7 ms·
How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?
by mnm1 8y ago
How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?
- pizza 8y agoWould you want to go to a movie theatre where audience engagement is recorded by a hidden, undisclosed camera? Would you prefer that? People are right to have instinctual suspicion of being covertly spied upon en masse in public spaces.
- bduerst 8y agoMaybe I'm an outlier, but I would be okay with an IR camera scraping audience engagement at a movie or a concert or a billboard - even after hearing the slippery slope hypotheticals against it.
- Animats 8y agoWould you want to go to a movie theatre where audience engagement is recorded by a hidden, undisclosed camera? Deployed since 2004 to look for camcorders.[1] Disney tried out technology for recording audience engagement in a theater in 2017. [2][3] "We instrumented a 400 seat movie theater using four infra-red (IR) cameras and four IR illuminators placed above the projection screen. The cameras were outfitted with IR bandpass filters to remove the spill of visible light that reflected off the movie screen. The video was recorded at 12 frames per second with a resolution of 2750×2200 pixels. The resolution of faces ranged from 15×25 (back rows) to 40×55 (front rows). We collected over 150 viewings of 9 mainstream movies released in 2015 and 2016". They show graphs for laughing and smiling over time for Inside Out. So it works. Coming soon to a theater near you, probably. Cinemark installed intensive surveillance of the concession stand.[4] That's where the money is made. "The concessions people could look through every kids’ combo that was sold across a region and see whether they are actually attracting children or if they are trading down college-aged women who would’ve bought a larger size of all of those items if you didn’t have that meal option for them." [1] http://www.pirateeye.com/pirateeye/technology/ http://www.pirateeye.com/pirateeye/technology/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20171116222427/https://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/factorized-variational-autoencoder/ https://web.archive.org/web/20171116222427/https://www.disne... [3] https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/disneyresearch/wp-content/uploads/20170711130345/Factorized-Variational-Autoencoders-for-Modeling-Audience-Reactions-to-Movies-Paper.pdf https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/disneyresearch/wp-content... [4] http://www.filmjournal.com/content/envysion-better-business-cinemark-takes-surveillance-next-level http://www.filmjournal.com/content/envysion-better-business-...
- pizza 8y agoWell, I'll be..
- smt88 8y agoWhat definition of "completely public" are you using that would include a privately-owned airplane that I spent $100+ to board after going through a security checkpoint?
- imgabe 8y agoThe fact that you are sitting in an open area with 100+ other strangers around you? A shopping mall might be privately owned, but it's still a public space. Any place that is open to the general public is a public space.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoIts a difference of scale. We license people to be private investigators. They stalk around, take pictures, and otherwise spy on what they're paid to do within the confines of the law and their license. It costs people-time to do this. Whereas we can blanket cameras everywhere, run facial recog, and do further analytics on the saved videos. It takes roughly 0 people-hours to operate that (setup costs time, but further requires none). And remember Cardinal Richieu's (disputed) comment "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Instead, give me a year's worth of footage..... How many felonies will you find?
- imgabe 8y agoIf we find 100 felonies per person for everyone in the country, it's going to be physically impossible to prosecute that many cases and jail that many people. At some point we have to decide that it's not worth having a law that is essentially unenforceable. Maybe you could argue that they would just be selectively enforced to remove people the state finds inconvenient. We could probably fix that legislatively by requiring a law to be enforced some high X% of times that the state becomes aware of it, because what's really the point of a law if it's ignored 99% of the time? The thing is, technology doesn't just go away. Once something is invented, there's no uninventing it. So, we're going to have to figure out how to create a just world where public surveillance is ubiquitous. The idea of privacy in terms of "don't look at me" is not something we do for its own sake. It exists to serve a purpose, whether that's to prevent embarrassment or prevent tyranny. We're going to need to find other ways to serve those purposes.
- cco 8y ago"To continue watching your in-flight movie, please watch this ad, note looking away from the screen will pause the ad while we wait for your gaze to return." That is an entirely realistic scenario, patents have been granted for this already. Regardless of an expectation of privacy it is potentially a terrible UX as well.
