A recent notice from the administration requires the second year students of all courses to submit their id cards with the office so that they can be 'personalised'. This call is a part of, what is seems like, the last stage of a project that has been in the pipeline for some time. Small white colour devices have been installed outside most of the entrances to the class rooms and lecture halls on campus and the students will be required to swipe their 'personalised' identity cards before they enter these rooms. (The 'Smart Cards' issued the the first year students as identity cards already have electronic chips in them).As is typical of the administration, no explanation has been provided so far about the purpose of these devices.
It seems that one of the purposes of this project is to keep a track of the attendance of the students. Something of this sort had been attempted last year too for the FC classes. The same devices were installed and each one of them was guarded by one security personnel to avoid proxy attendance for many by one person. The project was a failure and there were gross mistakes in the calculation of attendance at the end of the term. It is difficult to assume that students will not suffer due to this experiment again.
This is one complication if one assumes that tracking attendance is the 'only' purpose of these devices. This however is not the case. During a conversation with an employee of the computer centre it was found out that these devices will allow him to monitor the movements of each and every one on the campus at all times. Through the monitoring systems that come with the Swipe Card system, a person can be located to the class room / lecture hall / DH / library / cyber library or just the general open space of the campuses as one would be required to swipe their cards at all these areas before accessing them. Other than just the sheer burden of going through the futile and repetitive exercise of marking your presence at all times, there are further objections arise.
It seems that one of the purposes of this project is to keep a track of the attendance of the students. Something of this sort had been attempted last year too for the FC classes. The same devices were installed and each one of them was guarded by one security personnel to avoid proxy attendance for many by one person. The project was a failure and there were gross mistakes in the calculation of attendance at the end of the term. It is difficult to assume that students will not suffer due to this experiment again.
This is one complication if one assumes that tracking attendance is the 'only' purpose of these devices. This however is not the case. During a conversation with an employee of the computer centre it was found out that these devices will allow him to monitor the movements of each and every one on the campus at all times. Through the monitoring systems that come with the Swipe Card system, a person can be located to the class room / lecture hall / DH / library / cyber library or just the general open space of the campuses as one would be required to swipe their cards at all these areas before accessing them. Other than just the sheer burden of going through the futile and repetitive exercise of marking your presence at all times, there are further objections arise.
A move like this raises issues pertaining to surveillance of the movement of the students on campus. There is already an overwhelming presence of security on campus. In all 60 security guards have been employed and seem to have been given instructions not only about how to keep the campus secured but also how to preserve its 'moral' sanctity. (If their presence is required because of a looming 'security threat' then one wonders what purpose would their flash lights serve in the unfortunate event of a terrorist attack). The flow of morality on the campus is, as is usually the case, from the top to bottom whereby the administration decides the various deadlines that one cannot cross. There are cameras recording the movement of people in all the areas of the library and the cyber library at all times already. In this scenario it seems that the chances of moralizing, deciding codes of behaviour and regulating personal spaces will be heightened through the monitoring of the movements of the students on campus with the surveillance devices becoming functional.
Further the move to install Swipe Card systems also raises the concerns about the choice of expenditure done on the campus. Many long sustained demands like that of a cellular signal booster in the new Campus hostels, a language lab for students, a night canteen, etc. have been simply overlooked by a morally paranoid administration. In the meantime, a high-tech remote controlled, motion sensing gate has been installed at the entrance of the old campus which is being manned by no less than five security personnel at all time. Along with these the Swipe Card system has been activated. And the most recent development is the installation of CCTV cameras all over the campus. All this is happening while around 24 students have been asked to stay together in the Recreation Hall of the new campus hostel as the institute has plainly refused to take responsibility for providing adequate hostel facilities for them. Whatever happened to Human Rights or Consumer Rights for that matter? One wonders if while deciding what projects should be undertaken, the interest of the students is ever a priority of the administration and if it ever decides to give their demands any priority?
- Shray Mehta
A very well written post. Raises several key issues, primary being that the idea of regulating people's spaces on campus. for some reason th logic in installing cameras seems to be that since it is a public space, then cameras arent intrusive. after all, what you do in public is visible to all. so why be uncomfortable with cameras?
ReplyDeletethe logic is so utterly flawed and violative. in public spaces, we get to exercise some agency in choosing our actions and who witnesses them. but installing cameras deprives us of that very choice. cameras are intrusive, external and permanent devices. and you cannot record someone if they dont want to unless they are on your property. it isnt ethical. unless of course the admin is arguing that this is their private property!
And we keep blaming BJP,RSS,Bajrang Dal for moral Policing...The way guards roam around in nights flashing lights on each & every nook and corner of campus, guards at Mens hostel corridors on 1st and 2nd floor,strict night rules, the whole idea of residential campus and students meeting n discussing all day n night gets defeated..
ReplyDeleteA word about the guards who end up becoming the scapegoats in this whole issue, even if inadvertently so. They are paid no more than the minimum wages legally enforceable in Mumbai for their strenuous duty hours, i.e. just Rs.6000 a month. They are casually employed without any job security or relief provisions. Their night duties are most arbitrarily assigned and all they get for 'guarding us' for about 10 hours at night is a couple of cups of tea, not necessarily when they need it. For long they have been requesting for some kind of eatery that can provide for those odd hours at night; much in line with what we students have been demanding. But in an institution where most democratic traditions have been buried under heaps of autocratic circulars and notices, one can hardly imagine the voice of a casual labourer mattering for the administration!
ReplyDeleteAbout cctv cameras in public spaces.
ReplyDeleteI think it is not so much a question about WHAT is being monitored as it is about WHO is monitoring.
In conversations with students on campus, this point that Swathi highlighted - that it is not so much a matter of intrusion in public spaces because one anyway regulates one's behaviour in open spaces - keeps coming up as an argument which tends to favor the presence of these cameras.
What gets dangerously overlooked is that there is a setup - technical and human - that both, works behind the cameras and works FROM behind the cameras.
Who monitors us? Under what capacity? Do they have zooming in facilities? These are important questions that need to be addressed.
Most importantly, it is unethical and humiliating to be subjected to such surveillance.
Also, one argument that I heard the administration gives on the question of surveillance-masked-as-security is that they are our ad hoc parents of sorts.
ReplyDeleteThe point I am making here is that while this rhetoric of parenting is given to us on the question of deadlines, what happens when students, or 'children' rather, suffer on campus on other grounds - cramming 24 students in the recreation hall, lack of a night canteen, etc etc etc.
Are we up for such selective parenting?