After discussing the Panopticon, I thought about other ways we are being watched. Online, tools like Google Street View allow us to visually see roads and buildings to better understand directions. In order for Google to collect these images, they have street view cars that drive around snapping photos in all directions. I have been photographed by Google when walking out of Publix and walking down a street in Chicago. Even though this tool is helpful for directions, isn't it intrusive to our privacy? They blurred out faces, but the pictures are all taken without consent. Even though it is legal for them to do this, why isn't there more controversy. There is a lot of news and disagreement from the public about the NSA spying on us, but do people overlook the fact that Google is too?
If I walked down park ave with my camera and started taking pictures of people without their permission, I believe I would be told to stop, or people would cover their face. However, with Google, people seem to overlook that problem and just focus on the benefits of the tool. In addition, if I walked down the street taking pictures of people wearing a shirt that says NSA, I can guarantee most people would get upset. Even though companies like Google are fighting against the NSA to provide privacy for the public, there seems to be hypocrisy with their services and the actions necessary for establishing those services.
This idea of the Panopticon is something that got me thinking about our society today as well and how we are constantly being surveillanced. In recent years, major intersections and roads are being controlled by cameras and essentially doing the jobs that the police are unable to accomplish. On any given day I can be sitting at a red light at the crossing of 1792 and Fairbanks, a fairly busy intersection, and watch those obnoxious camera flashings go off when people are speeding through or turning to make the yellow lights. Typically it is hard to see these camera flashes catching you in the act of running a red light and next thing you know, a letter comes in the mail from the Winter Park Police Department of the Red Light Enforcement Program for a whopping $200 ticket. Within the envelop contains a statement of the description of the incident (from the cameras perspective) as well as two photos of your vehicle and the light changing from yellow to red and one photo of a close up of your license plate number. The system records the violation on video camera as well and is available to watch via the website. You must then write a check and send it into the enforcement program in New York. It’s crazy now that even though there are no signs of police in sight, you be given a ticket by a surveillance system for increased revenue (I assume) because the system is set up by an outside source.
ReplyDeleteBelow is a link of an example of one of these tickets, ironically its on a website on "how to beat photo-enforced tickets"
http://www.copblock.org/33390/how-to-beat-a-photo-enforced-speeding-ticket-or-red-light-ticket/