There is a one-eyed filmmaker who is going to hide a camera in his prosthetic eye. This presents all sorts of privacy concerns, I think. While yes, it would permit capturing people as they really are, and he is saying that he’ll get releases signed after the fact, it creeps me out.
I don’t like hiding. Hiding a camera anywhere presents issues of openness which, in the long run, I think may do more harm than good for photographers and filmmakers, especially documentary ones. While this technology could definitely be used for good, like to capture someone abusing workers, the potential for abuse is huge. The balance will be difficult to achieve.
I’m all for busting abusive employers, dangerous food producers, and the like. However, I don’t want to find out that I’ve been filmed/recorded only when I’m presented with a release. Shouldn’t the public be entitled to some presumption of personal privacy?
Stuff to think about…
What a complicated issue.
He’s making a commentary on the global spread of surveillance cameras. It’s brilliant.
I don’t like the idea of hidden cameras, but do you know where all of the cameras are in your city? What are they watching? What are they there for? WHO is watching them!
Does anyone remember Alan Funt? He had a career because of his hidden, “Candid Camera.” People laughed and tuned in every time it was on TV.
Maybe our one-eyed filmmaker is doing this to make us face ourselves. It seems that during my lifetime people have stopped seeing the horror of George Orwell’s “1984” and have climbed into bed with those precepts. The government knows our every move. Sometimes art should make us face ourselves and cause us to think.
My answer to your question: “Shouldn’t the public be entitled to some presumption of personal privacy?” Yes. But let’s take away the government’s camera first.
At least you’ll eventually find out. I wonder how many times a day we’re recorded and still don’t know it?
I think your reaction is primarily emotional. Not that that is bad, it just should be evaluated for what it is.
Like it or not, our constitutional protections are based on a reasonable expectation of privacy. If there are people around we do not know- we don’t really have an expectation of privacy.
For those who want to spend some money there are button cams, doorbell cams, and thousands of other concealable technology options. I don’t think that’s wrong.
George Orwell’s vision of the future involved Big Brother filming everything we do or say… the truth of the matter is the opposite has happened and the general public has cheap, easy access to recording technology and uses it liberally while the government has fairly strict guidelines about its use of the same technology.
I really don’t think we want to start dictating that all cameras be shaped a certain way or marked, all microphones, etc. I think some of our laws are way behind technology but that is the fault of our legislators and will always be the case.
My only complaint with the glass-eye cam is that the same result could be accomplished (except for a slight perspective change) with a button cam or other technology. Absent strong reasoning a ‘glass-eye-cam’ is cashing in on, for lack of a better term, a disability.
The other factor that gets left out of these debates is access. Decades ago when the only way to share images was through printed photos or shared negatives which had to be physically handed from person to person and ‘mass’ viewing was not an option there was a limited scope of photos. Now, in the digital age joe blow can take a picture of me with his camera phone and the next day millions of people around the world could have seen it. This is a symptom of a greater discussion that we as a society need to have.
Court records have always been open to the public but, to find them, you had to take the initiative to go to the courthouse and search for the record often to come up blank. Now, many court records are online and web-crawlers have made them widely available so that all someone has to do is google a license plate number and they suddenly find a person’s trouble with the law directly at hand based on that they were in that vehicle when it went down. Information that police and other public officials cannot disclose unless you request it directly in the correct manner. It seems like open government but what it really is is an erosion of privacy.
We are in ground-breaking times and we need to start massive reviews of our legislation and new technology to figure out what is reasonable in the new era. I don’t think limiting technology (glass-eye-cams) is the answer, I think the use of data is the big issue.
I appreciate that you realize things have changed but I think your perception of the wrong is misplaced.
What about the art-world-respected practice of street photography where people are unaware of being photographed and are not notified or asked to sign a release?