Record the Surveillance Cams

GruffGoat writes "Have you noticed all the video cams watching your every movement? Perhaps we are becoming accustomed to always being watched. University of Toronto Associate Professor Deibert has an excellent idea of setting aside a day in which we take notice of being watched. Here's a Wired article about taking pictures of the surveillance camers."

Comments

Take pictures of people?

[Trusty Penfold]

Why not take pictures of everyone on the street as well? After all they're all watching you; maybe not as overtly as the cameras but they do notice and they have longer memories than the cameras. The majority of crimes are solved, not by the police watching a grainy, out-of-focus security video but by interviewing witnesses.

If you're bothered about being watched, then don't go out. It isn't worth complaining about a few cameras, they're harmless.

cameras everywhere

[MacAndrew]

The number of cameras is staggering. In addition to those familiar weatherproof housings around city buildings, some of which pivot and zoom, there are the ATM cameras (which can see surprisingly far, I recall a carjacking solved with one), store surveillance (Timothy McVeigh was taped at a McDonald's), traffic enforcement cameras (the DC snipers were photographed by one during their spree, running a red light -- but this was not discovered in time), etc. Many patrol cars now carry cameras; I don't know whether they turn them on outside of stops, where they are useful to deflect charges of police civil rights abuses or, in one case I saw, to tape an officer being murdered.

Note that I'm not a nutty civil libertarian (cut out the nutty part): the parenthetical examples above illustrate desirable uses of these cameras. But I also wonder, when the technology is developed to read license plates and recognize faces, if there won't be a temptation to track someone everywhere they go, without warrant or even any particular suspicion. I don't think this would violate the Fourth Amendment as currently interpreted. Imagine how use it would be for some civil actions, say to prove adultery.

Interesting that security guards would be upset at your taking pictures of cameras. Granted you might be casing the joint, but I also feel that if they can film you because you're in public, the reverse should be true.

Some group (applied autonomy) designed software to help the camera-shy navigate Manhattan's 2400 or so cameras -- a controversial project.

Re:cameras everywhere

[YDdraig]

I like the idea but rather suspect the Powers that Be would be not happy with people photographing cameras.

Out of interest I totted up how many I passed on my walking route to work this week. It was 23.

I live in Swansea,a not particuarly large city in Wales. I live near the city centre and work on the outskirts which probably affects the number of cameras I pass. I also pass the police station en route which definately bumps up the figures.

9 of those were at traffic lights and petrol stations.
4 on or in shops.
2 on houses.
2 on the police station.
4 on the side of a particuarly paranoid chinese takeaway.
1 at the railway station.
1 (which bothered me) on the side of a school, watching the playground.


And then I arrived at work and was promptly checked out on the cameras before I was let in.(I'm a technician in primary schools)

I got kicked out of our mall for something like th

[jon787]

We were doing a "video scavenger hunt" and one of the things to find was a glass elevator. The closest one is in our mall so we went in and video taped it. Needless to say we had a nice run in with your friendly neighborhood rent-a-cops.