Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

Privacy: Google Glass users harassed

16 posts / 0 new

Last post

Wed, 2014-06-18 11:01

Smokeskin

Privacy: Google Glass users harassed

I just saw this on the Daily Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3_3oeDX1uk Know I know that clip is part satire, but it brings up some interesting issues that are quite relevant to EP where practically everyone has mesh inserts that can record everything. At least some people obviously find that it is a violation of their privacy that someone can record them at any time without them knowing it, and being recorded is something most people find highly annoying. I'd read about lots of people voicing privacy concerns about Google Glass, but I thought that would just go like internet surveillance concerns - some tech columnists write about, it's a big deal in some circles, but most people don't care. But it seems that Google Glass oversteps some border that makes some people so uncomfortable they're reacting very badly to users, even violent some times. Could this stop or significantly slow the adoption of such wearable computers? Even a small minority that takes offense could make life very unpleasant for users.

Wed, 2014-06-18 11:06

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

well ep universe is set up in

well ep universe is set up in a way that it is tit for tat. since everyone is doing there is no leverage and there are very few ways to restrict it. if someone tries to blackmail you you either a don't care or b have incriminating counter footage yourself or some you can call in with a minor favor. personally until we hit this level of surveliance in society i want as much privacy as possible

Wed, 2014-06-18 13:26

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

John Stewart is a well

John Stewart is a well respected news anchorman. Its many of the other so-called American news networks that are the real jokes. :) Anyways, its not just what is recorded at the time that one has to worry about. It is possible with Eclipse Phase tech to make recordings from memory. You can do this with the Mnemonic Augmentation implant. Lets not forget other stuff that you can do. Consider what could be created using virtual reality, simspace, and psychosurgery... Edit: One of the comments for that video link (found in the Original Post) had a good point. This individual described escaping to bars and other places as a means to escape being criticized and judged by others, but people showing up with google glass (or other recording devices) allows them to treat the whole event as an open ant colony. It does raise some questions as to how much scrutiny one can put up with before they lash out.

Wed, 2014-06-18 17:36

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Consider the flip side of the

Consider the flip side of the coin. If a cop can size and search your phone with no warant can the records of a g-glass user be searched and siezed with no warant or subpoena? I bet that users are giong to find their own privacy violated by the surveilance state. We will all be government surveilance cameras.

—

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Wed, 2014-06-18 17:39

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

exactly. Who will Watch the

exactly. Who will Watch the Watchers

Thu, 2014-06-19 10:22

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

There are certain areas where

There are certain areas where we expect to be free from any surveillance (excepting our own) and places where we should have no reasonable expectation to be free from surveillance. Places free from surveillance include our homes, restrooms or changing rooms, etc. Police surveillance can be (in theory) most efficiently stopped by petitioning the government. The creep on police surveillance technology is going to continue, even as limitations on its use fall into place, so that's a false comparison. Private surveillance technology by its nature can't be stopped by petitioning all private people. This is going to have an interesting result as the number of places we expect to be camera free fight to keep that. Since those 'camera-free' places include all government buildings, expect some major legal ramifications. Google, being pretty forward-thinking, I imagine is going to be on the forefront of helping to address 'creeping camera' issues. After all, if Google doesn't come up with a solution on their own, people will fall back on legislation or social backlash, and that's going to hurt sales. Google's method will most likely be effective for a while, until the market starts getting cheap knock-offs which don't necessarily respect those limitations. That will provide a point of greatest conflict. I imagine after that things can play out two ways; either "glass" products become niche markets, replaced with something more effective, or they become mainstream and people get over their fear of always being on camera. Either way, I do make it clear to my tech friends that I do not care to be videoed in my home, and so I request that such devices be removed while visiting, or kept to public rooms and times.

Thu, 2014-06-19 14:11

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

lol camera free and

lol camera free and government building being in the same sentence. if there is one place that is never going to be camera free again its in government offices. you might get the odd municipality that does not but that is more going to be because of budget issues

Tue, 2014-06-24 17:57

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Smokeskin wrote:At least some

Smokeskin wrote:
At least some people obviously find that it is a violation of their privacy that someone can record them at any time without them knowing it, and being recorded is something most people find highly annoying.

One wonders why those same people are not made uncomfortable by security cameras mounted on lampposts recording their every move. Or automatic license plate readers which archive their records for over a year at a time "just in case." Or realtime data mining systems run by banks that place helpful telephone calls in the event that credit or debit cards are used someplace or somewhen outside of the user's usual usage profile. Or ISPs that record network traffic to build advertising profiles.

Smokeskin wrote:
But it seems that Google Glass oversteps some border that makes some people so uncomfortable they're reacting very badly to users, even violent some times. Could this stop or significantly slow the adoption of such wearable computers? Even a small minority that takes offense could make life very unpleasant for users.

Perhaps individual people are easier to kick around than faceless corporations, who can sue people into smoking craters in the ground. As to your second point, it might. There are places that are [url=http://www.glasshole-free.org/]specifically banning wearers of Glass[/url] or any of its derivatives for a variety of reasons. The relatively high cost of Glass is more than a barrier to widespread adoption at this time ($1500us/devkit). A concern that should also be addressed is that Glass is already being used as a prosthetic right now by the [url=http://www.visionaware.org/blog/visionaware-blog/google-glass-applicatio... impaired[/url] and the [url=http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-glass-changing-quadriplegics-lif... impaired[/url]. Those of us who are developing facial and auditory recognition applications for Glass to act as cognitive prosthetics to overcome organic damage will have our own problems to deal with.

