Changing Behaviour to Save Energy: ICT-Based Surveillance for a Low-Carbon Economy in the Seventh Framework Programme

DOI

10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.20How to use a DOI?

Keywords

surveillance, sustainability, behaviour, policy, design, FP7

Abstract

In research and development of information and communication technologies for sustainability, there is a strong belief that human behaviour can be monitored at the individual level to generate different signals, and that these signals can be used to influence individuals to behave differently. We analyse Seventh Framework Programme policy documents published by the European Commission, and descriptions of research projects granted funding from it, to highlight the uncritical development and application of surveillance technologies to change human behaviour. We argue that EU-financed projects dealing with sustainability and information and communication technology use models of social change that have been widely criticised as unlikely to lead to substantial changes in resource consumption. Additionally, we show that these texts discuss only the potential positive effects of technological surveillance, but neither acknowledge nor require the handling of the potential negative effects of surveillance.

Copyright

© 2014, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Baki Cakici
AU  - Markus Bylund
PY  - 2014/08
DA  - 2014/08
TI  - Changing Behaviour to Save Energy: ICT-Based Surveillance for a Low-Carbon Economy in the Seventh Framework Programme
BT  - Proceedings of the 2014 conference ICT for Sustainability
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 165
EP  - 170
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.20
DO  - 10.2991/ict4s-14.2014.20
ID  - Cakici2014/08
ER  -