Samenvatting

Criminological research on surveillance is relatively scarce. This is even more striking because criminology is often grounded in empirical research in relation to tackling crime and disorder. Moreover, the private sector has made all sorts of surveillance services accessible to the public at large. These services generate data which routinely provide input to build user profiles, are resold to other tech companies and can be requested by the authorities to investigate crimes. In surveillance studies, these developments have led to discussions about theoretical and normative frameworks how (digital) surveillance relates to security issues. These discussions center less on ‘what works’, but more on ‘what assumptions underlie the data’, ‘what are the effects and consequences’, or even ‘where does it stop’. In order to provide an impetus for more attention to surveillance as a criminological topic, this article presents an overview of the history of surveillance studies and provides some perspectives for criminological research, ranging from a ‘digital ethics’ to the ‘surveillance experiences’ of the people who watch and are being watched.