Your work addresses computer vision and image processing algorithms from a critical data and surveillance studies perspective. Where do you see the most critical aspects of infrastructures of surveillance currently emerging in cities and how could citizens be enabled to better understand the implications of such infrastructure choices?

Most critical is the way surveillance (of all sorts) is being rolled out in cities without public debate. In fact, what's most interesting is that people don't actually know which questions they should ask about these systems. I've just finished co-writing, for example, about the political economy of an algorithmic surveillance infrastructure being implemented in the city of Curitiba (Brazil), under the name "Digital Wall". What we found was that facial recognition and other forms of surveillance are being rolled out, yet there is no clear public policy justification for its use—besides a total lack of discussion around all its problems. The big question is how to make citizens understand these infrastructures, especially considering they're not very visible. I'd say a key issue here is not just showing citizens what's out there, but also helping them consider all the different issues that emerge from their implementation. Very often, however, there is a complete lack of interest in actually engaging with the potential drawbacks of these technologies, because they are in fact used as marketing by the cities buying them.   

How do infrastructures matter for citizens?  

They are everywhere, and they build which kinds of lives are possible, whether we notice them or not. The consequence of this is that they have great impact on how we live, plain and simple. The scholar Susan Leigh Star said that we should think of the internet more like boring infrastructures, such as water or sewers. This analogy is great: today, for example, having or not internet at home has great impacts for your education and work.  

How should knowledge about infrastructures be communicated and what role can journalists, researchers or public officials play?

This is a central role to be played by them (and I'd also include activists in that list). I have been very interested in how these different groups have been, for example, mapping and making visible how algorithmic surveillance infrastructures are placed within their community, city, or country. What is really interesting is that this (deceptively) simple process of mapping has tremendous impact: it makes visible the infrastructures which normally fade into the background, it makes them actionable, questionable, and ultimately accountable (at least to some extent). Sadly, though, many governmental institutions believe these infrastructures should be hidden, and try to conceal them as much as possible.