WEBVTT - You Got Surveilled 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:16.280 Forward Thinking. Hi there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.400 the podcast that looks at the future and says, someone 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.360 left the cake out in the rain. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.079 I'm Lauren voc Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. And we'll 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.560 never have that recipe again. All right, So today we 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.280 wanted to talk about the fact that we have a 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.680 proliferation of cameras all around us these days. There seems 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.000 to always be a camera somewhere, whether it's in the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.839 hands of a person, or on on a street corner, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.680 or in a corner store, or on someone's face. There 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.160 there seem to be just about everywhere, now right, Yeah, 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:53.159 this has gone from science fiction to reality in our lifetimes. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.480 right right, yeah. When when Well, i mean not that 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.680 any of us were around in uh came out, but 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.760 you just blew my mind. Yeah when Orwell published nineteen 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:05.720 eighty four, which came out in nineteen forty nine, and 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.240 that really did presage this era of surveillance where in 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:15.040 that case, a very uh totalitarian and oppressive government was 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:21.400 using surveillance to keep the population cowed and under control. Right, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.119 There was a sense that you never knew when someone 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.360 was watching you, so you so there had to be 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.440 on good behavior continually because yeah, you had to operate 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.800 under the assumption that you were being watched and that 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:34.959 someone was going to punish you if you didn't anything wrong. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.399 That's kind of interesting considering that when when that book 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.920 came out in nineteen forty nine, that actually predates the 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.319 uh the deployment of a lot of CCTV technology, which 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.320 followed a few years later. But the earliest I could 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.960 find of any sort of use of closed circuit television 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.960 cameras dates back to nineteen forty two, and that was 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.080 in World War Two Germany. They were using that not 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.680 to keep an eye on citizens or try and report 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.280 people or anything along those lines. They were using it 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:08.880 because they needed a way to observe V two rocket 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.639 launches without getting fried when something would go wrong. So 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.959 losing a camera is better than losing a scientist with 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.160 a clipboard who was standing there a second ago. And 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.960 now there's just a pair of smoking shoes for MythBusters. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.160 Yeah right, Well, um, it looks like CCTV cameras first 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.760 became popular or widespread in the seventies and eighties. Yeah, 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.280 there was some there's some precedent for cameras in the 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.560 UK before that, but it was all it wasn't necessarily 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.120 close circuit television cameras. But back in nineteen sixty there 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.799 were a couple of times when police in the UK 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.880 installed cameras in Trafalgar Square. Once but when the tai 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.000 royal family was visiting and they just wanted to make 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.000 sure that they were able to keep an eye on 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.280 crowd control. Uh. And then the other time was during 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.320 well the fifth of November, which of course is Guy 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:04.040 Fox Day. Remember remember I remember, do you the Gunpowder 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.560 treason and plot? Wait, you're not saying they had sec 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.040 TV camera when he tried to blow up Parliament. No, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.280 this was nineteen sixty on the anniversary of that. Actually 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.480 was on the anniversary of him being captured. To be fair, 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.640 Guy Fox Day is to celebrate the fact that the 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.840 government captured Guy Fox, not the fact that a man 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.880 tried to blow up Parliament, right, never know that from 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.079 that movie and all the people who wear the masks. Yeah, no, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.960 that's true. I did a full podcast about Guy Fox 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.560 Day on a on a completely separate channel where I 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.000 talked about what Guy fox Day is all about and 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.920 how the the modern misconception and particularly in America, casts 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.480 it as sort of an anti hero. But really Guy 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:48.840 fox Day was all about hey we stopped Yeah anyway, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.240 but that that was Those were two incidents where the 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.000 London police installed some cameras. In both of those cases, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.280 those cameras were meant to just be temporary. They set 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.640 him up in order to kind of give themselves a 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.320 little extra manpower. Well, they thought it was such a 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.280 great idea that they would just go ahead and deploy 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.520 those suckers all over the place, although it did take 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:13.680 them a few decades. Yeah, I saw something about I 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.640 think the so there were some cameras like up in 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.080 Times Square in the nineteen seventies and stuff like that, 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.800 but um, this really got big in the eighties. I 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:27.000 think between A figure I saw was that between nineteen 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:33.880 eighty and two thousand, CCTV sales jumped seven Yeah, that's 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.080 when the explosion. The early days were in the sixties 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.040 and seventies where they were usually being laid out along 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.560 roadways things like that in order to just keep an 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.440 eye on how things were flowing through London. Mainly London 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:49.360 was the big city where this was happening. You did 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.440 have it in some other cities. New York had some 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.200 in Times Square like you mentioned, but uh, and then 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.880 you had some private companies or retail organizations that were 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.880 installing them as a mean to try and counteract any 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.400 sort of shoplifting activity. So but those were really the 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.000 the main uses until the nineteen eighties. That's when it 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.360 really started to quote unquote exclude well. Actually, uh, one 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.880 thing that we one misconception we might want to clear 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.000 up is this idea that most of these uh CCTV 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:25.600 cameras are public. The majority, the vast majority, are still private. Um. