasis is on power as
guidance („Furhung‟) i.e. governing the forms of self government by structuring and shaping the fields of
possible subject actions, while violence, coercion and consensus are instruments or elements but not the
foundation of power/knowledge relationships (Lemke, 2000). Finally, attention is focused on „the ways of
thinking and acting which render conduct governable – the mentalities or rationalities which underlie rule, the
ways in which problems are discerned, expertise is formed and mobilised, […] and codes of practice formed
and promulgated‟ (H.K.Colebatch, 2002).

18


2.3 Simulation and Hypersurveillant Control

On the four aforementioned theoretical strands the author wishes to add simulation, a more
marginalized, post-structural perspective primarily based on the work of Baudrillard (1983), Deleuze (1990)
and Bogard (1996). Simulation can be defined as a means of verisimilitude (Der Derian, 1990 in Bogard,
1996), i.e. ways of replacing actual with virtual processes or electronic signs/images of objects for their real
counterparts. Baudrillard‟s thesis is that models supersede the reality that is implemented on generated
models and hence is not real but hyperreal – the precession of simulacra. But the question „why is it hyperreal‟
24
is not yet fully answered. Simulating is not as simple as feigning. Simulation reproduces the symptoms or
effects but also designates the power of producing an effect (Deleuze, 1990), eventually blurring the
25
boundaries and distinctions between the pairs real: virtual , true: false. Baudrillard argues,

No more imaginary coextensivity: rather, genetic miniaturisation is the dimension of simulation.
The real is produced from miniaturised units, from matrices, memory banks, and command
models – and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be
rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance. It is nothing more
than operational. In fact, since it is no longer enveloped by an imaginary, it is no longer real at all.
It is a hyperreal, the product of an irradiating synthesis of combinatory models in a hyperspace
without atmosphere. (Baudrillard, 1983)

Something is simulated, in simple words, by its reduction to those signs which attest its existence. This depicts
a redefinition of the real to that which can be reproduced or that which is always pre-emptively reproduced, „a
hyperreal … which is entirely in simulation‟ (Baudrillard, 1983).

Simulation starts from the utopia of this principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the
sign as value, from the sign as reversion and death sentence of every reference. (emphasis in
original) (ibid.)

In contrast to data surveillance literature, Baudrillard sees the end of the panoptic system as a shift in
the ideal of control away from transparency. Any idea of transparency presupposes an objective space and the
omnipotent gaze of the observer. That signifies a shift from panoptic mechanisms of surveillance to systems of
deterrence in which the real is confused with the model or the medium (see Baudrillard, 1996, pp.29-30). The
Age of Simulation begins with the liquidation of all referentials and their artificial reproduction in systems of
signs; all that is real can be descriptively reproduced by those signs that make it real, in other words, an
operation to deter every real process by its operational double (Bogard, 1996).

Today, profiles and other forms of coded information are used extensively by police officials (in making
arrests and create suspects), hospitals (to assist in diagnosis e.g. expert systems), welfare agencies (to
distribute and manage the distribution of benefits), insurance companies (to classify individuals and manage
risks) and other institutions in order to anticipate actual events and control their outcome. Bogard‟s thesis is

24
This is not necessary for feign processes. For extended insight see the instructive example of feigning and simulating an
illness (Baudrillard, 1983, pp.5-7)
25
In Deleuze‟s work, the virtual and the real are not two opposites; the real‟s relevant contrast is with the possible and the
virtual is what is already actual and not merely possible

19


26 27
that technologies of simulation are forms of hypersurveillant control . In order to explain the direction that
surveillance societies are taking today, simulation must be interpreted as a progress towards the perfection
and totalisation of existing surveillance technologies and not as a radical break in their historic development
(Bogard, 1996). Therefore, simulation studies come to supplement the aforementioned theoretical streams
(revert to section 2.1.1) for the study of surveillance in modern societies. Simulation technology is a major
element of the imaginary of surveillance control (which is itself a fantasy of power) – a fantastic dream of
seeing everything, recording every fact and (whenever and wherever) possible accomplishing these things
prior to the manifestation of the event itself. Technologies of exposure and recording, through this viewpoint
are technologies of pre-exposure and pre-recording, a technical operation in which control functions are
reduced to the modulation of preset codes. In other words, simulation satisfies the need to see everything in
advance therefore both as something that can be and already is anticipated. Based on the somewhat futuristic
view that every event is programmable and any image is observable, simulation technology offers a novel
perspective for dealing with the limits of space and time, energy, the human body, communication, memory; for
all of which it „offers up fantastic, technically imaginative solutions‟ (Bogard, 1996). In this context, simulation
can be seen as the panoptic imaginary a combination of the absence of real (simulation) and the unmasking of
its presence (surveillance). Simulated surveillance refers to a paradox of control because it fantasises both its
totality (its hyperrealisation or its „reconfiguration as a simulacrum within an informated order‟) and its absence
(its re-temporalisation as a virtual phenomenon) (Bogard, 1996).

