Government officials need to be ready for 'sousveillance,' social trend expert says

• By Alice Lipowicz • Dec 13, 2011

As social media and mobile technologies continue to expand, government officials and employees increasingly may be targets of “sousveillance”—a French term for ‘bottom- up’ —carried out by ordinary citizens in the coming years, according to an Internet trend analyst.

“It is the ordinary watching the powerful,” Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, said in a lecture sponsored by the Federal Web Managers Council interagency group on Dec. 13.

While the term sousveillance is not yet commonly used in the , the practice has become fairly prevalent here in recent years as more citizens carry and use video recording devices such as iPhones in public spaces and at public events. While bystander videotapes of law enforcement activities have been controversial on occasion, many forms of citizen videotaping of public officials' activity are hailed by transparency advocates as a sign of increased engagement and transparency in society.

For agency leaders and other government figures, that means videos of their public speeches and appearances, along with tweets, comments on Facebook, posts and other public communications could be collected and displayed on social media websites in near real time, Rainie said.

An example is that Occupy Wall Street protesters and their supporters have made it a practice of video-recording and public officials who interact with them and posting those videos online, Rainie said.

More generally, it has become common for community members around the country to post amateur videos of live speeches by elected officials and to publish and curate online other communications by public officials, he added.

Governments are not the only targets of the increased ability to monitor behavior online. Government surveillance of citizens also is on the rise, as it citizen surveillance of each other, using contemporary technology such as Facebook, , iPhones, video cameras and recording devices, Rainie said.

While young people ages 18 to 25 are thought to have the most to lose by too much disclosure online -- as incontrovertible evidence of their youthful indiscretions spread far

From fcw.com/Articles/2011/12/13/Goverment-officials-need-to-be-ready-for- sousveillance.aspx?s=fcwdaily_141211&Page=1 14 December 2011 and wide electronically -- research shows they are the age group who actually are the most protective of their online reputations, Rainie said.

“They are very conscious of the need to manage their online reputations,” Rainie said.

From fcw.com/Articles/2011/12/13/Goverment-officials-need-to-be-ready-for- sousveillance.aspx?s=fcwdaily_141211&Page=1 14 December 2011