Eavesdropping by the eye: detecting sound events and the culture of acoustic intelligence

ABSTRACT An increasing number of private companies in the Global North are selling acoustic intelligence software to local authorities for the detection of sound events in public space that signal potential or actual infringements on security. Such sound events include screams, gunshots, exploding firecrackers, sounding car alarms, and breaking glass. This paper aims to show how three such companies – based in the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States – situate their offerings in relation to eavesdropping, earwitnessing, and the history of human hearing and technology. It attempts to contextualise their rhetoric within a broader techno-cultural history of acoustic detection, eavesdropping, police and intelligence work, including intelligence work implemented by infamous state security organisations such as the Stasi. In so doing, this essay both unravels what these companies exclude from their public presentation and clarifies how research into historical shifts in the cultural tropes of earwitnessing and eavesdropping can help elucidate how present-day acoustic intelligence software is constructed as socially acceptable.