26
The prefix hyper is not used to define the intensification of surveillance but rather the effort to think of surveillance
technologies to their absolute limits (see Bogard, 1996, pp. 4)
27
In contrast to the majority of studies of social control in post industrial societies that have in most cases ignored the
concept of simulation, virtual forms of control and the resulting delusion of sociality

20


Chapter 3: Methodology

21


3.1 Research Framework

The research project, undertaken collaboratively between LUMS (MSc in IT, Management and
Organisational Change) and Accenture was part of a wider tactic of Accenture to investigate into the UK
Identity Cards Bill, before they actively engage in it by bidding for a private public partnership. Their two areas
of interest, namely identity management and border control in the UK, were the two undertaken projects by
st st
Lancaster university students between the June 1 and the August 1 , 2004. The author is a co-writer
(together with Mrs. M.Bariami) of the Identity Management in the UK whitepaper as presented in the appendix.

The Lancaster university project teams had contact with an Accenture liaison (Mr. Alasdair Macdonald,
current role is in the Customer Data Management business unit), the communication being mainly through e
mail. In addition, we participated in a kick off meeting and a mid term presentation was delivered for the
purpose of presenting preliminary findings and aligning the focus of the research projects with the liaison‟s
expectations. Furthermore, we participated in two tele-conferencing calls with senior Accenture consultants in
order to clarify ambiguities and better understand their approach to identity management and border control. In
parallel the two co-authors‟ attended research coordination meetings where open discussions on the topic of
identity management were encouraged and the progress and structure of the research project was evaluated.
The sources of information for our research included (1) publications from the UK government and agencies,
(2) responses from international and other civil liberties groups (e.g. Human Rights Committee), (3)
publications from similar governmental projects globally, (4) academic research papers and finally (5) private
28
sector whitepapers. Finally the resulting research paper has been submitted to Accenture (07/08/2005) to be
circulated within the consulting firm and their partners. A final presentation to an open audience has been
th
arranged for the 12 of September.

3.2 Rationale and Methodological Approach

In the whitepaper we start from the assumption that National IdM is inevitable. First, we defined
national identity management, its main social, political and economic drivers and identified its scope and
objectives. Then the authors explored and conceptualized the proposed scheme (i.e. the draft UK Id Cards
Bill), by discussing its intended outcomes, performing a SWOT Analysis, delineating some elements of the
political background, defining its building blocks or components as well as investigating the uses of the
scheme. Based on our initial assumption we proceeded to an investigation of different approaches at a
technological and process level. Our focus was at the alternative ways the scheme could be organised at the
process level and the main processes considered were: enrollment, identification, authentication and
authorisation. By doing so and in parallel examining the UK Id Cards Bill we laid the foundations for the main
part of our whitepaper: the organisational, social and political implications and risks. These were structured into
four main categories, namely (a) technological implications, (b) process implications, (c) governmental and
organisational implications and (d) citizen and society implications.

28
The sources of information for our research included (1) publications from the UK government and agencies, (2)
responses from international and other civil liberties groups (e.g. Human Rights Committee), (3) publications from similar
governmental projects globally, (4) academic research papers and finally (5) private sector whitepapers.

