Not only will authorities and shops be watching us and recording our comings and goings (surveillance as we know it today), but we will also be watching and recording them (sousveillance) through small wearable computers like Digital Eye Glass. This affects secrecy, not just privacy. As one of the early inventors and developers of wearable computing and reality augmenting and mediating, I was asked by TIME Tech to write about the history and future predictions of these technologies.
Through the Glass
Society has entered the era of augmented and augmediated reality. Most of us use smartphones, which are, in some sense, wearable computers. Many smartphone apps overlay information onto the real world and this is a good example of augmented reality. Augmediated reality serves to both augment and mediate our surroundingsSoon, the smartphone will become eyeglass-based so that these overlays can augment and mediate our everyday lives. Companies like Google and Apple will soon be bringing out products for wearable computing in everyday life. The intended purpose of these products is the hands-free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users. The small screen on the glass flashes information right on cue which, for instance, allows the eye glass wearer to get directions in the city, find a book in a store and even videoconference with a friend. (...)
Opposition from Authorities and Shops
Society has entered the era of augmented and augmediated reality. Most of us use smartphones, which are, in some sense, wearable computers. Many smartphone apps overlay information onto the real world and this is a good example of augmented reality. Augmediated reality serves to both augment and mediate our surroundingsSoon, the smartphone will become eyeglass-based so that these overlays can augment and mediate our everyday lives. Companies like Google and Apple will soon be bringing out products for wearable computing in everyday life. The intended purpose of these products is the hands-free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users. The small screen on the glass flashes information right on cue which, for instance, allows the eye glass wearer to get directions in the city, find a book in a store and even videoconference with a friend. (...)
Opposition from Authorities and Shops
In my high school days, the opposition to my technology was mostly due to peer pressure — simply to its overall strangeness in being ahead of its time. But now that this peer pressure is in fact reversed (individual people want this now), a new kind of opposition is emerging. This opposition comes not from peers, but from authorities and shops. The very authorities that are installing surveillance cameras on buildings and light posts are afraid of cameras being installed on people. For example, I was wearing my Digital Eye Glass while eating at McDonald’s and was suddenly physically assaulted by McDonald’s employees. See “Physical assault by McDonald’s for wearing Digital Eye Glass.” They claimed they were enforcing (as vigilantes perhaps), a privacy law that does not even exist. See their side of the story in “Computerized seeing aids forbidden in McDonald’s.”
Although not a recording device, in the presence of such an attack, damage to the device causes it to retain temporarily stored data that would have otherwise been overwritten. In this sense the perpetrators of the attack have made what would otherwise not have been a recording device into one.
Ironically, the very establishments that oppose wearable cameras are usually the places where lots of surveillance is used. Thus I coined the new word “McVeillance” to denote a highly mass-produced (“McDonaldized”) form of veillance, in the same way that a “McMansion” is a mass-produced mansion. McVeillance also implies a prohibition on individual veillance; for example, a prohibition on what we call “sousveillance”. The term “sousveillance” stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning “above”, and sous, meaning “below”. So “surveillance” denotes the “eye-in-the-sky” watching from above, whereas “sousveillance” denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities, large entities or architectures doing the watching).
Thus, McVeillance, for example, is the installation of a large number of security cameras in a restaurant while at the same time physically assaulting guests for using their own camera to photograph the menu.
Although not a recording device, in the presence of such an attack, damage to the device causes it to retain temporarily stored data that would have otherwise been overwritten. In this sense the perpetrators of the attack have made what would otherwise not have been a recording device into one.
Ironically, the very establishments that oppose wearable cameras are usually the places where lots of surveillance is used. Thus I coined the new word “McVeillance” to denote a highly mass-produced (“McDonaldized”) form of veillance, in the same way that a “McMansion” is a mass-produced mansion. McVeillance also implies a prohibition on individual veillance; for example, a prohibition on what we call “sousveillance”. The term “sousveillance” stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning “above”, and sous, meaning “below”. So “surveillance” denotes the “eye-in-the-sky” watching from above, whereas “sousveillance” denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities, large entities or architectures doing the watching).
Thus, McVeillance, for example, is the installation of a large number of security cameras in a restaurant while at the same time physically assaulting guests for using their own camera to photograph the menu.
by Steve Mann, Time Tech | Read more:
Photo: Steve Mann
