GE, Intel, and AT&T Are Putting Cameras and Sensors All Over San Diego (fortune.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Fortune report: General Electric will put cameras, microphones, and sensors on 3,200 street lights in San Diego this year, marking the first large-scale use of "smart city" tools GE says can help monitor traffic and pinpoint crime, but raising potential privacy concerns. Based on technology from GE's Current division, Intel and AT&T, the system will use sensing nodes on light poles to locate gunshots, estimate crowd sizes, check vehicle speeds and other tasks, GE and the city said on Wednesday. The city will provide the data to entrepreneurs and students to develop applications. Companies expect a growing market for such systems as cities seek better data to plan and run their operations. San Diego is a test of "Internet of things" technology that GE Current provides for commercial buildings and industrial sites.

Comments

Not entirely sure

[arth1]

and other tasks

That's the worry.

Re:Not entirely sure

[geekmux]

and other tasks

That's the worry.

It's the worry for the very small fraction of intelligent people who already know how will be abused.

For the other 99% of society who doesn't give a shit about privacy anymore, they don't care about the abuse, including the cost of implementing or maintaining this for little or no real value.

This isn't about traffic or crime. This is about Control.

Re:its in public

[Shane_Optima]

it's in public. u don't have any expectation of privacy

Historically true, but if we're headed for a world where everything we do and everything we say in public (at least outside and within the city limits) is on file for all time on a server somewhere that's been pre-analyzed and indexed using using facial recognition and voice recognition... we might want to consider revising that rule of thumb a bit.