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Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, Google Street View 'is just wrong'. The short piece which makes up part of a larger feature about 'technology that's just wrong' goes on to explain that Google Street View is like a scene from George Orwell's terrifying dystopian vision of 1984 and that it could ultimately change our behaviour because we'll never know when we're being watched. 'Google? Aren't they the friendly folk who help me find Web sites, cheat at pub quizzes, and look at porn? Yes, but since 2006 they're also photographing the streets of selected world cities and posting the results online for all to see. It was Jeremy Bentham who developed the idea of the Panopticon, a system of prison design whereby everybody could be seen from one central point, with the upshot being that prisoners learnt to modulate their behaviour — because they never knew if they were being watched. And that doesn't sound like much fun, does it?'"
Since the whole damn thing is contained in the summary.
It would be nice if the authors had explained why they thought they had a right to privacy when in public, or whether they believed that Google was taking pictures inside people's houses. But I guess a fear mongering rant was what they were in the mood for instead.
"Choosing to refrain from producing another person demonstrates a profound love for all life" [vhemt.org]
My apartment is visible on Google Street View, which I found a bit unsettling because the street it's off isn't really a street. But Google drove down it and took pictures. It was on Google Maps, after all. Thankfully my blinds were down that day so you can't see inside, but you can see the outside.
On the other hand, that's one instant of time a good year or so ago. It's not constantly updating. It's not like there are cameras inside my apartment constantly watching me. It's not exactly dystopian, just somewhat unsettling.
Now if it were constantly updating, allowing people to follow my car around, then I would be worried. Otherwise I don't really care.
On the other hand, for the most part, Google Street View is mostly useless. It doesn't really offer any information that you can't get from the satellite view. I frequently go over unknown routes using Google Maps (or Google Earth - same diff) but I have never really found street view to be that useful. There are probably some exceptions, though.
(The second one is actually worse than it appears on street view, since it used to be a rotary, and they haven't made a complete circuit. Go ahead, try and guess which lane is which from the satellite image.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Yup, funny that they think that the 24/7 video system in the UK is not big brother esque.
Honestly anyone that is at all interested in privacy have been screaming and yelling for over a decade now. suddenly some guy that has had his head in the sand realizes that things have changed and screams the sky is falling is newsworthy?
Even in the USA, you are on camera way more than you think. Police cars record 24/7 now. stores, malls, parking lots, street corners.. Cameras are everywhere watching you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thank you! I have looked up my house using Google maps and I can still see my in-laws Camper and Truck sitting in my driveway. They sold both several years ago. So unless Google has bought some satellites and has started doing real time of selected cities, I don't think we need to worry quite yet. I would be more worried about cities networked with cameras (like London) where the powers-that-be can follow you around the city. I don't think those cameras are hooked up to Google (yet)instead of a van going through one time per x months and taking video of the streets. When (and if) the THOSE cameras are hooked into Google, then it may be time to worry.
Beware of Sleestak
If you happen to be bonking someone on the street just at that moment, and don't want your face (or whatever) on camera, tough.
Actually, Google Street View has a "report" option that lets users report obscene happenings or persons faces that don't want to be on the site.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
One picture in 6 mos to a year video surveillance does not make.
True, but it only takes one picture to embarrass somebody, to catch a crime in progress, or to simply show an individual in a location where they're rather it not be known they are. Many people are already aware that Street View captured the results of more than one automobile accidents. How would you like to be immortalized for riding your bike down the street, unaware that Google just snapped a picture of you showing your jeans riding down your backside?
Security cameras like those in ATM's have very limited visibility & range, and most people know they are there. The contents of those tapes also aren't generally available to the public. They most likely would need a court order to obtain. How would you like it if the whole world could simply go to Google and see a photograph of you walking into a motel with a prostitute, leaving a strip club, getting mugged on the side of the street, or caught in the act of accidentally hitting somebody in a crosswalk with your car? It's that kind of publicity that most people are concerned about.
Given that Google, MSN, etc. are doing this I bet it's just a matter of time before police start mounting cameras on their patrol cars as a means to identify illegal behavior that the officers in the car might miss. How would you like to get a ticket in the mail a week after a police car driving by takes a photo of you jaywalking? That's the sort of thing this could eventually lead to, and that's not what most people want.
If your home address is off in Google Maps, you can now move it yourself. Try it, it works!
You can of course use the same feature to hide it, if you are so inclined.
While Bentham did theorize the panopticon as a penal architecture, it's important to note that it was also intended by Bentham to be an architecture for the workplace - a disturbing paralell. Regardless, it was Foucault's analysis (and not Bentham's own, which saw the panopticon as an unproblematic moral reformatory) of panoptic architecture that developed the most cogent discussion of how power works (in corrosive ways) within the panopticon. Foucault's discussion has routinely been applied to critiques of IT (perhaps the most well known being Shoshana Zuboff's "In The Age of the Smart Machine"). So while it's nice to note Bentham here, it's probably more true to the spirit of the piece to keep Foucault in mind.
OMG girls in bikinis on Google : http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=googleplex&sll=37.448697,-120.948486&sspn=2.94791,5.141602&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.424329,-122.160873&cbp=2,349.541746156754,0.616426117417295,3&gl=us&ll=37.428507,-122.159901&spn=0.008247,0.0212&z=16&hl=en
Chicago already does this. They have vans with cameras on top that record the license plates of cars parked on the side of the street as the van drives by.
Chicago's also going crazy with police cameras and red-light cameras. The city's argument is that the police cameras are used to deal with safety/crime problems and the red-light (and illegal turn on red) cameras are for revenue collection, I mean safety. I'm just waiting for those red-light cameras to start issuing jaywalking tickets.
More red-light cameras coming to Chicago