Ubiqitous Electronics and Privacy

Interesting bit of foofrah about an 'art' project! It seems that one Kyle MacDonald has come to the attention of the Secret Service for capturing pictures of unsuspecting people browsing computers at an Apple store and then posting them on a site as a 'art' project called People Staring at Computers.

At the time of this writing no charges have been laid and it is not clear that any 'crime' has actually been committed but Mr. MacDonald's computer has been confiscated and is apparently being scrutinized by the authorities.

While it would appear from what I read that Mr. MacDonald actually physically added software to at least one store computer (which he claims he had permission from the store to do) to take and forward pictures for his use, it is not necessary to do that. It is possible, I believe, (No I do not know how, but have been told that it is possible) to remotely turn on any internet connected camera and capture the resulting images at another location.

In fact, Apple itself has applied for a patent for technology to allow it to turn off the camera function in any one of its phones should they happen to discover the images not to be to their liking. Obviously then, they can monitor the images being fed through their phones, and it seems quite likely that they can be turned on remotely as well and I am sure that there are a number of people with the knowledge and equipment to do so.

So what? Well if you are at all paranoid, I strongly suggest that you disconnect from the internet when you are doing anything in the same room as your computer (or phone) that you want to stay private! It would almost appear that any reasonably well informed person might be said to have no 'expectation of privacy' at any time or place with any kind of electronic equipment around!

Of course, the truth is that with the millions of phones and computers and cameras there are to tap, the odds that anyone would tap yours is (for most of us, at least) pretty darn small. Most of us just aren't that interesting.

The rumor is that all phone calls are computer monitored for key words and those with one of the key words are recorded and followed up but come on.... At any given moment there must be several hundred hours of phone calls happening. Even if only one in a million of those calls contained a key word there would still be thousands of man hours a day required to actually listen to even those calls.

The reality is that 'general' surveillance of any type is really only useful after a crime has been detected ( or at least 'suspected') by other means. If the authorities know a place and or time to look, having surveillance records of that time and place can be very useful but as a way of 'discovering' crime it is are pretty much useless. There are simply too many times and too many places.

Privacy is an obvious growing concern. In the case of Mr. MacDonald the question is one of what rights do we have to prevent or at least profit from the exploitation of our own image? I do know that in art photos it is generally considered necessary to get permission for use from any recognizable individuals in your photos. Mr. MacDonald did not do that! But is that a matter for the Secret Service? I suspect that their interest was as much that he was exposing the simplicity of a tactic they would rather not have the public widely aware of.

Apple? Well their suggested interest in being able to shut down phone cameras was to enable the control of piracy of copyrighted material. For example they could monitor images coming from a concert or movie opening and shut down the phone cameras if the copyright holders desired them to do so (and presumably paid for the privilege, also). But what about images of a protest, or police brutality? They would shut down the cameras at police request? What about individuals having phone sex (with video!)? Would they be responsible for NOT providing video of a crime? I am very surprised if their legal advisers did not warn them that having the ability to 'do a good thing' might leave them open to liability claims if they failed to do that 'good thing'. Having abilities carries responsibilities and I am not sure that on sober thought they would even want the abilities they applied to patent.