By concentrating sensing and data storage on the body, a wearable computer allows its user to ``control his own bits.'' The user determines when and where his data is released and how much to trust the infrastructure around him. For example, when a wearable user enters work in the morning, he may instruct his wearable to inform his office of his arrival so that his office unlocks his door or starts a pot of coffee. However, the user would probably tell his wearable not to share his identity with billboards he walks past to avoid the sort of targeted advertising portrayed in the film ``Minority Report.'' Of course, some bargain hunters may choose to share their identity with advertisers to obtain better deals, much like membership cards in today's grocery stores. .. By using a combination of physical sensor limitations, legal recourse,

Some of the social, legal, ethical, moral, and policy issues you raise are very relevant. In thinking about our recent Special Issue on cyborglaw, here is a comparison of architecture-based recording (surveillance) and person-based recording (sousveillance). You might find this comparison interesting and useful for your article. We'd also welcome thoughts from the whole group on this dichotomy: 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. 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. Eventually, we will probably end up with a combination of ubiq/pervcomp (surcomp/souscomp) and wearcomp (sousveillant-computing). There will eventually be some kind of equilibrium ("equivellance") between surveilance and sousveillance. We will wear or carry some but not all of the technology. Obviously we don't wear big batteries to run head-mounted lights, so there are some elements like shelter, lighting, electrical wiring, and plumbing (except for diapers which are wearable restrooms) that are best-served by the architecture. But new emerging technologies of miniaturization will shift the equiveillance (sur/sous equilibrium) a little more from architecture of buildings to human-scale architecure. I believe that the "heavy currents" like the 600 Amp 3phase service that comes into our building will stay in the architecture, whereas the "light currents" (informatic electrical signals) will move more and more onto and into the body. Thus the shift in equiveillance will be primarily informatic, encompassing also personal information like lifelong video capture "cyborglog" personal diaries. --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'