22


As made evident from the whitepaper to the author the identity management scheme becomes one of
the components of government agencies that deal with individuals but is also very likely that it will become a
component of independent service providers. As seen in the previous chapter, this opinion is supported by
high tech consultancy organisational fields that see a wide range of business re organisation opportunities on
the basis of the scheme. In other words the biometric enabled identity management scheme is a step towards
the transformation of service delivery that will not give competitive advantage to any specific organisation but
will enable the more general elevation of the level of citizen/customer satisfaction and quality of services
delivery. The identity management scheme will therefore substantially reshape the strategies of these
institutions that will adopt it; it has the potential of eliminating the current anticipation of „normal damage‟ or
financial loss tolerated by these organisations (normally passed down to individuals as extra costs) as well as
making possible a new level of understanding of the individual. The individual that is currently constituted
multiple times and with variable accuracy in the databases of these institutions (as the database self or digital
persona) will through the scheme become more precise. Therefore the strategies of service tailoring and
provision will become accurately realisable, enabling the increase of significance of customer relationship
management and service delivery in the agenda of these organisations and a subsequent increase in
application (because the barriers of incalculability and low quality information in the information bases will be
transcended through the scheme) of strategies of anticipation of the future needs. What will be argued is that
passage points (human or nonhuman) are the direct result of an identity management scheme that within the
current consumerism culture (or culture of contentment) while the logic of prediction and foresight based on
information of the past will finally have the „strength‟ to become the primary focus of organisations. Identity
management is much more than a traditional authoritarian and utilitarian utopia – it is a firm step in the
transformation of the fields of visibility of institutions not only deeper into the space (the body, the identity
details of the individual) but also forward into time (through the projection of anticipatory simulations).

Both the whitepaper as well as the empirical evidence derived from our conversations/communication
with the Accenture liaison are considered to be the input for this paper. Building from these primary and
secondary data, this paper will reasons on two themes. First, and laying the foundation for the second, an
analytics of government and in particular of the „techne‟ and „episteme‟ dimensions (Dean, :pp.19-32), based
mainly on empirical data. Second, an attempt to place identity management into its cultural and social context
by reconsidering the concepts introduced in the literature review, so as to reason on the modern „diagram of
power‟ and to define characteristics of social control. This is a theoretical analysis, supported from the
empirical interpretations and based on the literature presented on surveillance, simulation, the risk society and
advanced liberal diagrams of government.

23


Chapter 4: Discussion of Findings

24


4.1 Summary of Findings

This section incorporates a summary of the findings of our research project as presented in
<Appendices 1-7>. Identity management is an issue that arises in any type of social constructs and throughout
29
history, from the village of archaic times to the modern metropolis. Identity management systems have
evolved through a complex interaction of technological developments, social influences and organisational
reconfigurations. Today, government agencies face the intricate challenge of effectively and securely
controlling population flows, identifying individuals, and managing their access to services, while aligning their
strategies with citizen‟s expectations for convenience, security and privacy. National identity management
systems are proposed as the solution to these governmental challenges and are driven by a more mobile
society and the associated need for better management and control of borders, the need to combat terrorism
and organised crime and the rehabilitation of the social perception of security and order, the need to increase
the efficiency of public sector operations and the related citizens‟ needs for convenience and speed at service
points, the financial losses stemming from identity related fraud, as well as the effective delivery of
eGovernment services (for a complete list of the drivers see <Appendix pp. >).

The UK identity management scheme incorporates a broad administrative area responsible for
identifying individuals within the nation-state boundaries and controlling their access to resources/services by
associating user rights and restrictions with the established identity. Therefore, it is seen as a convergence of
technologies and processes; the main process and technical components of modern nationwide identity
30
management systems are illustrated in the following two tables .

Table : Identity Management Technologies

Biometrics represent a fundamental shift in identification systems from something one owns (card),
knows (password) or does (signature) to something he is (iris pattern). Currently there is increased
Biometrics
interest in multimodal systems that reduce some of the weaknesses inherent in biometric systems
(accuracy, reliability).

Increase in processing power and memory capabilities of the chips embedded into the card, enable
Smart Id cards more reliable forms of identity authentication and thus can facilitate multiple functions mostly
relating to transactions with government agencies and private sector service providers.

Infrastructure refers to information and database systems which can be arranged in centralised and
Infrastructure decentralised architectures to collect, process, store biometric, id card and other information.
Recently, we have witnessed increased interest in privacy-enhancing architectures.

29
The selection of the phrase of identity management systems (contra identity systems) is not accidental; apart from
relating to global business trends it also signifies the existence of „back office‟ operations. The identity management system
is an infrastructure that enables the management of identity – it transcends the boundaries of existing highly fragmented
identification systems and standards such as the Social Security Number and the National Insurance Number to enable an
efficient and integrated approach to necessary governance processes based on identity.
30
These tables do not illustrate all the characteristics of identity management technologies and processes; for a detailed
analysis of the processes and technologies of identity management please revert to Appendix.

