I know that Google’s Street View is old news.
Google actually uses an extremely high-tech camera, scrounges the streets and takes photos. I’ve never really used the service myself, but while surfing today I found some articles that drew my attention on the subject.
Invading Privacy
Mashable: Mashable’s top 15 google street view sightings is supposed to be an entertaining article listing some pictures of several interesting and funny places around the world. What is disturbing in this article is not only the complete disregard of people’s privacy but also the quality and quantity of comments.
There are currently 155 comments linking to other sighting (guy picking his nose or girl showing her panties, etc.) or praising the humor of the article. From these 155 comments only 8 are actually referring to the factor of privacy.
Googlesightseeing: A little bit more search down the road and I found googlesightseeing.com. This site’s niche is posting images from Google Maps and Google’s Street View. Of course this might not directly say anything about privacy issues, since images of people are not that often on the site. But it implies something else:
There are people, who are extensively searching these all-viewing databases. So it is not the government, the CIA or “add conspiracy theory here” but ordinary people that are breaking the privacy barrier.
Psychology of Control
The panopticon was a model prison proposal of Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The idea was that the prisoners could not see the guards observing them. Although the concept was never realized, Bentham
pointed out that the prison could employ very few guards, since the prisoners could not know when they were being watched. The project’s key concept, however, wasn’t about architecture or economics; it was about the psychology of control.
In other words, people will start developing a sense of being constantly observed and therefore behave accordingly. It seems that there is not only a central authority, which practices control and surveillance, but also the society in general. Google’s Street View is one of the tools provided to the public to spy on each other.
Between private and public
But where are the boundaries between private and public?
There has been a great discussion on the subject;
- some state that Google’s street view is a major privacy issue, which will be subject in upcoming legal discussion
- while others don’t see any privacy violation, since the people are already in public.
It is already questionable how can we achieve true privacy, but the question goes beyond the boundaries of public and private. We are witnessing the development of an all-seeing, all-knowing society.
I’m already against any surveillance of any kind but moreover should the public really have access to such spying tools?
