Slashdot Mirror
Your House Is About To Be Photographed
An anonymous reader writes "Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of every house in America, in hopes of building a giant database that can be sold to banks, insurance companies, and appraisal firms. While this activity is legal (as long as the photographers don't trespass on private property to get their shots), there are obviously concerns about security and privacy. Considering that an individual can be detained and questioned by the FBI for photographing a bridge in this country, why should this Canadian company get a free pass? Tinfoil hat aside, something seems very, very fishy here." From the Arizona Star article about the photographing of Tucson: "'The [handout given to people who complain] made it sound like they're doing it for law enforcement, when in reality they're doing it for sales and marketing,' said [a City Council aide], who received several calls about the company."
I have to put up my 10 meter wide 'FUCK YOU' banner.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
What seems "very, very fishy?"
From my understanding, this has always been legal. Where we live, the size, configuration, value and tax record of your house is public information. So what would people do with this information that is so sinister?
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
... to our forthcoming invasion. Do not be alarmed.
Actually we have invaded the US 47 times in the last 10 years, but nobody noticed.
Very little of my house is visible from public access. However, driving a hundred yards or so down my driveway will offer you a nice, clean picture. The first time I see photos of my house which I know had to have been taken from my private property, can I have their asses thrown in jail for trespassing?
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Ever hear of Zillow, the real estate "estimator"? They already have detailed pictures of homes in many major U.S. cities, from four different angles (taken by plane, natch). These aerial shots, of course, blow sat images away when it comes to level of detail.
I fail to see why pictures taken in legal way (I'm not talking about trespassing or even breaking-in to take interior pictures) is useful in any way? What bank or real estate agent would gain from picture taken from the street? More information is currently readily available - most people post detailed pictures of interior and exterior when they sell houses, this information only needs to be archived and categorized to get better result than this project can hope to archive.
New York City did this in the 1920's, and still does it to this day. Several private firms also do this.
Anyone ever hear of propertyshark.com?.
Yeah, pictures of every building in Manhattan, and much of prime Brooklyn. They also have the tax photos from the 1970's.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
I'm a proponent of strong privacy rights, but if they're just photographing the view of your house from the street, I fail to see how they're doing anything invasive of one's privacy, they're simply cataloging trivially publicly available information. Anyone can drive down the street and see the house. Presumably, on any given day, on most of these streets, hundreds or thousands of people drive down the street and see the house anyway.
Using something like a high-powered zoom lens to try to shoot pictures inside the house through the window, or trespassing on the property to better see the house, or driving a cherry picker down the street to take hard-to-get views over privacy fences and such would be different. But I don't see how the regular pedestrian view from the street can be considered "private." Presumably anybody with your address could get the same view by going there anytime. And to look it up in this company's database, presumably they've already got your address or could easily retrieve it from other sources. They're just changing the ease of access to this information, they aren't making any "private" information that wasn't previously accessible available, they're just changing the costs of accessing publicly available information.
If you care about people not obtaining information they can get from glancing at your house from the street, then you need a privacy fence or something to conceal that information.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
A couple years ago in Seattle we had a photographer accosted by police because he was photographing a railroad bridge - they told him he needed permits etc. from the city and from Homeland Security or the FBI. When someone actually bothered to check with both federal agencies, their replies basically amounted to "no, that's silly".
What it sounds like (to me anyway) is a number of local agencies get overly zealous at times. I suspect part of the problem is there hasn't been much, if any, guidance provided to local law enforcement from the feds. Another part of the problem is these people, from the feds on down, seem to be flying the security ship by the seat of their pants, and worrying about what's actually legal/illegal later - the old "Shoot 'em all, and let God sort 'em out" philosophy.
#DeleteChrome
"Number 134?"
"Yeah"
"It's just a door with a number?"
"Yeah like the last 133 units we've shot dumbass"
*Click*
"Okay got it"
Namaste
I built a facade exterior house outside my actual house with a tinfoil lining. The pretense house has a different address on its mailbox and I use MAT (mailbox address translation) to forward all mail to my real house. I keep all the windows and doors on the proxy house closed. This combined with a good cinder block firewall keeps me safe and from broadcasting my real address TO THE WORLD!
"I pity the poor defenseless Canadians." Oh, don't worry about us. We'll be hiring local photographers. Rest assured, those are fellow Americans you'll be shooting, as per usual.
Don't know where it came first, but here in Finland a company called Igglo photographed every house here a couple of years ago. There are now photos of every building online. And I have to admit, that if your buying or renting something it sure is a very nice service. But I understand the privacy issues. There was some protest over here especially about photographic single-family houses. And I actually saw these guys photographing the house I live in. My first impression about them was to call the police. Kind of funny later on when I figured who they were.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
Whom says that it can only be used in the objective case?
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
First of all the bit about them getting a free pass is just absurd, despite what the TSA does the idea of these precautions is to catch terrorists not make sure everyone is annoyed equally.
