Citizens’ Support for AI Security Surveillance Systems: A Social Exchange Perspective

Artificial intelligence (AI) has tremendously transformed the patterns of security surveillance employed by governments. Although the primary goal of security surveillance is to maintain social order and enhance citizens’ protection, significant privacy concerns were raised for citizens given the unprecedented amount of personal data accessed by various types of AI-powered security surveillance (AISS) systems, such as facial recognition technologies. Nonetheless, policymakers and academia rarely paid attention to the citizens’ views as the main stakeholders of these systems. Motivated by this, in this study, we develop a theoretical model drawing on the assertions of the Social Exchange Theory (SET) to explain the factors and mechanisms that influence citizens’ support for AISS. In particular, we elaborate on the role of privacy-security tradeoff, trust, and power and their interplay in explaining citizens’ supportive attitudes. Potential contributions from this research to theory and practice are also outlined.