Signs of the surveillant assemblage: Privacy regulation, urban CCTV, and governmentality

Abstract

Signage in urban 'open-street' CCTV arrangements is explored in relation to the strategies and forms of law brought to bear upon it. In the context of privacy regulation, CCTV signage's content reflects deterrence strategies and political subjectification consistent with liberal governmentality. CCTV signage is evinced to be both an agent and target of privacy and other forms of law and is therefore shaped and brought into being by complex webs of legal governance. Rather than befitting panoptic arrangements or merely amplifying CCTV's deterrent effects, CCTV signage signals and serves as a vital element of the surveillant assemblage. Possessing varied functions, including features attributed to surveillance cameras, CCTV signage is a material means by which the surveillance assemblage interfaces with the legal complex and by which urban time-spaces are constituted. This analysis moves beyond previous accounts of regulatory signage and has broad implications for governmentality and surveillance studies. © The Author(s), 2009.