Public Privacy, Public Safety and Public Surveillance

We have all come to expect to be captured on video during our daily lives.

In fact, many of us voluntarily reveal a great deal about ourselves to the whole world by posting videos to websites like YouTube, FaceBook, and MySpace. In fact, as several friends of mine commented about the recent Virginia Tech murders, many of the victims' friends and fellow students, when interviewed, seemed very camera conscious, displaying eery smiles in spite of the violent acts, grizzly scenes, and sorrowful emotions they were describing. The camera is everywhere, and this generation seems to like it, and crave it.

While we are indoors during the course of our daily lives, especially while we are in places likes banks, transportation centres like airports, public transit systems, it is common practice and has been for years to keep surveillance video of as much of what goes on in these places as possible. It is done in most cases to protect the interests of the institutions the video cameras "protect". However in many cases the rationale is that this is being done to protect us from harm and keep us safe.

A recent case in Toronto has made clear how quickly this video can act as prosecutor, judge, and jury with respect to "suspects" captured on video. This case makes clear that there are many legal, ethical, and philosophical issues that surround the publication of this video in an effort to apprehend the "suspect". Usually because of the power of the picture in our minds, and the multiple exposures we get to them from the media in such cases, "suspect" quickly morphs in most people's minds to "convicted perpetrator" even before anyone has been apprehended or questioned.

Another criminal case, also in Toronto, that occurred about two years ago, is about to go to trial. I remember at the time the influence the video surveillance images published had over the public's mind in this case about race, violence, and the people in the video being tried in the public mind on the basis of the video and the pronouncements of news reporters and analysts. As you can see from the link, in the real legal world, more than two years removed from the events, a judge is rightly examining the case to see if there is anything like sufficient evidence to pursue a case.

Also in Toronto, in an area called the "Entertainment District" a new system of overlapping cameras has been put in place, ostensibly with the intention to keep the public safe. I have worked and lived in this area and at that time it was among the safest areas to live and work. The majority of crime in the area was limited to parked cars being broken into, and assault charges directly related to the over-abundance of licenced bars, clubs, and restaurants in the area. Most of the time both parties involved were charged with assault, so these were by and large bar-fights. No domestic violence, little robbery, and until 2001 or so, only a few guns.

This has changed since 2001 the authorities argue. The Entertainment District is apparently a hot bed of gun related violence, and it is believed that on the order of a couple hundred to a perhaps a couple of thousand hand guns pass through this area every weekend. Guns make me nervous. Guns should make YOU nervous. Hand guns are only good for one thing ... shooting things (usually people) at close range.

However, these cameras make me nervous too. Many people live and work in this area, and carry on completely law-abiding lives. And these surveillance cameras will no doubt be watching and recording them too, even during the day, or on weeknights, or a quiet Sunday morning, all times that the area has not transformed into several large masses of club and restaurant goers. Similar cameras have been deployed in London, hooked up to pattern recognition software, and the video is used to search for particular people in the images of crowds.

There is no reason to think the same thing is not going on anywhere where these cameras have been deployed. The problem is, every face is scanned and characterized, and no doubt a record kept. If you work in an area you will appear many times to these cameras, and files about your comings and goings might easily be kept. The argument can be made that keeping these files will help "rule you out" quickly from video in which you appear that might contain the face of a wanted criminal, or "terrorist" (everyone seems to be a "terrorist" these days ... there a far fewer enemy soldiers and criminals around ... they are now called "terrorists" to inspire fear and justify stripping the suspect or captured foreign combatant of any rights they might otherwise have, civil or military).

My questions to ponder are these: expectation of privacy is a key legal concept. It applies to your activities in your home, and your dealings with certain kind of people, such as doctors, lawyers, and members of the clergy. We used to have an understood expectation of privacy even while we were in public places without walls (streets, parks, etc.). As long as we were not breaking the law, most people understood that no public officials, police, Homeland Security ... whatever ... no one who worked for a government agency had the right to watch you in a systematic fashion unless they had "probable cause" (or, more recently, the less stringent, "reasonable cause" ) to believe you were committing, about to commit, or had committed, a crime.

Were we wrong to expect privacy all along? Do we have rights that these new technologies and their sponsoring government agencies are treading upon? Does the alleged interest of public safety outweigh the rights of the law-abiding to be left alone and not be watched, recorded, characterized, and stored for later review. How is what is going on any different than being finger-printed and having a "mug-shot" taken by the authorities without your having been charged with any crime?

I have truly ambivalent and complex feelings, thoughts, and arguments on this matter. I'd like to hear some of yours.