The rapid development of surveillance technologies, such as CCTV cameras, facial recognition, predictive policing software and Big Data analysis [1], [2], [3], [4], has well outpaced the development of adequate regulation in form of ethics and law in order to control their use. Such an unrestricted development raises the risk of violation of fundamental rights, such as right to privacy, freedom of assembly and protection from discrimination. While concepts like "privacy by design" and ethical guidelines exist, they often lack the detailed structure that would make them applicable to multiple situations and enable proper evaluation. In this paper, I will introduce and develop a multi-level ethical impact assessment model, which complements and improves existing models, such as surveillance impact assessment (SIA) methodology, in order to provide a systematic tool for evaluation of the proportionality and ethical soundness of surveillance systems. This assessment model operates at three levels that interact with each other: Technological Level, which evaluates technological capacities and potential harms, Contextual Level, which evaluates the particular situation, power balance and the role of the technology within society, and Governance Level, which evaluates the regulation framework created. A systematic literature review is performed for synthesizing the current research on ethical evaluation frameworks and identifying important gaps in their application. The following step includes applying the developed multi-tier framework to three concrete cases – facial recognition systems in public spaces, monitoring employees, and predictive policing. It turns out that the developed framework is capable of showing complex ethical trade-offs and providing a clear and transparent traceability record for the assessment of proportionality. We argue that it is necessary to have a multi-tier approach in order to make sure that the application of surveillance technologies corresponds to democratic norms and respects human rights.

 

Keywords— Ethics, Facial Recognition, Impact Assessment, Governance, Predictive Policing, Policy Privacy, Proportionality, Surveillance Technology, Surveillance Impact Assessment, Ethical Impact Assessment.