[rahuldottech]

I don't know how I feel about hidden surveillance cameras in public. I know I shouldn't have any expectation of privacy in public and all that, but CCTV cameras in plain view are a different matter.

Are we going to live in a world where we're constantly being recorded and analysed by hidden cameras? This makes me very uneasy. Whatever happened to the idea that democratic governments should be for the people?

I'm sure there's no way that this can ever possibly be misused /s.

If agencies are using these for surveillance on specific targets then that's maybe okay, but as far as I'm aware, there is not much regulation regarding hidden cameras in public - at least, not in many parts of the world.

[cmdshiftf4]

>Are we going to live in a world where we're constantly being recorded and analysed by hidden cameras?

Yes. Worse - the governments don't even have to spend the time and money setting up these cameras, the consumer is buying and setting up more and more surveillance devices on themselves and those around them (Cellphones, Google Home, Alexa, Nest cameras, Ring cameras, etc. etc.) than ever.

All of it piped into communications networks we know they have untapped access to. All of it being stored and analyzed in places like the NSA's data warehouses, the output of which gets added to things like our XKeyscore profiles. Rise high enough on their undefined terms and they'll make extra effort to analyze your appearance in that network traffic.

Might sound dystopian but that's how it is. It's for our own good, don't you know?

[bilbo0s]

That's the thing that perplexes me?

People buy internet connected cameras and microphones for everything from their phones, to their tv's, to their door bells, and then they get upset that their activities are law enforcement accessible on whatever company's servers? I mean, what did people think would happen? That's just the natural way to use that data. How else would such data be used? Maybe to find workman comp fraudsters? Could be used pretty liberally in family courts? Once non technical people begin to realize the data is out there and family court accessible. But it's not like it's gonna be used to get you your next promotion. (Maybe to prevent you getting your next promotion, but that's another thing entirely.)

For me, it just sounds like a really good reason not to be buying cameras and microphones and slapping them up all over the place. When people come to your home, they should feel they can speak and act freely. Especially since they won't be able to do so in public much longer.

[cmdshiftf4]

>For me, it just sounds like a really good reason not to be buying cameras and microphones and slapping them up all over the place.

It's being sold as convenience and we can expect a lot more of it. The last decade has shown that the general populace will trade almost anything for the perception of convenience.

[sitkack]

As as I was driving, yelling at Google Maps because too many reasons to list, I realized that many people I know have a megacorp that intermediates their lives, it chooses the music, the movies, the news, the restaurants, it knows the music we like, when we eat, what we like to eat, when we get home, how hot we like to keep the house and what books we are reading.

Knowing what I am doing is one thing, but subtly guiding what we do and see throughout the day is kinda wrong.

[paulmd]

This is probably the last generation of TVs that will be sold without onboard microphones for the "smart" functionality. LG's 2020 lineup will have them and it'll be trickling down to lower models and other brands.

Like, it's already got microphones in the remote for the digital assistant functionality but you can't leave a remote sending 24/7 because it'll flatten the batteries.

[a3n]

> I mean, what did people think

They didn't, and they don't. We are conditioned to buy whatever's on offer.

[AdrianB1]

"But think of the children". This is an excuse that always work when the governments get even more in the lives of the citizens; with it you can ban anything, you can monitor, search, decrypt, forbid, etc.

[joncp]

> I know I shouldn't have any expectation of privacy in public and all that, but CCTV cameras in plain view are a different matter.

Perhaps we need to define a new right: the right to obscurity. There are places and times when you can't expect privacy but still should be able to expect that your location and actions won't be linked to your identity for all eternity.

[uuhsuduuej2]

I imagine perspective explains a lot of the behavior. San Diego's police department has been getting flack for streetlights with cameras in them for example, but San Diego's police department has also been having trouble hiring enough police officers. From the perspective of the PD the cameras probably /are/ for the people because the people are making the (currently) impossible demand that the police force be both effective and also configured in a way that has led to a staffing shortage. Not that I give the same benefit of the doubt to the FBI, but it seems like the Occam's Razor explanation for why LEO would do something that from the outside looks hostile.

[saagarjha]

Law enforcement often does things that make their job easier. Said things just as often encroach upon our rights as citizens. We shouldn’t allow them to exist for that reason.

[JustSomeNobody]

> I don't know how I feel about hidden surveillance cameras in public.

Me either. I mean, once people get used to just having cameras on them all the time, they'll basically just ignore the camera and act however they want. No real need for hidden cameras, just have to be patient.

[judge2020]

I mean, the issue with cameras on everyone is that they all require small batteries, meaning always recording with them isn't really practical. There is already early-stage research into long-range wireless charging https://youtu.be/gn7T599QaN8 so maybe 15+ years in the future it would be practical to have always-recording devices.