Press release: Watching us, watching you, watching us

29 April 2025

Watching us, watching you, watching us: Gresham College explores the evolution of surveillance 

Gresham Professor of IT, Victoria Baines, to give talk on Tuesday, 8 April 2025, online and in central London 

With CCTV cameras everywhere, many of us don’t even think about surveillance.  

But as we’ve recently seen with Ukraine when intelligence sharing was switched off by the United States administration, leading to an attack on a hotel by Russian troops, good surveillance is an essential when it comes to protecting citizens and saving lives.  

How did surveillance come about? Would the systems we employ be recognisable to early man fighting off wild beasts? And how do people get around them? 

The Gresham Professor of IT, Victoria Baines, will explore the subject at London’s Gresham College. The lecture, How Surveillance Works, takes place from 6pm on Tuesday, 8 April, at the college’s base in Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn.  

The whistlestop tour of surveillance past, present and future will chart just how far we’ve come ... and how far we have to go.  

Professor Baines said: “Our alert systems for identifying safety and security threats have evolved over time. As the threat from wild animals diminished, the perceived threat from other humans increased.  

“To defend our territories and our livelihoods, we began to gather intelligence on our enemies, in the hope that being forewarned would give us an advantage. 

“This lecture explores our use of technologies that have allowed us to keep a closer watch, and the ingenious methods that have been used to counter them.” 

Surveillance is a way of gathering and collecting information in a way that can give an advantage over a threat, be it a wild animal, an enemy or even a petty thief such as a shoplifter.  

It was used by our ancestors to keep their primitive settlements safe from attack or to give early warnings of potentially life-threatening situations such as flooding or fire. Later, it was used as a way of gathering intelligence ahead of launching an attack on an enemy or preventing them from taking action.  

During the Second World War, spying became an essential tool in the fight against the threat of Nazism. Scientists helped develop technology that could give the Allies the edge as they fought for victory.  

Much of this has continued to be developed, becoming tools such as CCTV, RFID and GPS. Many of us rely on mapping apps, have an Air Tag protecting bags and wallets, or wonder how Facebook brings up adverts for things we have just been talking about.  

Discover the world of surveillance with this brilliant overview from one of the country’s leading authorities in online trust, safety and cybersecurity. 

Gresham College is London’s oldest higher education institution. Founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, it has been delivering free public lectures for over 427 years from a lineage of leading professors and experts in their field who have included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Roger Penrose. 

Entry is free, and the lecture will be streamed live on YouTube. This is also free. 

In-person places can be booked online via Gresham College’s website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/how-surveillance-works 

ENDS 

Images available on request

For more information about this story or to arrange an interview with a Gresham Professor please contact: Phil Creighton press@gresham.ac.uk   

Notes to Editors

About Gresham College  
Gresham College has been providing free, educational lectures - at the university level - since 1597 when Sir Thomas Gresham founded the college to bring Renaissance Learning to Londoners. Our history includes some of the luminaries of the scientific revolution including Robert Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren and connects us to the founding of the Royal Society.  

Today we carry on Sir Thomas's vision. The College aims to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to champion academic rigour, professional expertise and freedom of expression. www.gresham.ac.uk  

Gresham College is a registered charity number 1039962 and relies on donations to help us encourage people's love of learning for many years to come. For more details or to make a gift, visit our website.