Surveillance Sousveillance
God's eye view from above. Human's eye view.
(Authority watching from on-high.) ("Down-to-earth.")
Cameras usually mounted on high Cameras down at ground-level,
poles, up on ceiling, etc.. e.g. at human eye-level.
Architecture-centered Human-centered
(e.g. cameras usually mounted on (e.g. cameras carried or worn
or in structures). by, or on, people).
Recordings made by authorities, Recordings of an activity
remote security staff, etc.. made by a participant in the
activity.
Note that in most states it's In most states it's legal to
illegal to record a phone record a phone conversation of
conversation of which you are which you are a party. Perhaps
not a party. Perhaps the same the same would apply to an
would apply to an audiovisual audiovisual recording of your own
recording of somebody else's conversations, i.e. conversations
conversation. in which you are a party.
Recordings are usually kept in Recordings are often made public
secret. e.g., on the World Wide Web.
Process usually shrouded in Process, technology, etc., are
secrecy. usually public, open source, etc..
Panoptic origins, as described Community-based origins, e.g.
by Foucault, originally in the a personal electronic diary,
context of a prison in which made public on the World Wide Web.
prisoners were isolated from Sousveillance tends to bring
each other but visible at all together individuals, e.g. it
times by guards. Surveillance tends to make a large city
tends to isolate individuals function more like a small town,
from one another while setting with the pitfalls of gossip, but
forth a one-way visibility to also the benefits of a sense of
authority figures. community participation.
Privacy violation may go Privacy violation is usually
un-noticed, or un-checked. immediately evident. Tends
Tends to not be self-correcting. to be self-correcting.
It's hard to have a heart-to-heart At least there's a chance you can
conversation with a lamp post, talk to the person behind the
on top of which is mounted a sousveillance camera.
surveillance camera.
There is no privacy. There is no secrecy.
Get used to it! Get used to it!
When combined with computers, we When combined with computers, we
get ubiquitous computing get wearable computing.
("ubiqcomp") or pervasive ("wearcomp"). Wearcomp usually
computing ("pervcomp"). doesn't require the cooperation
Ubiq./perv. comp. tend to rely on of any infrastructure in the
cooperation of the infrastructure environments around us.
in the environments around us.
With surveillant-computing, the With sousveillant-computing, it
locus of control tends to be with is possible for the locus of
the authorities. control to be more distributed.
locking only some of the doors, e.g. lock basement or passenger's
door but leave upstairs or driver's door or sunroof unlocked
both sides of a party keep a copy of a contract;
the right to keep one's own evidence; destruction of evidence
getting hold of surveillance data is difficult at best (Surveillance and Society article on People Watching People)
10 hypotheses of equiveillance