Smile, you're on Camera =)

à When people walk into retail stores, business firms, fancy hotels or national banks, many can expect to run into the sign "Smile, you're on camera". It makes many suddenly look around for the security camera at first, but then go about their daily activities. The sign serves as a reminder; it not only encourages moral behavior, but also indirectly highlights surveillance technologies advances in our society. Many people still think of surveillance as a secretive form of technology that, without public awareness, catches people when they are most vulnerable. However, many places clearly inform people when they are being watched as if to coax good behavior. This, I believe, is the best and most respectful way to use public recordings. Despite this type of surveillance, the growing reliance on surveillance protection has created different ways to spy on others; ways that revert back to the secretive sense of the technology. In this generation, you can find not only business's and the government using surveillance, but mothers and even schools. Anybody using the technology can arguably decide to use it in a surreptitious manner. Everyone has heard rumors of nanny cams or even changing room cams. The question is wether many of these cameras cross a line on personal privacy.

One school in the Philadelphia district decided to secretly install cameras in the laptop computers given to each student. When the school showed a picture of a student with a pill, representing drugs, in his hand while in the comfort of his own home, the secret was out. The school may have released the photo to attempt to scare kids away from drugs. However, not only was the way in which the picture taken arguably illegal and a complete violation of privacy, the supposed pill was just a mikes ikes candy. The family of the photographed child sued the school for wrongfully spying on their child. Here is the news report on the incident along with many interesting comments from the public. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-G6dN8DYHE

Surveillance technology is known for monitoring and analyzing public actions and behaviors. Many automatically associate such technology with video recordings. However, there are a plethora of different types of surveillance technology that reaches far beyond the stationary cameras spoken about above. It can involve telephone taping, online scanning, biometric surveillance (like DNA identification), ariel surveillance, satellite imagery, Radio Frequency Identification, GPS (Global Positioning Stations), or even disease surveillance (used to monitor the progress of disease). These types are just the start of what surveillance technology can soon advance towards in the near future. Please keep an "eye" out for more forms of surveillance. If anyone wants me to research further into a more unique one, please let me know!