25


Table : Identity Management Processes

refers to the registration process and includes the application, biometric recording, application
Enrollment
verification and ID card issuing sub-processes.
refers to one or more elements of the identity of someone that uniquely identifies that user in a
Identification
particular context
Authentication refers to the process used to verify that individual‟s association with an identifier
refers to the way of determining whether the policy at the point of service allows an intended action
Authorisation to proceed

Our ultimate research objective was to examine and evaluate alternative technologies and processes
in order to provide a framework for identifying the socio political implications and issues emerging from the
proposed identity management scheme. The main findings of this socio political analysis, as presented in the
whitepaper are summarised in the following table.

Table : Research Findings

A. Technological Implications (Appendix p.)

In this category are implications arising from the implementation of the technological component of the identity management
scheme. The following central themes were analysed.
 The implementation (reliability and accuracy) and privacy risks of biometrics
 The security and nature of RFID systems (ubiquity)
 Databases, data linkage and user consent
 The security of the IdM infrastructure
 The principles of privacy enhancing identity management systems (PE-IMS)

B. Process Implications (Appendix p.)

The process level implications are less straightforward. First we explored from an internal to the system viewpoint, the
emerging issues in the processes of authentication, identification and authorisation, such as the privacy risks raised by the
process of authentication in the UK ID Cards Scheme. Then we analysed the concepts of function and identification creep as
one of the most important factors of totalitarian control practices. Finally we examined the issues emerging from the process of
managing access to the system‟s resources (e.g. data leakage) and the notion of „practical obscurity‟.

C. Governmental Implications (Appendix p.)

In this category we discussed the financial and liability implications of the scheme .We argued that the cost of the scheme
may well exceed the initial estimations of the government and that there are costs associated with liability. Furthermore we
examined the various procurement considerations, especially those emerging from the national IdM system‟s implementation
and integration with other systems. We also discussed the closeness of the procurement processes from the side of the
government, and identified the issue of control over the PPPs as a critical factor.

D. Society-Citizen Implications (Appendix p.)

This perspective was the epitome of our study and presents an alternative perspective of the citizen in which he has some
expectations (for privacy, fairness and control over the use of information, confidentiality, etc). Furthermore, we linked identity
management directly to privacy locating six areas identity management where privacy concerns are raised. In addition, we
examined the very important issues of inclusion/exclusion in relation to vulnerable societal groups. Then we analysed the
issue of control over personal data and the associated issue of dataveillance of the digital identities. This analysis was linked
with the concept of circles of trust and federated identity management as alternative approaches that are more likely to enable
privacy protective practices.

26


Finally, a major outcome of our research was the compilation of a number of essential conditions for the
successful implementation of national identity management in the UK, as in the following fishbone schematic.

Fig. : Fishbone Diagram showing a number of parameters to be taken into consideration in the development of
IdM in the UK (adopted from whitepaper ‘Government Citizens and Identity Management’ pp. , 2004)

The performed socio political analysis can be seen as an effort to open up the debate of national
identity management as well as creating awareness to Accenture, the technology consultancy firm (for which
the research was done) of the design issues that must be considered in order to balance societal and
individuals‟ interests with the increased surveillance practices that the identity management system will
introduce. In the following section the author will present an analytics of government and the underlying
rationales that govern the identity management initiative in the UK.

27


4.2 An Analytics of Government and Political Discourse

Identity and Access Management have been two globally emerging themes of the past decade that are
increasingly attracting the interest of nation-states and high-tech organisations. Nationwide identity
management systems open up new possibilities for the provision and management of services through the
surveillance of the population and as an unintended consequence, play a catalyst role in sustaining and
supporting a social control system that seems to be driven by an unending demand for information (through
which „panoptic sort‟ technologies can operate). In the following section some empirical evidence will be bolted
with secondary data and our interpretation of the context of the UK Id Cards Bill in an effort to examine the
emergent governmental modes of thought (as presented in ch.2).

The rest of this section is concerned with an interpretation of the specific conditions through which entities and
rationalities emerge, exist and change. In this way the author will synthesise the following two perspectives.

I. From the perspective of government studies, the author will investigate into the episteme and techne
dimensions of government (see Dean, 1999). The techne dimension of government analytics aims to
show the „technical‟ means and tactics through which the ends sought are realised, seen as a
manifestation of values, ideology and worldviews. The episteme dimension of analytics of government,
views practices of government in their complex and variable relations to the different ways in which
truth and modes of thought are produced in social, cultural and political practices.

