[NovemberWest]

I worked for a big company where security was a big thing. I had to have an ID badge to enter the building. My boss once admitted to requesting the logs to determine if people on the team were really showing up on time to work. So I was aware the information could be used in let's say a predatory fashion for things not immediately obvious.

However, I once had an ugly run in with another employee I did not know while in the parking lot. I went to security to look at film and try to ID them. We were not able to ID the employee. We checked film from the stairwell I exited through and caught a glimpse of the person, but you only had to swipe your ID to get in, not to leave. So, no, there was no timed ID badge record to match the picture against.

I was surprised by the outcome. Given the ID badges and security cameras, etc, I had expected a Star Trek style set up. No, not remotely.

I am well aware info can be used against people. That mostly scares me in cases of hostile intent. And where you have hostile intent, it almost does not matter what info they have. They can spin it as something bad anyway.

At this point, I think being innocent is mostly not a defense either. I hope things change. Currently, there is a lot of assumption of guilt and, to me, that is the real problem.

[starky]

The big issue with using access control and security cameras for tracking people is that they are some of the worst possible ways to track someone. As you discovered, it really comes down to a bunch of tedious scrubbing through video trying to find the few seconds of interesting video. Access control makes it somewhat easier, but then you have issues when people just follow another person in instead of using their fob. Tracking people via cellphones and other similar methods is far easier and effective right now.

You could make a lot of money in security if you were able to come up with a reliable way of tracking people via surveillance cameras, particularly in mapping persons movements and identifying when they aren't behaving as expected. Unfortunately this is exactly where it gets too easy to invade people's privacy. It is just a matter of time before we are able to do this, and we really need to have some way of limiting the invasion of privacy while still allowing for these systems to be used in positive ways.

[NovemberWest]

I had fantasies there would be videotape with legible audio of the first encounter in the parking lot and pics of the second encounter at the access road next to the parking lot. There were no cameras trained on either the parking lot or the access road. The camera in the stairwell had no audio and I kind of want to say it took stills every couple of seconds or something, not video, but I do not really recall. Regardless, I was shocked. The cameras everywhere and ID bagdes, etc, turned out to be far less Big Brother Is Watching You than I had believed prio to that incident.

As far as privacy in the future, I think one thing that will happen will be cultural adaptation. I think that is already occurring. I often discuss "personal" things online with acquaintances and strangers that I rarely discuss in person with acquaintances or strangers. This has nothing to do with being shy and everything to do with opportunity to have a meatier discussion online. If I need to give a lot of background info, I can do that online in ways I cannot do in person. For example, I can give links that give additional info for those that need it.

So I think new technology is already redefining what kinds of info are socially acceptable to divulge and changing how people react to knowledge about things that were previously much more deeply secret. As technology continues to evolve, we will face new questions about situations that never existed before. These days, people routinely wrestle with questions about handling social media, online privacy, etc. Those were questions that did not exist when I was growing up. No one has outlawed FaceBook even though, for example, people have been fired for things they said there.