Yeah just saw an ad for the Ray-Ban surveillance Wayfarer glasses. Ray-Ban has been dead to me ever since it was sold to Luxotica (the near-monopoly that explains why $40 glasses cost $180). It’s kind of perfect now to see overpriced-for-no-good-reason branding being zombied yet further
Wonder how long it takes for the first Tesla driver to total his car this way…
People being recorded by cameras 24/7 when in public: How dare these glassholes record me!
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.
– Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson in 1992.
Nothing awkward at all about just randomly holding your arm out to watch TV while walking around the world. Sounds like a very relaxing experince having everyone stare at you while in an elevator.
And if someone doesn’t want to be recorded, they have to explain “Don’t worry, it’s just Facebook that’s watching.”
Legit gross behavior.
And if someone doesn’t want to be recorded, they have to explain “Don’t worry, it’s just Facebook that’s watching.”
In America at least, anywhere in public is fair game for recording. You have no expectation of privacy (from being seen) out and about in the world anyway, and that applies to recordings as well.
Should it be this way? I’m honestly torn. But the long and the short of it is, if you’re somewhere that doesn’t expressly forbid video recording, assume you’re always on camera. Because you likely are.
Yup, though that doesn’t mean those recordings can necessarily be legally published or used for anything except private use. Clearly it’s not the case in most of the US, or people just don’t care to enforce it, but in many parts of the EU you can get in serious legal trouble if you do upload it in a way where people can be recognized, especially if what you release can count as defamation. Show someone freaking out or breaking the law in Finland, and you will be the one getting the fine.
In America, the first amendment covers things like video recordings as well. As long as you’re in public, anything you can see is fair game. Even if you’re recording into private space (this doesn’t count for things like flying drones up to windows or anything of course.)
There are limitations, but if you’re standing on a public road recording into even highly secure military bases, you’re legally in the clear.
Recording while on private property is different of course. Even if you’re recording public property from that private property, you can be in legal hot water.
Though I’m curious on the EU law about defamation… how can you defame someone by sharing a video of their public actions? Like, you’re saying that if I recorded you kicking a dog in the head in a public park, and posted it to TikTok without your consent, I’d be breaking the law?
Yes, Facebook is disgusting, as is Google and other large tech companies; but that’s just a bad take. You’re already being recorded by CCTV pretty much everywhere you go in public. The issue isn’t and shouldn’t be about being recorded, but instead about what is being done with the recorded data. I know that security tapes are going to be overwritten after some period; tech wants to feed all their data into advertising profiles and AI.
