It's Time to Take Down your Smart Cameras - Benn Jordan

@bitsondatadev I appreciate your response.

Like I see you also believe, what I find utterly disgraceful is neighborhoods, vehicles, houses, business stores etc littered with cameras. Similar to what @Gopher said this is not indicative of a civil society but more like a hostile society. This constant surveillance disproportionately undermines the personal safety of minority groups and other vulnerable/powerless people, additionally it undermines everyone’s freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of association, medical freedom and other human rights. It psychologically harms everyone, reminding them they’re being watched and they shall conform to the status quo. Such intrusive mass surveillance is antihuman and denies people dignity.

Mass surveillance has advanced such that I stopped spending time unnecessarily in surveilled spaces, even for the most normal things like haircuts, eating out and walks around my own neighborhood. My threat model is such that getting caught doing some normal activities that most other people normally do exposes me to risk much higher than the average person. I can only imagine how suffocating this surveillance would be for people who are actively targeted by corporate, state, criminal or terrorist actors, and how the surveillance enforces conformity and loyalty to the powerful.

bitsondatadev:

Cameras are a tool much like computers. Just because computers can be used to capture information on society en masse, does that mean we should advocate for unplugging entirely in the name of privacy?

I agree they are tools. But they are also weapons, thus must be used with care and pointed at the right target, at the right time. Same for knives, baseball bats, guns, vehicles, computers, data etc.

I don’t suggest we should just dismantle all cameras. I agree most of the use cases you identified could necessitate a camera. But I believe many use cases I’ve seen go too far to technohope and convenience and too far away from people’s safety, rights and dignity.

bitsondatadev:

And yeah, another one is security. I don’t know why you put security in quotes when there are plenty of ways cameras both deter crime and provide ways for you to interact with someone while keeping a bolted door between you and a potential offender.

I like your example of interacting with someone at the front door. If that camera never records footage and is not pointed towards public space, it would not cause harm. The same thing could also be accomplished by having a seethrough steel grating security door.

I put “security” in “security cameras” in quotes because in the majority of cases these cameras cause more insecurity than they provide security.

While the presence of “security” cameras can deter some would-be criminals, like you argued, crime statistics do not demonstrate “security” cameras reduce crime rates. Criminals may respond by covering their face or (if they’re motivated) jamming the cameras, or may simply ignore the cameras and effect their crime.

Further, “security” cameras undermine the security of innocent people caught in the surveillance net, and the security of people who operate the cameras. Generally speaking people who buy “security” cameras for the promise of security are fools who may put themselves and people interacting with them in harm’s way. Some operators have “good guy syndrome” and don’t imagine they themselves and innocent people could be harmed by the cameras they operate. All someone needs to do to have a target punished is turn over information that will cause them harm if leaked, or evidence that justifies a lawful search/seizure or civil/criminal prosecution against them. Operators face a range of liabilities wrt operating “security” cameras.

• Elevated risk of interaction with law enforcement, courts and insurance companies.
• Allowing insurance companies use footage against them when they make a claim.
• Being compelled to preserve or turn over video footage.
• Being suspected of suppression of evidence if said footage doesn’t exist because it was deleted, recording was disabled, the camera failed or autorecord didn’t trigger properly.
• Privacy violations via smart cameras’ telemetry data.

The OP video explains some of these points and some other points. Skip to 14:54 for operator liabilities and to 21:24 for efficacy of surveillance.

bitsondatadev:

The CCTV systems being discussed in PG are generally if not always about local only systems that set the precedent that if you try silly shit I have evidence to give to authorities.

I acknowledge PG is trying to recommend less-harmful cameras. The situation would be better if all the “security” cameras littered everywhere were of these types. At the same time I worry camera recommendations tell people the privacy community thinks it’s fine to put people and their activities under surveillance. The irony of it persists.

From a harm reduction standpoint “security” cameras may be less harmful and more justifiable if these mitigations, and any others I haven’t thought of, are taken as applicable.

• Assessment of risk and proportionality of putting something under surveillance before installing cameras.
• Preventing cameras from having any view of outside the boundaries of one’s own property, for instance a shared road/path or neighbors’ properties.
• Clear signage warning of the presence of cameras before people enter any camera’s view. (Often people can see these warnings only when they are already under surveillance.)
• Disabling and hiding cameras where and while nonmembers are permitted to be present, for instance inside a restaurant’s dining hall during opening hours.
• Manual camera activation by operators upon first sign of an incident instead of the norm that recording is always on or always triggerable.
• Secure access control to the footage (network security, encryption).
• Local storage and not participating in the surveillance dragnet.
• Limited storage duration enforced by automated secure deletion, except for footage selected for preservation.

But the technological mitigations above give no assurance to outsiders about cameras that are visibly present. Unless informed otherwise, they won’t know the footage is stored only onsite, will be deleted after 48 hours, will never be shared and will never be used maliciously. They will have no choice but to assume they are being surveilled and the footage will will be fed into big tech AI systems.

All the above has this caveat. There is always the possibility of malicious hidden cameras. We live in a world where cameras and information technologies have advanced to such extent it’s impossible to guarantee privacy anywhere, and unless an EMP wipes it all out (this will never happen) there is no going back.

Many people these days rush to cameras for security, but there exist many other measures. Dogs that will bark loudly, physical barriers, access control, safe rooms, vaults, alarm systems, stronger neighborhood communities and others.