II. From a Realpolitik perspective, it will be made evident that inside the microcosm of rationality-power
relations in the UK Id Cards Scheme, power does not necessarily seek knowledge but rather power
31
defines what counts as knowledge and rationality (see B.Flyvsberg, 2004) .

This will be done through an analysis of the following issues: 1.panic state regimes; 2.politics of reassurance;
3.private sector influence and PPPs; 4.the role of resistance groups and privacy enhancing technologies.

I would also like to stress the limitations of the approach. In brief, it is incomplete in that it is an impossible
(within the space limits and the available empirical data) analytical endeavour. The Realpolitik analysis would
require „richer‟ empirical data derived from interviews with the political forces of the scheme, of the study of
power relations in their historic context (the importance lies in that the rationalities produced are actively
formed and supported by the historically founded power relations and vice versa), as well as a view of the
project in its final form. However, the following sections aim at presenting an overview of the social conditions
and worldviews that have changed once again (after the terrorist acts and threats) to bring panoptic structures
again on the surface of modern government.

31
And the Baconian imperative „knowledge is power‟ is transformed into its inverse „power is knowledge‟.

28


4.2.1 Panic State Regimes, the Politics of Reassurance and Knowledge

th th
First and foremost, the attacks of September 11 2001 in NYC and July 7 2005 in London have been
important events to shape a society of fear and direct state governance rationalities towards maximizing
security and fighting terror. The event has sociological interest that surpasses its definition as a simple
transformative device; it is also an „indispensable prism through which social structure and process may be
seen‟ (P.Abrams in Lyon, 2001). The events of 9/11 have brought into focus the „securitising functions‟
(Marlow, 2002) of modern politics, i.e. the political responses or supply to what is perceived as the public‟s
32
demand for security and a sense of safety in everyday life . However, while Identity management was
apparently proposed as an anti-terrorism measure, it has been made evident (see Lyon, 2001;
www.privacyinternational.org; also Appendix) that it is unclear whether it can actually combat any type of
terrorist activity. The public‟s fear was only further accentuated after recent terrorist acts, especially as
33
London remains one of the most frequently targeted cities around the world. The responses of panic state
regimes can also be seen as a general orientation towards strategies that foster the idea that prevention of
crime is possible; a techno-utopian goal of crime prevention that results in a categorical approach to population
surveillance.

My point is that in the UK, the identity management proposal emerged as a response to terrorist
coercion from a political leadership that wanted to show that they are doing their best in addressing the issue
of national security. Here the role of political leadership resembles to the shepherd‟s whose role is to ensure
the salvation of his flock. The similarity of the analogy is not only that the state does indeed recognise and act
to protect the security of its population but also that like the shepherd has a duty to keep watch of his flock
when it‟s asleep. The state in order to carry out its securitising functions must increase the surveillance of its
populace just as the shepherd „pays attention to them all and scans each one of them‟ (Foucault, 1981,
pp.229). The difference is that, in a way, political leaders, operating in a political „battleground‟, mainly want to
appear that they are solving the problem; their ultimate goal is not to lose the trust of the flock. These are the
politics of reassurance, also applying towards public sector inefficiencies. One of the reasons that the author
suggests is that public perception of fraud in government services in general presents a risk of eroding public
support and respect for the state government. This is best described as a culture of contentment, which in
essence is a „political market for that which pleases and reassures‟ (J.K.Galbraith in Marlow, 2002) – i.e.
politicians looking to indulge the majority of the voters. This culture of contentment (and governmentality of
reassurance) in Marlow‟s analysis is closely linked to the emergence of the risk society, as signified by a shift
from politics based on the solidarity of need to politics based on the solidarity motivated by uncertainty.
Political life today is constituted of and addresses the underlying principles of both of these theories.

This theme of exercise of political power is reinforced by a variety of rationalisations such that the
national and social security of the United Kingdom will be actually enhanced by biometric-enabled national
identity cards. It would be fair to say that government agencies‟ officials, during the period when fear was high

32
The UK identity management scheme is an instance of these securitising functions, affecting the evolution of social
control in modern UK societies.
33
UK‟s capital has also attracted a threat of further bombing by Al Qaeda number two man in a recent filming that played
on national television.