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.359 So when when you've heard about how many times you 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.800 might be photographed or video recorded going about your business 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.280 throughout the day, most of those images are going to 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.839 happen at you know, the shop, you go into, the 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:42.760 place where you work, the public exactly. Yeah, um yeah, there, 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:48.720 I mean, there there are plenty of official public cameras, 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.200 public meaning that they're owned by the government as opposed 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.640 to private companies. But they do have that. I mean, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:56.560 it's just a fraction of all the cameras that are 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:58.960 out there, right, although it should be noted that according 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.960 to the Electronic Can Occasions Privacy Act of nine, police 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.599 can legally use footage from private cameras pursue any kind 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.440 of Yeah. Yeah, and they do all the time, of course. Yeah. Um. Well, 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.719 so one interesting question that people started worrying about, especially 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.200 in the in the post nine eleven era, when they're 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.479 started to be increasing awareness that maybe we should really 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:28.080 worry about privacy and recording. Um, people started to say, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.160 how many cameras are there and how much of our 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.160 lives are being recorded? Yeah, because there was no way 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.320 of really knowing this. Uh, I would argue, there's still 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.840 no way. Well, yeah, just essentially, if you have if 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.000 you have a cell phone that was manufactured in the 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.839 last you know, five years, you probably have you have 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.640 at least a still camera, if not a full digital 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.680 video camera that can upload uh footage directly to the 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.760 internet or at least save it on the phone and 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.200 then transferred. I'm just talking about cct not even when 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.800 we we'll get to personal devices, and so even even 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.520 answering the question about CCTV is deaf, That's all I'm 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.200 talking about. Yeah, people who have cameras and and they're 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.120 they're rolling. Yeah, you can count on it. UM. So 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.440 there are a few different numbers. One number that you 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.520 might have seen bouncing around a lot um is an 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.760 estimate that comes from the UK, and the UK is 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.800 famous for this because it's often said that it's the 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.760 most surveiled place in the world. Right, they've got cameras everywhere, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.960 by the way, set in London in oceanny all right, yeah, yeah, 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:43.920 airstrip one okay, UM, So the figure is four point 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.960 two million. Now I'll revise this in a second, but 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.240 this has been for years. People have bandied this about 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.280 four point two million cameras in the UK and that 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:58.080 works out to one camera for every fourteen people that 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.520 takes I mean, and so you see this sited a 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.480 lot of times by privacy advocates in the UK and stuff. Um. 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.880 But it turns out that this is probably not the 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:14.440 most accurate estimate UM. In fact, it's probably very high. 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.720 Because the way they got this estimate um is that 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:21.320 there was a paper that basically they looked at a 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.320 couple of streets, um, and they were like, well, how 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.280 many cameras are are on these streets, combining public cameras 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.960 and cameras and you know, privately owned businesses and and 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.240 all that, um. And then they extrapolated that out um 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.560 and and got this really high number. UM. So in 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:43.200 the county Cheshire in England. UM, they had police community 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.120 support officers go through and physically count all of the 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.600 cameras to see, well, exactly how many are there really? 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:56.320 Um And then they use some statistical models to um say, well, 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.680 you know, compared to the urban density and and stuff 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.079 and other areas, UM, what we can say that the 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.360 UK more likely has one point eight five million cameras, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.800 about significantly fewer than four points less than half of 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.640 the original estimate. It's still a bunch. Yeah, well there 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.080 are a few the funny things here. Either way, that's 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:21.880 a huge amount of cameras. Number two, it's just kind 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.920 of creepy that people have no idea their their estimates 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.080 are differing by the millions. Well yeah, yeah, well when 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.280 you get to when you get to big numbers, people 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.880 are really bad about estimating that anyway. Right, This this 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.080 goes beyond just cameras. This goes to just how how 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.800 humans work in general. Like, once we get beyond a 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:48.240 certain point, estimations no longer really work out in our favor. 