2 ms·
How are these "Smart Streetlights" and not standard CCTV cameras that governments and private entities have been installing for decades? Is this just clever ma
by slg 6y ago
How are these "Smart Streetlights" and not standard CCTV cameras that governments and private entities have been installing for decades? Is this just clever marketing to reduce public outrage?
- loteck 6y agothey have sensors on them that collect environmental data. In fact, the cameras by default are used to generate pedestrian and vehicle data. You have to specifically add the vendor's "situational awareness" module to get a console for viewing raw video footage. But you're right, Smart city technology is always wrapped up in marketing lingo to obfuscate its surveillance properties.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago"Smart City" sounds a lot cooler than "1984-style surveillance state". Add some light artwork, upbeat music and some stock photos of happy people and you get the population rooting for you. Just like Apple, Google and Amazon do. Yes Apple is better than the other two, no they're not angels. And really, the safety aspect is easily circumvented for the bad guys. Take a standard corona mask, hoodie and some sunglasses and you're done. For the rest of us it means living even more in a panopticon than ever before.
- 01100011 6y agoWeren't the cameras in 1984 in private locations as well? I don't think you can argue that cameras in public are tantamount to a 1984 style police state.
- jedberg 6y agoThey have more than just cameras. They have atmospheric sensors and microphones too. I think some of them also have compute modules to do local inference in the images collected. In theory they're supposed to be for things like real time pollution monitoring and real time traffic so they can change light timings, that kind of thing.
- munk-a 6y agoAh so the city thought if they wasted enough money on their CCTV cameras and got add on features then maybe the populace would let them keep them.