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Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

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Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#31

Post by insickness »

Barrin92 wrote: post #29
insickness wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it is legal to photograph and film in public as long as there is not an expectation of privacy, such as a restroom. And it should remain legal. If I want to film a police officer arresting someone, they can't tell me to stop. If I'm on a public sidewalk filming a private business, they can't tell me to stop. You can't legally use someone's image in an advertisement without their consent. But that's differe…

>If I want to film a police officer arresting someone, they can't tell me to stop to clarify this is legal here as well. Places or people of public interest are excluded from this. So crimes, public figures, monuments, public buildings and so on you can photograph as much as you want. The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you. >You don't o…

> The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you.

How does the law differentiate between public places and individuals? For example, if you're sitting in a park and I want to take a photo of the park, how would the law differentiate between me taking a photo of you versus taking a photo of the park?

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#32

Post by taurusnoises »

Barrin92 wrote: post #29
insickness wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it is legal to photograph and film in public as long as there is not an expectation of privacy, such as a restroom. And it should remain legal. If I want to film a police officer arresting someone, they can't tell me to stop. If I'm on a public sidewalk filming a private business, they can't tell me to stop. You can't legally use someone's image in an advertisement without their consent. But that's differe…

>If I want to film a police officer arresting someone, they can't tell me to stop to clarify this is legal here as well. Places or people of public interest are excluded from this. So crimes, public figures, monuments, public buildings and so on you can photograph as much as you want. The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you. >You don't o…

I feel like people in the US really need to hear these perspectives when it comes to laws. We're a bit boarish here in the states and seem to approach laws in this all or nothing kind of way (I'm too tired to point out examples). But, showing that a law like this can be tweaked or nuanced nto the degree where yes you can film cops and no you can not film pedestrians or people eating outdoors at a cafe, might level us up a bit. (And, then maybe also showing how you're also not going to get arrested if you're a tourist taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty and people walk into the shot. Saying that, cuz that's usually the next response in our wonderfully litigious society). (snark overload this morning)

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#33

Post by ggm »

raxxorrax wrote: post #27
timdaub wrote: post #11

I loved his stuff and how upset people got. You could say it was performative art criticing post-modern technocratic stance on privacy: While Zuck said privacy is over: this dude got people raging. "I'm just making a video" Legend

It just shows how people have no idea about how transparent they have become. A private guy filming you is so trivial and insignificant compared to surveillance capitalism, it shouldn't even get a mention.

Except its been shared widely. Its not his home movie shown to ten people, its privacy breach (I understand thats at best a hypothetical motivation not a law) with thousands, or millions of viewers.

Scale is sometimes enough to make the mundane terrible. Hence memes.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#34

Post by cortic »

It is fascinating even reading these comments, people falling over themselves trying to define a difference between 'some guy' recording them, and cctv (which is effectively 'some guy' recording them).

It kind of reminds me of a nature program i watched some time ago, where they 'concealed' the cameras in plain sight by strapping them onto trees to get footage. Its important to remind ourselves that we are simple animals too, and when we don't see the 'guy' we don't feel the threat.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#35

Post by dotancohen »

SSilver2k2 wrote: post #23
dotancohen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between filming a specific public location, which I happen to pass through, and filming _me_ specifically. If the location is the subject and I am free to exit or enter the scene without my presence affecting the creativity of the work, then I have far fewer objections. But a video in which _I_ become the subject, which moves to focus my actions, is far more objectionable.

There is no expectation of privacy in a public area. So I don't see how there is a big difference.

The difference is the subject. It's not academic or philosophical. Go watch the videos linked in other comments to understand the intrusive nature.

I get it, the counter argument is that the stationary camera is no less intrusive. To which I counter that the stationary camera records my happenstance gross actions along with those actions of many others, I am literally lost in the noise. But the explicit camera on me records much finer detail of myself, and nobody else, there is no noise to be lost in.

Perhaps people who like attention do not see a problem being the center of attention. I personally don't mind if someone notices my presence but I do mind if they think that seeing me means that I can become the star of their next production.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#36

Post by belter »

Surveillance Camera Man had some of the most fascinating videos ever uploaded to the Internet.

They were:

- A form of Urban Art.

- A study of Human behavior. From the relaxed and curiosity driven reactions of a few, to the freaked, untitled, scary, reaction of many.

- A intrusion into the personal space of some, while in a public space, only made more fascinating by his calm brazenness.

- Pure real life Golden Comedy.

