Associated Press Via: http://news.findlaw.com Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004
Group Posts Surveillance Camera Locations http://news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/ap/ht/1700/10-13-2004/20041013154502_063.html By MARK JEWELL AP Business Writer CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The surveillance cameras that keep watch over our daily activities are being watched. An advocacy group has teamed up with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher to give pedestrians an online map of camera locations in Manhattan.
Tad Hirsch, a research assistant at MIT's Media Lab, has adapted a desktop version of the iSee Project for use in handheld devices using Java programming language. Walkers can roam Manhattan armed with information that will allow them to steer clear of cameras if they wish - though escaping the cameras' unblinking gaze may not be easy. Privacy advocates have added hundreds of cameras to the Manhattan map using a Web-based interface, www.appliedautonomy.com/isee, developed by the Institute of Applied Autonomy, an activist organization concerned about surveillance. The group hopes to spur debate, particularly about networked cameras that stream video to monitoring companies in centralized locations, said one institute member, who goes by the pseudonym John Henry. "The ability of law enforcement and others to access the data from those cameras is still something of a gray area," Henry said. "There are legal and policy questions to be raised around this technology. At present, that really hasn't happened." The institute also has created surveillance camera maps for Amsterdam, Netherlands and Ljubljana, Slovenia, with eventual plans to add [...] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~