Ask HN: What happened to surveillance camera guy?
Ironically it looks like his content has been taken down from YouTube AND archive.org https://archive.org/details/SurveillanceCameraMan18
https://blogs.harvard.edu/internetmonitor/2013/07/10/surveil...
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 care about his camera? Despite this the subjects would often become enraged and sometimes violent.
It was fascinating for many reasons and I think a very interesting view on human psychology.
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.
How do you know they aren't filming you specifically[1], and why do you trust them?
[1] And don't say 'I'm not interesting enough', 'cos I don't believe you.
A bit besides the point, but my phone has a unique identifier associated with it that is constantly communicated to my operator. It also has tons of other tracking software I have no clue about. While this is something I'd prefer didn't exist, same logic applies here.
I'm not pro-surveillance, but pro realistic understanding of it. I know it's not great, but what can you do? Go around town filming people and creep them out thinking you're making a point when in reality you're just annoying people?
Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you, personally, are being tracked, and that traking will remain and may be actionable at any time in the future.
Just be sure you don't piss off a cop, otherwise he might just look you up on the database and see that those cameras you thought weren't watching you actually captured a number or minor infractions for which you will now be fined.
You know, I'll take that any day over some random weirdo coming to film me under the pretense of making a point.
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.
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.
You can't legally use someone's image in an advertisement without their consent. But that's different than having the right to film in public. If I'm filming and you walk in front of my camera, you don't have the right to force me to stop filming. You don't own public space.
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 own public space
That is true but the idea is that the public space should not become a voyeuristic zoo. Photographing spaces is fine, but individuals should not lose their privacy entirely just because they leave their home.
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?
This already happens with photos and filming despite the general presumption of legality. Adding a bunch of nuanced exceptions would make it much worse.
Understand that the way this works is that officers can stop you from filming at any time. Then later you might get a judge to say, “the officer had no legal right to stop you.” The officer goes “oops” and that’s it. Obviously you cannot go back in time and get the moment that you missed.
A clear, simple, well-known presumption of legality makes it a lot harder for a misbehaving officer to appeal to the concept of a “judgment call.” And it makes it easier for a judge to say “you should have known” and impose consequences on the officer.
Ostensibly, the officer is open to a US 42 1983 color of law violation since there are court decisions affirming the right to record police in public.
Is looking at other people in public voyeuristic? Or is using a camera for watching it back later what makes it voyeuristic?
The stronger argument would be one that you alluded to with the 'stalking you' part -- a person with a camera can choose to follow you or frame the shot a certain way. A CCTV camera is a fixed installation that can't individually be used to really follow you, and can be somewhat trivially avoided. In effect, a person with a camera can function as a _network_ of CCTV cameras, and I think that's what raises some heckles.
To elaborate: filming people (or taking pictures of them) in Germany requires consent, with some exceptions. Surveillance cameras are legal as long as their presence is clearly indicated with visible signage and they record only private property (e.g. pointing a surveillance camera outside your property is usually illegal).
I think dashcams currently still occupy a legal gray area but they were inadmissible for the longest time. Walking up to random strangers and deliberately recording them without consent is 100% illegal and I would even argue that it constitutes harassment, especially if asked not to.
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 stores, and we don't understand the purpose or intention of the guy standing in the street, so imagine the worst. Plus the cameras in stores are often hidden so we avoid thinking about them entirely.
But... we're on so many cameras, which just random employees at random stores have access to... or random homeowners with cameras pointing out their windows... it seems reasonable to me to be more worried about that then most people are. And I'm not sure I've meaniningfully given any kind of consent to any of it.
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.
I actually have no idea what laws (which probably vary from state to state) would control what is done with private surveillance footage -- I think it's possible almost no laws would. (My guess is that in states with two-party consent laws, you have "consented" to be videotaped by virtue of some sign posted at the entrance that says by entering you consent, and that once you have, they can do almost anything with it -- but I'm just guessing).
I actually haven't read much about how GPDR applies to private surveillance video which I believe is as pervasive in most of Europe as it is here, if not more. Because it's never been as professional relevant to me as website/internet/software stuff. But now I'm curious to read more about that.
(I believe "Surveillance Camera Man" was mostly or entirely in the USA, for what it's worth).
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.
I agree that most reactions are not warranted. However, the context of the filming is quite different.
On one hand, you have (mostly) stationary cameras filming areas, and all the people in that area. Usually the cameras are not zoomed in, and ostensibly are not allowed to record audio in many jurisdictions. So you don't feel threatened because it's a universal thing and unmanned. Also, you assume the purpose is for property or personal protection.
On the other hand, you are being specifically targeted, including audio, by an actual human with a camera. Are they recording my credit card, pin, etc? It's reasonable to question what they are doing as it is unusual and could be a scam. The motive is unknown.
Context and details matter. My guess is they violated a law and/or got sued. It's much easier than most people realize. For example, if you record someone's conversation while their on the phone, you could be in violation of wire tap laws even if you didn't tamper with their communication (simply the act of recording).
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.
The difference is so vast it baffles me that anyone would consider them interchangeable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
I'm not surprised it's been taken down from Youtube because, well, it's Youtube. But odd that it would be removed from archive.org.
Mind sharing it?
curl --upload-file ./the-video-file.ext https://transfer.sh/your-reference.extLegend
Besides, the person you see and who is generally being intentionally visible isn't usually the one you have to worry about.
The law that allows filming in public spaces clearly was not meant to allow this kind of creepy behaviour. People are rightfully directing their anger at the person abusing the law, rather than the law itself.
Scale is sometimes enough to make the mundane terrible. Hence memes.
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":
This one, where the person arguing about it sits on a desk,
with a large green panel that says: "CCTV Monitoring Station"
I checked other mentioned locations and you can still watch the full collection here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/OkQQggPH6a9B/
Here is a reupload - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBQi88JJ38Q
Using the filename and basic dorking you can still find copies as I found a half dozen last night when sharing the above link, but seems like sharing any link just helps it disappear. If the two channels are really the same producer, which seems true to me, than some of the actions recorded for Vagrant Holiday are not something you can put your face next to, if SCM was filming in his own neighborhood he may have become concerned about opsec and what clues are inadvertently remaining in that old content that could lead back to him. I don't see what external privacy/legal concern would cause all videos to be removed since they are all different subjects so I think it his choice.