Comment by flir
19 hours ago
It's strange to me that that's the line society seems to have drawn in the sand. Body cam, no problem. Doorbell cam, practically universal. Body cam worn on the face? No way. I wonder why.
19 hours ago
It's strange to me that that's the line society seems to have drawn in the sand. Body cam, no problem. Doorbell cam, practically universal. Body cam worn on the face? No way. I wonder why.
Police body cams are typically only used while on-duty and in public, where there is no expectation of privacy. They also don't automatically send video into the cloud to be analyzed by a human for AI training, as mentioned in this article. Video is usually only retrieved if needed on a case-by-case basis.
Doorbell cameras are also typically pointed toward public streets, where again, there is no expectation of privacy. Even then, many people have been removing Ring cameras after they were shown to automatically upload video without user's knowledge.
> They also don't automatically send video into the cloud to be analyzed by a human for AI training,
Yet.
They almost certainly already do. If you just look into Axon you'll see they have tons of cloud-based and AI products. Axon is the major player in police body cameras in the US.
2 replies →
In Spain the typical doorbell camera is illegal. In an apartment building it is illegal to have a camera on the door that points into "common" areas even though these are still private areas vis-a-vis the general public.
I'm amazed you can't see the difference.
Body cam - used to protect the police and people being policed in a potentially hot conflict. Recording is scoped to these specific interactions that rarely occur for most people.
Doorbell cam - highly controversial. See response to dog-finding superbowl ad.
Body cam wore on face - Mass surveillance in potentially every conceivable social context. Data owned by Meta, a company known for building a profile on people that don't even use their products.
Door bells also had a popular movie made that revolved around their use: Weapons.
And that didn’t raise an uproar of suspicion even as one character went door to door asking if he could look at his neighbors recordings.
People are comfortable with the idea of being recorded, so long as accessing many recordings is a drawn out and manual process.
Eh, doorbell cams aren’t that controversial (ad aside). A lot of people have them already, both from ring (with the concomitant privacy issues) or from other providers (with different but similar issues).
They’re controversial on hacker news but I don’t think people in the “real world” care all that much.
How that connects to the meta glasses is certainly up for debate —- the doorbells provide a lot of value to the user (know who is at the door remotely!), the glasses are more of a mixed bag.
I would say that people outside of tech aren't aware of the implications and potential use of the data.
Once people realize, they begin to reject. This is why I mentioned the superbowl ad and it shouldn't be waved away as an outlier.
Body cameras aren't hidden and are worn by public officials while on duty, doorbell cameras are no more invasive than an CCTV camera a home owner might have installed on their premise.
I think the difference is that these cameras are relatively concealed, and can be used to record every interaction, even in pretty intimate/private settings. Yes you could do this with a cell phone but it would be pretty obvious your recording if you're trying to get more than just the audio of an interaction.
Body cams are directly visible, and are there to add accountability to the actions of law enforcement. These glasses are covert cameras. Someone that doesn't know what they look like isn't going to know someone might be filming. That's a big difference.
Not sure how it is where you live, but doorbell cameras are commonly criticized where I live. With many people claiming they don't feel comfortable walking around anymore knowing that the entire neighborhood is filming them.
Cop body cam footage is more likely to help you vs a cop than get you into trouble because a cop is already there watching what you’re doing. IE: Thank god the cop’s camera was off when I was buying crack, I might have gotten in trouble otherwise… fails because a cop was already watching you.
Cops also announce their presence in uniforms and are operating as government agents. People already moderate their behavior around cops so being recorded isn’t as big a deal.
> body cameras had no statistically significant impact on officer use of force, civilian complaints, or arrests for disorderly conduct by officers. In other words, body cameras did not reduce police misconduct . . . 92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians, while just 8.3 percent have used it to prosecute police officers[1]
Cops control when the cameras are filming, if footage is retained and what/when/if footage is released. Body cams are just yet another surveillance tool against the population.
[1]https://www.aclu-wa.org/news/will-body-cameras-help-end-poli...
That means far less than you might think. As long as officer testimony is given a privileged status the courtroom there’s minimal risk to civilians that body cameras are making things worse for them.
100% percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used officer testimony as evidence to prosecute civilians. Meanwhile I suspect the use of officer testimony is even more lopsided in favor of cops.
> 92.6 percent of prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions with body cameras have used that footage as evidence to prosecute civilians
I'd suggest browsing body cam footage on youtube for a bit. If you see the sort of stuff being prosecuted it might not bother you.
If it hasn't reduced police use of force or misconduct (I find this claim questionable) I think that's unfortunate but regardless it's important to implement systems that document that to the greatest extent possible. If we do that today then maybe it can be reduced tomorrow.
Evidence against them improving behavior isn't evidence they're a significant surveillance tool.
And the biggest fix there is you need to not let them control it.
What do you mean bodycam isn't a problem? Do people wear body cams to normal social occasions?
People are more okay with cameras in public areas and less okay if it's in intimate, social, private situations, inside apartments, individual offices etc.
I also don't like having doorbell cams everywhere, at least not the ones that upload all their footage to the ~great mass surveillance network in the sky~ Cloud(TM). I don't think that's an uncommon point of view. And body cams are only worn by cops and at least provide some concrete benefits in terms of increasing police accountability.
"Surveillance Camera Man"[1] makes a good practical example of it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9sVqKFkjiY
It might be the line in the sand now, but it probably won’t be for long.
A body cam is worn by a trained police officer and lights up with a big red flashing light and audible warnings. It is used to record serious crimes.
A face camera has no light or warnings (you just put tape over the small light), and is operated by a pervert.
Some doorbell cams film other people's homes.
Lines were and are always weird, all the time. Americans killing 150 girls yesterday in a school, just a footnote in the news, already gone today. Some rando killing 10 people in a university in my country, endless discussion, politicians, punduits all up in arms spewing their opinions for months, discussing it to no end. Only difference? I don't know. I don't know almost anyone in my country, they're all as foreign to me as some girls in Iran. There's no difference to me.
There's very little sense to me in searching for meaning in any of this. It just is, people are that way. There are no lines and boundaries based on anything but just whims.
People want to be deceived.