- imgabe 8y agoThat's when you bring your own tablet with some downloaded movies. I mean, yeah, it's conceivable that someone could try that. It is also conceivable that it would fail miserably.
- everly 8y agoIt is also conceivable that it becomes the new normal and we slide further into our dystopian capitalist future.
- imgabe 8y agoSure we can conceive of nearly anything, but it's not like airlines can realistically stop people from bringing their own devices on planes and watching what they want. That's always going to be the alternative if the in-seat entertainment gets too shitty.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoNah, that's when you bring you "I'm paying attention"-mask to pretend you're paying attention.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoSo you're wearing a mask to pretend to be watching an ad so you don't have to actually watch the movie that you want to keep watching?
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoSpotify already does that, except with volume. If you turn down your volume too much on your phone, it pauses the advert and demands to raise volume to continue.
- Someone1234 8y agoI think the people who disagree with this reply should explain their reasoning. You're in public on an aircraft, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. The people around you, including the airline's staff, can listen to your conversations/see you. I'm not even arguing legally, even just in terms of common sense, everything you do or say is isn't private in those circumstances. So a camera being there (regardless of if it is used) isn't moving the needle either direction.
- xdy 8y agoThis site reminds me of big bang theory.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoSure, there are other, strange people on board. It would be uncomfortable if one of them positioned their face right in front of mine and stared at me, listening, the entire flight. The camera would bother me likewise.
- Someone1234 8y agoEven if they blocked the camera then the argument would shift to the microphone which may still work even if physically blocked. Plus you're contrasting the invasion of personal space, with the perception that a non-privacy space is now non-privacy. But since the space was never private to being with has anything changed or has the airline just ruined your own fiction about the space?
- mindslight 8y agoI think the divide comes down to people's priors on whether a technological device will necessarily be abused. It's easy to write off a device as only possibly enabling something "bad", and hold off assigning blame to whomever actually does the bad thing. Or you can look at the incentives, history, and accountability of such devices being abused, and infer that the implications are completely likely. In the best case, an amateur breaks into this network simply to spy on people and masturbate (either on the ground, or in the bathroom). Not necessarily personally harmful, but most people would consider this creepy. A more chilling possibility is that the cameras end up being used to test some face-tension profiling system, in the name of security theater. And the airlines are prohibited and indemnified from disclosing this to the public. Note I am not saying that they were purchased/installed for this reason, but merely that having them installed and sitting around makes them an attractive nuisance! At any rate, especially as technologists, we're past the point of being able to write off the abilities of hardware devices because of some imagined idea that the software isn't setup to do that. Especially on less important devices that are more likely to fall by the wayside!
- bobthepanda 8y agoAn airplane isn't really public space like the street, since you can't just waltz into an airplane free of charge, and airplanes are not generally owned directly by the public. They are managed places open to the public for a price, and that payment comes with certain expectations (e.g., there wasn't a camera present 20 years ago, why should it be present now?)
- mnm1 8y agoNothing about paying for a service disallows the airline company from putting cameras in the public space they operate for a profit unless it's specified in the contract that they are not allowed to do so. I guarantee you they did not put restrictions like that on themselves in the contract with the customer. Your argument that cameras did not exist in these spaces 20 years ago is completely irrelevant to what the airline can do now. If you don't like it, get the laws changed. By this reasoning, the airport itself could not put up security cameras beyond the security checkpoints where only ticketed passengers are allowed. That's absurd.
- bobthepanda 8y agoNothing disallows it. But just because it's perfectly legal doesn't mean that consumers don't have the right to question it and then agitate against it, which is what is happening in the article. The legal code is not perfect.
- matt4077 8y agoSo you always check hotel contracts for clauses forbidding them to film you?
- CydeWeys 8y agoI'm paying lots of money to be there. It seems like it's in an airline's best interests to not piss off customers by secretly filming them (or even appearing to have the capability to do so), given how creepy it seems to many people. Unlike "completely public spaces", it's not free to be on an airplane. You can vote with your wallet in this situation.