—

[img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/info_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/argo_userbar.jpg[/img] [url=https://drwho.virtadpt.net/graphics/blankbadge.png][img]http://drwho.vir...

Tue, 2014-06-24 17:58

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

ORCACommander wrote

ORCACommander wrote:
personally until we hit this level of surveliance in society i want as much privacy as possible

"Privacy for the powerless; transparency for the powerful." --Anonymous Cypherpunk

—

Wed, 2014-06-25 04:01

#10

Smokeskin

The Doctor wrote:Smokeskin

The Doctor wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
At least some people obviously find that it is a violation of their privacy that someone can record them at any time without them knowing it, and being recorded is something most people find highly annoying.
One wonders why those same people are not made uncomfortable by security cameras mounted on lampposts recording their every move. Or automatic license plate readers which archive their records for over a year at a time "just in case." Or realtime data mining systems run by banks that place helpful telephone calls in the event that credit or debit cards are used someplace or somewhen outside of the user's usual usage profile. Or ISPs that record network traffic to build advertising profiles. [...] Perhaps individual people are easier to kick around than faceless corporations, who can sue people into smoking craters in the ground.

I think that psychology is much more important with these things than rationality. When there's a person wearing a camera some social response kicks in that is barely tickled by a wall mounted camera and doesn't even remotely care about what some algorithm does with our data. An interesting question: should people be as concerned about big data and surveillance as some are about Glasses, or should people accept Glasses like they accept big data and surveillance?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Could this stop or significantly slow the adoption of such wearable computers? Even a small minority that takes offense could make life very unpleasant for users.
As to your second point, it might. There are places that are [url=http://www.glasshole-free.org/]specifically banning wearers of Glass[/url] or any of its derivatives for a variety of reasons. The relatively high cost of Glass is more than a barrier to widespread adoption at this time ($1500us/devkit).

Prices will surely drop though, I don't see that being a long term issue. If places continue to ban Glasses long term, then that's certainly going to be an issue too. People can't go to a bar and not have access to their phone - so this will make it very difficult for Glasses to actually replace phones. And add to that if you get harassed even once per week, that's going to make it really difficult.

Quote:
A concern that should also be addressed is that Glass is already being used as a prosthetic right now by the [url=http://www.visionaware.org/blog/visionaware-blog/google-glass-applicatio... impaired[/url] and the [url=http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-glass-changing-quadriplegics-lif... impaired[/url]. Those of us who are developing facial and auditory recognition applications for Glass to act as cognitive prosthetics to overcome organic damage will have our own problems to deal with.

Yeah, it absolutely sucks if these people are getting hit by the backlash. It's in a sense an unfortunate thing about technology that it is becoming so multipurpose - if only people with disabilities could guarantee those around them that their Glass is only running disability-assisting functions. I never thought about cognitive prosthetics. That's cool. We're talking stuff like body language reading functions for autistics?

Wed, 2014-06-25 12:00

#11

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

There is a rational reason

There is a rational reason the general public might accept being recorded at their bank or at a traffic light or in a parking garage by those who have taken the responsibility and authority to install those devices for 'security purposes' while objecting to being recorded at the pool, ski slope, cafeteria, gym, jobsite, by some geek stranger when there is no tacit agreement that the recording will not be used maliciously or released to the widest public channel available. It is currently reasonable to assume that making some public gaffe in the foyer of your bank or picking your nose at a traffic light or accidently exposing yourself at the pool or making a mistake at work or any of the other thousand pratfalls and goofs we all make all the time will not be made available for the public comment and derision of a Billion people on youtube. There is a difference, for the average person, between being in public and having a world wide audience. There is a real difference between the cameras at the quickiemart and the camera on a sophmoric glass geek misanthrope.

—

Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Wed, 2014-06-25 14:26

#12

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

I think this is related.

I think this is related. There has been a topic I've came across recently that talks about "The right to be forgotten". Its about how some people want old news about them to disappear over time. For some people, embarrassing moments are quite painful, are things they want to forget about, and they want other people to forget about (or at least never bring up again). It is difficult for such things to be forgotten about if it will always exist on youtube or people keep linking to it on facebook. Others might have made mistakes in life, committing crimes or worked as a sex worker. These are topics that many people don't want to discuss in civil conversations. Many would just want to move on in life (and talking about it to them can be a serious mood killer). This is even more true if you get into a position of power like politics or a high management position in a company. People might black mail you into paying them money or get you to do something... or else everyone will know what you did last summer... Maybe this is worth making a new thread to talk about it.

Wed, 2014-06-25 20:30

#13

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

I suppose on something

I suppose on something tangentially related: http://t.co/b4chlfbwSU

Thu, 2014-06-26 03:48

#14

Smokeskin

OneTrikPony wrote:

OneTrikPony wrote:
There is a real difference between the cameras at the quickiemart and the camera on a sophmoric glass geek misanthrope.

You are absolutely right. Aside from leaks, disgruntled employees and such, companies and governments don't have an incentive to embarass us, while that is certainly not the case for individuals.

Thu, 2014-06-26 03:55

#15

Smokeskin

DivineWrath wrote:I think

DivineWrath wrote:
I think this is related. There has been a topic I've came across recently that talks about "The right to be forgotten". Its about how some people want old news about them to disappear over time.

Here in the EU, citizens can order search engines like Google to delete links and search results to pages about them.

Thu, 2014-06-26 09:37

#16

ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture

ya that was only ruled in the

ya that was only ruled in the past couple of months though. I kinda do not want that to become the norm though since i see it as a way of potentially weeding out would be crappy politicians in the future