Counterveillance

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Discussion

David Bollier, citing Steve Mann:

"Steve Mann suggests that people may want to start using new “counterveillance” technologies to detect and neutralize surveillance cameras. They could be worn on clothing as “spite fashion” or “spitewear,” if only as a social commentary. The point, he argues, is that we should all have “the right to sensory integrity.” Everyone should have “a basic right to the data generated by their own senses.” He adds that people ought to have at least the same level of protection of their own person, as does a department store of its merchandise.”

To formally legalize this right, Mann and a colleague, Wassell, actually drafted a proposed law for the “policy, practice and enforcement of personal sousveillance.” Among the rights that the law would protect: the right of people to “capture video recording of their personal space for self protection and accurate records in any public place (including restaurants); even establishments that ban such practice.”

Mann suggests that the use of veillance technologies ought to follow the norms of contract law. If one party is using a veillance technology, then another party ought to be entitled to use their own counterveillance technology to record an interaction – just as any contract requires two informed, consenting parties. If the surveillance party prohibits or discourages people from sousveillance – which amounts to a copy of the “veillance contract” – then a court of law should regard the surveillance recordings as inadmissible evidence in any future proceeding – just as a contract produced by one party, without a countersigned copy, would be inadmissible." (http://bollier.org/blog/sousveillance-response-surveillance)


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