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.200 We're really bad with big numbers. It's also why you 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.560 get things like, hey, let's play the lottery. Look how 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:56.760 much money it is. What are the odds of winning? 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.319 And you just you know, the odds are so astronomical 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.120 that you would, uh, your eyes glaze over. You're just like, 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:06.200 well that's big. You're like someone has to win, right 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.319 and so. But if you really think about the odds, 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.120 you just think, well, really buying a lottery ticket and 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.480 throwing a dollar away, there's not a whole lot of 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.200 difference there. Yeah, you have a chance of winning, but 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.640 it's so tiny, and you're probably supporting your local schools, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.640 but well, supporting some school. Yeah, the the if my 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.480 money goes to Georgia Tech, you're gonna know, you know, 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.840 I'm gonna be upset. Um. But at any rate, the 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.040 point is that we're really bad at that sort of thing, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:34.839 So it doesn't really surprise me, you know, to go 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.439 one point eight million versus four point two million, because 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.040 once you get over a certain number that you might 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.880 as well just say lots there are. The point is 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.200 either way, it's it's one of the most surveilled places 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.640 in the world, if not the most, and it's it's 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.800 incredibly dense surveillance. Oh yeah, and and this plays a 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.240 role in in television and movies and absolutely like you know, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.160 like Torchwood. And there's the moment where Watson is uh 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.640 is called. He's answering the phone in a a phone booth, 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.960 which apparently they still exist, I guess, but he's answering 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.679 a phone and then the voice on the other line 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:14.800 tells him to look up at the various corners, and 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.199 you can see that there are the cameras that are 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.280 mounted on the outside of buildings, and the cameras very 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:26.160 specifically look away from his um phone booth for showing 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.719 that the conversation is going to be private and not 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:34.400 displayed on any kind of uh uh closed circuit television technology. 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.120 So it's it's a part of life over there in 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.600 the United States. It's still something that we would consider 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.000 very unusual, right. I would actually argue, though, going back 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.679 to a slightly earlier point, that it doesn't matter technically 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.240 how many there are there due to principles that were 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.880 talked about by A. Jeremy Bentham in the in the 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.200 seventeen eighties about the pinopticon, which which which was the 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.520 concept of this prison that had this a circular tower 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.400 in the kind of a ring of a prison with 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.720 a circular tower, whereas the cells are on the outside, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.480 the cells are on the outside, and the guards are 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.600 on the inside, and the prisoners don't know when they're 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:10.559 being watched, that they have to operate under the assumption 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.880 that they're always being watched. Like we were talking about earlier, 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.320 and this this concept got a big reprise for pries 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.000 in the seventies when for co Is starting to talk 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.480 about it as as a metaphor for the way that 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.880 all of these cameras around us and and the watchfulness 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.760 of society was operating. Yeah. Well, um, part of that 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.520 comes into Uh, we'll come in when we want to 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.240 say what is the effect these cameras have and we 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.040 can get to that in a minute. One another thing 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.920 I wanted to bring up though about this, uh more 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.559 recent account of the cameras in the UK is earlier 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.240 when we were saying that most of the cameras are private. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.439 This was definitely the case here. You know, they counted 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.360 in County Cheshire more than twelve thousand cameras and only 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.400 about five hundreds of them were public. Wow. Okay, so 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.800 most of these like we were saying, they're in parking lots, 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.400 you know, shops, the places that are privately and people 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:12.000 trying to protect their stuff. Right, Well, they're recording you 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.439 either way, so that that's still something that again is 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.600 is fairly alien to two people. In the United States, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.520 we don't have as many camera the now. The retails 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.280 shops definitely do, but not as many cameras that are 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.600 just mounted on the side of buildings as you would 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.520 see in London. Right, we don't have as many, but 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.360 some places in the United States are getting there. Um well, 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.600 a lot of big cities in the United States now 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:43.480 have pretty serious CCTV infrastructure. Um. For example, they think 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:48.440 that probably Chicago is the most surveilled city in America. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.880 And uh, an often cited figure is that there are 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:57.199 ten thousand CCTV cameras in Chicago. I don't know if 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.960 that is confirmed. That just that number shows up a lot. