Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Luc Lelièvre
“Digital surveillance promises to make institutions more secure by enabling them to see more. Automated license-plate readers, facial recognition systems, and interconnected databases allow authorities to identify patterns and retrieve information at speeds once considered impossible. Yet greater capacity to detect and classify does not necessarily improve the ability to determine what happened. An institution may acquire more information without gaining the ability to interpret it accurately. The distinction matters because surveillance does more than collect information. Its outputs can initiate investigations, influence decisions, and authorize interventions that affect people who have little control over how the information is interpreted. The central problem is not merely that surveillance systems sometimes make mistakes. Rather, an institution can transform an uncertain indication into an apparently established fact through the very procedures the indication sets in motion.” (11/10/26)