29


among the public, purposively ignored the various studies and papers submitted to them by various
organisations and publicised in various academic journals. In support of this argument, is the fact that the
national identity cards were initially termed „Entitlement Cards‟, revealing a strategy that seeks to increase the
steering capacity of bureaucracy and transform the public services. When political and social interest shifted to
national security, so did the vocabulary related to the scheme (now termed national identity cards). In the
presented interpretation, the activity of government seemed to intentionally avoid to be informed by knowledge
and expertise that arose within the same cultural environment. The political approach of the nation state with
the support of the private sector, underscores that power defines rationality, as well as that it refines/adapts its
strategies and logic to produce them as a supplement to social needs, aspirations and values.

Finally, panic state responses (also including legislative efforts e.g. the Patriot Act) are likely to have
long term and possibly irreversible consequences. In an Ellulian sense, socio-technical systems once in place
are harder to dismantle than upgrade. Overall, the events of 9/11, the Spain bombing and the constant terrorist
acts in London seen as a prism to analyse aspects of social and governmental structures and processes
suggests three things: (1) the expanding range of surveillance practices that bring the body back into the game
as means of more reliable identification within the state, (2) the tendency of the state to rely on the
technological augmentation of its surveillance systems, supported by the private sector and (3) the increased
activity of privacy related groups and

30


4.2.2 Private Sector Influence and the ‘Resistance Frontier’

Private Sector Influence and the Diffusion of Technological Innovation

As expected, a strong technological and industrial background supports the UK identity management
34
proposal (including some of the world leaders in high-tech and strategic consultancy ). Private sector
influence is an essential determining factor of modern identity management schemes (Bennett, 1997; Rose,
35
1999) because private sector organisations have an interest in promoting technologies that have been
developed by their investment in research and development activities such as in the case of smart card
systems. In respect to the UK ID Cards scheme, the issues of the growing privatization of functions and the
increase of public-private partnerships (PPPs) are both important because they signify an overall change in the
mechanisms of governing. As understood, the art of state government has shifted towards a control paradigm,
where the nation-state is responsible for specifying requirements and controlling the plurality of
institutions/entities involved in governing, through processes of monitoring and audit. This shift in the way
governments manage their projects shows the manifestation of an enterprise culture, where partnerships and
outsourcing of functions is the most effective way in undertaking projects (whether they are „mission critical‟
e.g. the UK ID Cards Scheme or less significant e.g. road cleaning operations). This enterprise culture
pervading the boundaries of the nation-state governance is best seen in a whitepaper of Accenture that was
handed to the author termed „High Performance in Government‟, where indicatively the vocabulary used
included: „excellence‟, „performance‟, „citizen satisfaction‟ and „global leadership‟.

For private sector high tech organisations the diffusion of innovative technologies (in the day-to-day
routines) is a long term vision that unveils their worldview that can be said to include two points/objectives: (1)
36
to exploit the emergent new markets and (2) to create a technological environment in which the diffusion of
innovative technologies is „business as usual‟. Technological innovation (combined with the appropriate
promotion and numerous rationalisations) is presented as the answer to all social and organisational problems.
As a result of our research project we saw how these institutions counter and subvert the „rhetoric processes‟
of IdM initiatives – now security, identity management and overall stricter controls serve the appreciated needs
37
of citizen . Here I refer to the „visible‟ needs of the citizen in the form of more convenient access to services
and improved service delivery, as delineated in the Appendix and advocated by consultancy organisations.
38
The concept of trust is becoming an imperative of service organisations; there is a need to trust the customer
in order to initiate tactics of individualised services and enhancing the individual‟s experience. These tactics

34
Accenture belongs to the organisational field of technology consultancy.
35
One case demonstrating this, is that of the president of Oracle who, immediately after the 9/11 NY attacks, offered the
US Government free smart card software for a national IDM system (Lyon, 2001). Lyon suggests that it would be naïve not
to think of the interests of Oracle (and other high tech organisations) in promoting technologies as the solution to problems
(the diffusion of smart card is discussed elsewhere) as well as the future economic gains that they would have.
36
Not only in the way presented i.e. by the increased interest in high tech solutions; in the US, „experts‟ upon whom media
called after the 9/11 were mostly representatives of high-tech organisations (Lyon, 2001).
37
The Accenture whitepaper „High Performance in Government‟ provides with a good example of how the subversion
takes place; especially see the interpretation of their statistics of the citizen view.
38
His identity needs to be trusted as well as the other data; for example address information is critical for the operation of
banks and energy organisations to continue offering a service.

31

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