Beliefs and attitudes of citizens in Spain towards smart surveillance and privacy

Abstract

This document presents the Spain results of a qualitative study undertaken as part of the SMART project – “Scalable Measures for Automated Recognition Technologies” (SMART; G.A. 261727). The analysis and results are based on a set of three focus group discussions comprising of 28 participants, which were held in order to examine the beliefs and attitudes of citizens towards smart surveillance and privacy. The focus group discussions were conducted in line with a discussion guide mainly consisting of different scenarios aimed at stimulating a discussion amongst the participants. While some scenarios dealt with surveillance in everyday contexts likely to be encountered by research participants, other scenarios were hypothetical in nature and their aim was to elicit the feelings, beliefs and attitudes of the participants in relation to massively integrated dataveillance and the “security versus privacy trade-off”.