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:02.200 I'm sure most of them are pointed at cemeteries to 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.360 make sure the dead stopped rising from the grave to 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:11.120 vote in every election. Well, that's possible. Um, No, I 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.920 was being too generous. I don't think that's what they're doing. Um, 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.520 that's a that's a corruption in Chicago joke. Yeah, it 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.880 is here in Atlanta. Supposedly, the city, over the course 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.880 of a year grew from seventeen police cameras to more 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:32.320 than that's a pretty explosive growth. Yeah, And one of 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.320 the big questions is are we getting our money's worth? 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.000 Are these cameras here in Atlanta? Are these cameras actually 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:45.680 uh correlated with preventing crime? Yeah? And uh turns out 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.560 the answer is by no means unanimous. And it's really 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.040 hard to get the statistics to agree on this. From 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.920 Some studies seem to show that it does help a lot, 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.720 Some studies show very little help, Some show almost no 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.080 help at all. Well, it's definitely a very complicated thing. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.200 I mean, I guess the only thing, the only way 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.280 you could say it's it wouldn't be complicated is if 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.280 you were to look at crime rates in a neighborhood 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.040 before there were ever any cameras there versus crime rates 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.160 there once the cameras are put in there, and ignoring 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.280 the fact of things like population changes, nothing else has changed. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.120 Of course, life is complex. You can do that, I mean, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.119 you can compare neighborhoods statistics, but a lot of times Um, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.720 what it seems like often happens is that when you 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:37.720 implement these cameras, they seem to coincide with other new policies, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.480 like we also added more patrol cars, um so so 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.480 so can you can't be absolutely certain that it was 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.360 the cameras that had any sort of measurable impact. It 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.960 may be one of these other other UH initiatives that 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.360 are enacted around the same time. Yeah, Like, for example, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.120 one thing I saw is that when they added a 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.120 whole bunch of CCTV cameras to the to the trains 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:08.960 in Chicago, they said crime jumped. Um. Now that doesn't 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.120 mean there were more murders. They actually saw a decrease 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.160 in violent crime, but there was an increase in recorded 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.400 fair skipping or fair evasion and other stuff like that. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.400 So really it just meant that the police were able 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.000 to observe. Well, I don't know if that was the reason, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:28.920 but that that could be it. I'm not saying it's 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.240 the reason. I'm saying that they were able to observe 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.240 a lot more like it may not have been that 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.360 there was a rise in incidents. It was just there 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.400 was a rise and awareness. I don't say, yeah, I 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.400 see what you're saying. I don't know that that's the case, 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.920 but that that could be. Um. But yeah, I mean 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:49.440 one often cited again statistic by privacy advocates in the 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.280 UK is that there's really only been about one UK 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:59.400 crime solved for every thousand cameras. I mean, whether whether 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.719 we give that credence or not, um, but there's clearly 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:10.399 a discrepancy about the value these things have. The people 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.520 who seem most in favor of them are law enforcement 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:19.159 like officers themselves, and some of the discrepancy comes in 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.840 the question of whether these actually prevent crime or whether 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.920 they just make it easier to prosecute crime once it's 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.560 been committed. Got So it may be that it's not 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.000 so much a deterrent as it is just an effective 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.800 means of if you need evidence for prosecution. One thing 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.239 I saw is that in one environment they seem to 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.560 suggest that putting cameras out along with signs that say 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.040 you know, there's a camera recording what you're doing right now, 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:52.119 actually was more preventative than just having the cameras. You 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.080 might guess that makes sense, yeah, which which is why 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.399 the usually when they put these cameras out there. Um, 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.560 you know, in in this whole kitten comboot of a 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.400 giant box with these you know, very big, very obvious 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.200 sorts of things, because yeah, yeah, they do more good 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.640 by telling you that it's there that hypothetically you could 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.159 you could even have a camera, like an inactive camera 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:13.679 saying on the side of a building and if you 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.800 have a sign there, then it may have it may 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.719 be a deterrent. But even if it's not active, well, uh, 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.639 that actually may be the case in a lot like that. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.160 There is clearly a lot of public skepticism about whether 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:33.879 anybody's actually watching these cameras. And it's not entirely unfounded. Um, 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.840 because as much as it costs to install a camera, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.520 it costs that much more to pay somebody to pay 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:44.920 attention to it in real time. