GearBits

Some Thoughts on Privacy

I'm sitting here messing with a webcam tonight and I began thinking about privacy. What exactly brought on this train of thought, you ask?

Well, I happened to be IM'ing a friend of mine who lives across the street. I told him about the webcam and how I was using the Timershot PowerToy to run it, and he was appropriately unimpressed. Then, I pointed the cam out the window at his place and changed the text above the image on the webpage to "If the light is on, ____ is home."

At that point, it struck me: what is keeping anyone from doing this to anyone else? I certainly wouldn't want someone doing it to me, but there may be no way for me to stop it if someone were doing just this.

I am not a lawyer, so I have no idea if this is legal or not. Given that all the equipment is in my house and I'm merely webcamming something publicly visible (the exterior of an apartment building), is that illegal? Whether it's right or not is a whole different issue...I'm just curious whether it's breaking some privacy law or not.

Moreover, privacy is quickly becoming the most concerning issue in perpetuating the technology advances we've made over the past several years. Think of concerns related to RFID. Folks are taking a relatively benign technology, one that could potentially make a multi-billion dollar impact on supply chains the world over, and effectively halting its progress because of fears about protecting their privacy.

Spam is such a volatile issue because it both creates enormous waste and hassle, in terms of technology and human resources, and it threatens our privacy. An email address is a personal identifier, like a name, a social security number, or a telephone number, and to have someone selling and trading it like so much contraband is an affront to our sense of personal privacy.

So, what privacy threats do you most fear? Would you be OK with your neighbor across the way pointing a 24/7 webcam at your window?