Slashdot Mirror
Should We Be Afraid of Google Glass?
An anonymous reader writes "An article at TechCrunch bemoans the naysayers of ubiquitous video camera headsets, which seems like a near-term certainty whether it comes in the form of Google Glass or a similar product. The author points out, rightly, that surveillance cameras are already everywhere, and increasingly sophisticated government drones and satellites mean you're probably on camera more than you think already. 'But there's something about being caught on video, not by some impersonal machine but by another human being, that sticks in people's craws and makes them go irrationally berserk.' However, he also seems happy to trade privacy for security, which may not be palatable to others. He references a time he was mugged in Mexico as well as a desire to keep an eye on abuses of authority from police and others. 'If pervasive, ubiquitous networked cameras ultimately make public privacy impossible, which seems likely, then at least we can balance the scales by ensuring that we have two-way transparency between the powerful and the powerless.'"
"ubiquitous cameras everywhere recording everything at all times" is already happening and it has nothing to do with Google Glasses.
If you care about your privacy, Glass is the least of your concerns - there are already many ways to record everything secretly. And, if you want to invade people's privacy like this, Glass is the last thing you should use since it is so conspicuous.
Britain already went through this debate as they installed their ubiquitous CCVC network. Privacy lost.
GeekWire: 'Creepy Cameraman' pushes limits of public surveillance - a glimpse of the future? (includes interesting video)
That's not a bad idea.
But what could possibly be bad about random strangers walking around with cameras attached to their heads which take pictures and instantly upload them to google? Google is building a security camera network made of meat.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Or like this.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The problem is not "people" recording as much as images sent to Google'a servers.
Well, no - both are problems. I don't want random individuals recording my interactions with them.
Google IS the bigger problem, admittedly. For one thing I'm pretty sure they never truly delete anything even if you delete it from your account. I've come to believe that because of an experience I recently had. One of our users had uploaded an ical file containing her calendar from another system. She then changed her mind and cleared the calendar of everything, following Google's instructions (I verified this) - so the calendar was completely empty. a couple months later, for collaboration's sake she went to her old system and again exported an ical file. Google would not allow her to upload the events, though, stating "these items have already been uploaded" even though they were not on her Google calendar anymore.
FYI the solution to the upload problem was changing the sequence number for each event in the ical file, as others around the web have found.
#DeleteChrome