Sousveillance

History

Sousveillance is a term first coined by wearable computing pioneer Steve Mann to describe the inverse of surveillance. "Rather than tolerating terrorism as a feedback means to restore the balance (of society)," says Mann, "an alternative framework would be to build a stable system to begin with, e.g. a system that is self-balancing. Such a society may be built with sousveillance (inverse surveillance) as a way to balance the increasing (and increasingly one-sided) surveillance."

Etymology

Sousveillance: Surveillance means:- sur (above) + viller (to watch)

Small portable recording devices have given us the growing phenomenon of Sousveillance: French "sous" (from below)= "sousveillance" = To Watch from Below.

Related Reading

Steve Mann