- filmgirlcw 8y agoExactly. Also, it’s techbcially “private” space which means they can record you, but there needs to be a notice somewhere. I’m sure there’s something hidden in the air passenger terms of service or whatever, but still!
- devinmrn 8y agoIt's interesting how the expectation of privacy varies from person to person! Since members of the general public are in close proximity I generally wouldn't consider an airplane cabin a place where I could have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In places that are intentionally restricted from view by others, like my own home, a hotel room, etc. I'd have an expectation of privacy.
- CydeWeys 8y agoPeople by and large keep to themselves on airplanes. If someone was recording you with their cell phone for the duration of the flight, I promise you, you wouldn't like it. The resultant footage wouldn't particularly be any different than if it was recorded by the seatback in front of you, though. If I'm going to, say, a concert, or especially a taping of a TV show, I have a much higher expectation of ending up in some video footage. But people often sleep on planes. They're not expecting to be recorded.
- devinmrn 8y agoI wouldn't like it and if I noticed I'd politely ask them to stop. However, (and I'm not a lawyer) I don't think it'd be illegal or even unethical. If someone was recording me napping on a plane I'd treat it the same way as if I was napping under a tree in a national park. It would be a non issue for me. Privacy is something I control by not exposing sensitive information in areas where recording is a possibility. I already take precautions when flying by not working on my laptop or having sensitive conversations with family or coworkers. I generally don't consider information on where my gaze is looking, facial expressions, or if I'm awake or asleep sensitive information unless I'm in a private space like my home, a hotel room, or a bathroom.
- chooseaname 8y agoIf I'm walking around, say, the Grand Canyon, you know, up top looking down. If someone is walking around filming a travel vlog and I happen to get filmed, ok, so what? Right? But if they run up and shove the camera in my face without asking for permission, that becomes rude and I should absolutely have some say in it. If I'm in an airline, I should have some say if there's going to be a camera facing me the ... entire ... flight. That goes beyond just the casual picture or video capture.
- techer 8y agoDepends in what country you are. Don't need your permission in the USA or the UK.
- Avshalom 8y agoCommercial use of a photo or video with an identifiable person requires permission (model release forms and stuff). I'm sure that airlines would argue that any data they use for commercial purposes are anonymous (despite you know aving video and name/seat/camera correspondence).
- devinmrn 8y agoIt's my understanding that a release form is typically only used if the video is going to be made available publicly, used in marketing material, etc. If their commercial purpose was internal to the company then a release wouldn't be required. I'm an American. This likely isn't true in other countries with more stringent privacy laws.
- bdamm 8y agoIt would still be rude and violate widely held standards for personal space and privacy. Never forget that legal and appropriate are very different things.
- dclowd9901 8y agoThe point here is "recourse". A "victim" would have no recourse in the illustrated situation. The person said "they should have some say in it." That would be recourse.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoThere's a difference between "one person saw me pick my nose in the aeroplane" and "me picking my nose was recorded for all time, later published and made available to the entire World".
- jalgos_eminator 8y agoImagine if cameras could read your retinas and identify you like in Minority Report (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bXJ_obaiYQ). Though we're not there yet, facial recognition tech is almost ready for something similar.
- devinmrn 8y agoIn this case wouldn't that point be irrelevant? Generally airlines have assigned seating and they already have validation of your identity from the booking information.
- jalgos_eminator 8y agoYes, in the case of flying on a commercial flight they already have your identity. The parent that I was responding to assumed the more general case though: > How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?
- PavlovsCat 8y agoNo, the burden is on you. How can you have a concern with people not being spied on in public?
- mnm1 8y agoBecause that's been the norm for decades and while I don't like the laws of our society, I must adapt to them.
- PavlovsCat 8y agoAnything that goes on for a few decades is already gospel to you? If everybody though that way, there would be no vote for women, there still would be slavery and segregation, half of the world would speak German or Russian today, and so on. Laws come from people. From citizens, actually. Just going along to get along is beneath all adults, not to mention citizens in socities that are still free on paper. Nobody has the right to be obedient. That is, you can forfeit all your own human rights if you want, but you cannot forfeit them on behalf of others and future generations.