The most important reminder, will always be of how much our tolerance to surveillance is only based on the invisibility of said surveillance. In the digital world or in the real world. Always took Camera Surveillance Man, with his constant repetition, "It's just a camera", "It's just a video" as a statement of the must important unspoken question: "If you freak out about this camera, why don't you freak out about the others?"

Commentators arguing about a personal invasion of privacy, are forgetting how easily it is to correlate two or three different signals, and de-anonymize you, therefore formally putting the camera back at your face again.

Golden I tell you:

"Just a video":

https://youtu.be/AQgiLK5HuiA

https://youtu.be/t4mGnGFDs9Y

This one, where the person arguing about it sits on a desk,

with a large green panel that says: "CCTV Monitoring Station"

https://youtu.be/X_cO41naHCg

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#37

Post by amalcon »

insickness wrote: post #31
Barrin92 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I want to film a police officer arresting someone, they can't tell me to stop to clarify this is legal here as well. Places or people of public interest are excluded from this. So crimes, public figures, monuments, public buildings and so on you can photograph as much as you want. The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you. >You don't o…

> The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you. How does the law differentiate between public places and individuals? For example, if you're sitting in a park and I want to take a photo of the park, how would the law differentiate between me taking a photo of you versus taking a photo of the park?

I am unaware of the specific law in Germany, but the way this kind of thing usually works in much of the world is that a judge or jury decides what the photo is "of" after being apprised of the relevant context. There are a lot of laws that deal with intent; the processes for this is pretty well-worn.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#38

Post by raxxorrax »

ggm wrote: post #33
raxxorrax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just shows how people have no idea about how transparent they have become. A private guy filming you is so trivial and insignificant compared to surveillance capitalism, it shouldn't even get a mention.

Except its been shared widely. Its not his home movie shown to ten people, its privacy breach (I understand thats at best a hypothetical motivation not a law) with thousands, or millions of viewers. Scale is sometimes enough to make the mundane terrible. Hence memes.

True, in this case it is an exception of course. Although in times of social media an audience is easy to be found. Memes are the opium of the people or something like that.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#39

Post by amalcon »

globular-toast wrote: post #14
numlock86 wrote: post #3

As someone who has no idea what this is: What's the context here? By the name I would assume violation of multiple privacy related cases, which probably justifies deletion from basically everywhere. But then again, I have no idea what's the deal here.

It was a series of videos taken in public where a guy would just point the camera at people doing mundane things. The subjects would often question why he was filming them and the response was always simply "oh, I'm just making a video". Occasionally the guy would elaborate further and it seemed the point was that people are captured and recorded on CCTV and other surveillance methods all the time, so why would they…

There's a pretty big difference in stated intent. It doesn't seem unreasonable for a person to be OK with being filmed for the purpose of e.g. theft prevention, but not for some kind of modern art project / protest statement.

Edit: to be clear, the opposite also doesn't seem unreasonable. If someone told me they were OK with being filmed for a modern art project, but not for theft prevention, I wouldn't find that particularly odd either.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?

#40

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #30
Barrin92 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so why would they care about his camera? I mean it seems pretty obvious. Because a private person could potentially do anything from stalking you, to using your image in some political campaign or advertisement or whatever else. Potentially much worse and intrusive than being filmed by a parking lot camera. Here in Germany it even is illegal unless consent is given.

Why can't a manager or employee at any of the stores I go into in a week, all of which probably have cameras these days, be potentially doing the same thing? I mean, I get it -- we don't think they are likely to. Because that's not the purpose of the camera. Because we figure businesses are run by people "in charge" who have certain interests. We think we understand the purpose and intention of the cameras in the sto…

That is true. We cannot expect a perfect reality with capabilities of surveillance technology.

However, last few years have shown here in Europe that it is possible to at least regulate what businesses do with the footage and personal data collected. GDPR - It doesn’t mean that an employee won’t do anything, but at least the legal entity for which he/she works is accountable and responsible for how this material is handled. And this employee can be fired.

This means that inside a business or organization it isn’t advisable to even talk about doing things with the data/footage. And it means there are legal methods of properly handling and disposing of it. And that is pretty neat, although it has been criticized and berated by anti-EU sentiments because it adds paperwork.

I’ve never been really worried about being observed or recorded, but after those 3D scanner things have popped up for passport checks I’ve become irritated. It’s obvious that there is unnecessary AI technology that’s sucking up all the available footage and extracting detailed information about me - beyond what is necessary for standard airport security. It’s not hard to imagine how an ML algo can be using this base somewhere out there to get all sorts of Minority Report style details.

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