[wearables] Wearable Computers and Privacy (surveillance and...)

[Steve Mann]

> 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


-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at 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'