Personal Information, Borders, and the New Surveillance Studies

This article reviews and critiques recent scholarship on surveillance and communication technology that involves the crossing of personal information borders. A Sociology of Information framework focusing on the normative elements is proposed as a way to integrate this variegated field. Empirical analysis is particularly needed to test the claims of surveillance scholars, and we suggest some hypotheses. The article concludes with a consideration of conflicting values and empirical trends that make this such a challenging field and suggests some “moral mandates” to guide research in the crossing of personal informational borders, whether this involves individual privacy and accountability or broader social concerns.