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.800 this is I was looking at um cameras used in 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.160 in traffic situations, traffic monitoring, red light camera stuff like that, 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:55.080 and um uh and and yeah. There were similar discrepancies 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.520 in the statistics that people found about whether they were 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.040 useful or not. And one said he found that there 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.159 was a significant increase in crashes and especially crashes with 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.920 injuries in Florida with red light cameras, possibly because people 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.040 were slamming on their brakes in order to avoid getting 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:11.880 a ticket at a red light rather than just going 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.280 through it when perhaps it would have been more safe 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.160 at right when when the light is amber and uh, 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.880 and it is no longer safe for you to actually stop, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.720 rather it's safer for you to go through. Then that's 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.520 what you're supposed to do. The problem is that a 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.720 lot of people don't really seem to, at least in Atlanta. 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.480 From my own this is anecdotal, obviously, but for my 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.520 own experience of riding around in cars in Atlanta, it 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.879 seems that no one's really concerned about hitting on the 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:40.840 brakes until the light is red. And even then you 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.280 probably got about two or three cars that go through first. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.640 Oh yeah, as my wife wants said, in Atlanta, red 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.919 light means okay, only five more cars, right. But that 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.600 we do have some some intersections here in Atlanta that 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.440 do have these these cameras that are located on them 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.800 that that are supposed to take picture ars of cars 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.640 after they pass through a red light. Right, And these 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.960 are these cameras are usually still cameras. They're usually tripped 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.000 by sensors um they might be video or radar, um 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.720 or electromagnetic sensors that are that are done through wires 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.640 that are placed in the asphalt. And these cameras are 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:20.280 in addition to other kinds of traffic cameras, speed cameras, UM, 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.240 cameras that are involved in police cars themselves that scan 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.560 license plates, cameras that are starting to be installed on 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:31.080 on officers themselves. UM, there's there's some of that gonna 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.959 gonna happen in Seattle, UM. Five and eighty two American 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.360 communities alone have some kind of traffic cameras in place. Uh. 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.520 Several states prohibit the use of them. Several states have 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:48.040 legislature going in right now in and and and and 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.960 it's it's it's a really contentious subject because yeah, because 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:53.720 because again you have a lot of people saying like, well, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.680 what how much good do they do? How much privacy 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.480 do we need? And and you know, municipalities have some 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.280 of these trait cameras up online, the video ones you 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.080 can go check. There's entire databases of these things that 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.760 you can access. And there are very real reasons why 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.800 that's very helpful. Um, you know, they could help first 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.280 responders arrive on scene. With an idea of what the 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.240 situation is, and in case of a terrible accident or 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:19.480 or in case of a national emergency, you're not even 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:21.879 national emergency, in case of some kind of weather emergency 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.560 or or something like happened in Boston, you can you 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.679 can let people know what's going on on the ground. 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.480 It also means that someone who would normally be taking 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:32.800 that route might be able to see that there's something 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:36.040 serious going on and they know too reroute, which ultimately 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.479 helps those first responders who are trying to get at 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.919 the scene and take care of anyone who might be 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.720 injured or whatever the situation is. So, you know, to 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:47.439 to an individual, it may seem like, oh, well, this way, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:49.720 my commute is not going to be three hours long. 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.120 But if you step out of that and you look 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:54.439 at the big scheme of things, it also means that 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:56.760 that the people who are there to help in an 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.280 emergency can actually do their job. Yeah. Of course this 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.240 would tie into, as we've talked about before, the idea 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:04.760 of a smart traffic grid. I mean, if you're going 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.160 to have such a thing in the future, like autonomous 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:11.160 cars responding and and doing traffic the smart way, you'd 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.240 essentially have to have traffic cameras right right, Yeah, and 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.119 computers could be watching them and help you reroute to 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.680 make sure that you get there as fast as possible. Exactly. 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.159 So well, here's a question, though, I wonder that maybe 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:27.159 one difference between the idea of say, cameras in a 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.640 shop or on a street corner looking at the sidewalk 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.080 or a park versus traffic cameras at red lights. When 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.320 do you have the expectation of privacy and when should 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.919 you be able to feel like I shouldn't have to 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.320 expect somebody's watching me. Well, according to Cats Versus the 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:48.040 United States, as of nineteen sixty seven, people in public 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:52.200 areas cannot expect privacy since they are knowingly exposing themselves. 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:54.639 The same thing is true in the United Kingdom, where 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.600