Secondly I think it is unfortunate that the distinction between privacy and anonymity is so often blurred. This technology does not infringe on your privacy, the front of your house is visible to any passerby and has undoubtedly been published in some picture on the web or a newspaper already. Nothing that was not previously visible to complete strangers has been revealed. All that has changed is that it is now easy for people to find that information and make use of it. In other words your anonymity has been reduced though your privacy has not been affected (they aren't always so clearly cut but here it is).
Now I find it pretty ironic that the same vocal slashdot lobby that is so strongly against any sort of free speech restriction or data lockdown technology seem to think that we can and should do something to stop the loss of (physical) anonymity. Frankly the two goals are fundamentally incompatible.
As it gets easier and easier for people to post information to the web they will do it. Today we have camera phones, tomorrow we will have glasses that record video, recognize faces and code geographic information into that data. Either you pass draconian laws that prevent people from posting the snapshots/movies online or that data will eventually be there, and sooner or later better search and geographic information will make it possible for search to organize it in ways that let people determine what city your in on a given day (face recognition on photos taken that day) and certainly they will be able to track down a picture of your house.
This sort of loss of anonymity is inevitable if we don't want to give up our freedom. It isn't all bad, after all this is the way people lived in small towns for most of history. But so long as we keep whining about it rather than facing up to the fact we make sure that it will be lost in the worst possible ways, i.e., useful features that expose the information to us will be stopped but governments and corporations will be able to use it as they wish. What we need to be doing is making sure that anonymity is lost equally, i.e., we don't get situations where the ghetto is filled with cameras but the suburbs are not (it is too easy to demonize 'other' people when the unblinking eye isn't trained at 'your kind'), and beefing up genuine privacy protections in the face of this loss of anonymity.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The Cook County Assessors office already photographs homes and makes the photographs available online.
t ml
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/ccao/startres.h
You can just search by address and find a lot of the public information about private residences online, including photos in most cases (in all cases in the small sample I've tried).
I wonder how common this is with other regional governments?
As a Canadian-born citizen, I'd have to agree with you. There is definitely something very wrong with Canadians being able to take pictures of your public property, while you are not. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the tone of the above statement. But if anything, this should help open your eyes to the problem America has with overreacting to everything. In my opinion (and an opinion also shared with a lot of other non-Americans) a lot of American citizens don't seem to realize the problem isn't with other countries, it's with your country. You need to lighten up, as a nation.
Blerg.
... by taking a picture of my home, you agree to all of the terms and conditions outlined in my home's EULA. Those terms include a 99.99% revenue share on any income related to use of said picture...
This article just made me realize that my neighbors can see the front of my house and even know when I leave and come back.
Oh, my privacy! We need to outlaw neighbors...
On the other hand, when I forget to close my garage door, one of the neighbors will probably keep an eye on the place to make sure no one walks off with stuff, and may even walk over and close it for me. Nice thing about having neighbors where you know their names...
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Be a little careful there....many places in fact use real off duty cops as their rent-a-cops. I know way back in the day when I was in school, and selling clothes at Dillard's...the plain cloths store cops were ALL real life LRPD. I was talking to one of them one slow night, and he explained the different guns he carried. The in-store gun with bullets that wouldn't go through the person...and the outdoor gun where if he had to shoot through a car...it would penetrate...etc.
And in some/many jurisdictions if I understand it...a cop really is never 'off' duty...so, even if working as a rent-a-cop...he has the exact same authority as if he were on direct police duty.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
To get close enough to photograph one of my houses would take at least a 20 minute drive in a 4x4, across *private* property. If they try that, i get to shoot them as trespassers.
I also agree this is fishy. While i do realize its legal to stand in the street and take pictures of anything you can see, including people's private belongings, perhaps this legalty should be reconsidered. Whatever happened to 'expectations of reasonable privacy in public'?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The Walmart that I worked at has salaried staff members who have been deputized by local law enforcement. If you leave the store with something you didn't pay for, they can (legally) detain you. The company policy for this though is that the 'loss prevention' person has to see you pocket an item and then have eyes on you all the way out of the store. Hourly paid associates are not allowed to even accuse someone of shop-lifting, most they can do is be cheery, helpful, and everywhere in the hopes of making the suspect uncomfortable enough to put the stuff back and leave. I guess there's somtehing about hourly employees are personally liable but salaried employees are protected by the company.
I don't know if this is true for other stores or even other Walmarts, but the one I worked at, the loss prevention guys had the paperwork to prove that they had been deputized and the the authority and the right to detain someone on suspicion of shop lifting.
Hey, I think I own some of the design elements of my house. I don't see how they have the right to sell images of this without paying me a royalty. So, what about writing any of these services a short note letting them know that I don't consent to them using images of my house for their for-profit business. Well, actually, on second thought, I might consent if they're willing to pay me a royalty I consider sufficient. Okay, a man's home ain't his castle any more, but a man's design must still be copyrighted if Micky Mouse is!