A new trend has emerged where people are taking selfies with surveillance cameras, including doorbell cameras and security cameras. This trend has raised concerns about privacy and security, as these cameras are often controlled by private companies and can be used to collect data on individuals.
Privacy Concerns
Privacy advocates are worried that these surveillance selfies are helping to normalize the idea of being constantly watched by cameras. They argue that this could lead to a loss of privacy and an increase in surveillance by private companies and the government.
Some individuals, such as Ruby Lin, a designer and art director in New York, have used their doorbell cameras to take selfies as a way to subvert the all-seeing state. However, others, such as Judith Donath, an artist and computer scientist, are concerned that this trend is indicative of people only engaging with the half of their technology that is immediately appealing and apparent.
Donath compared the trend to the controversy surrounding Ring’s Super Bowl advertisement, which used a family looking for a lost pet to show off how interlinked Ring’s camera networks are. The ad triggered an uproar, with Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts writing in an open letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy that “Amazon inadvertently revealed the serious privacy and civil liberties risks attendant to these types of Artificial Intelligence–enabled image recognition technologies.”
Surveillance State
The use of surveillance cameras and the trend of taking selfies with them has raised concerns about the surveillance state. The fact that these cameras are often controlled by private companies and can be used to collect data on individuals has sparked worries about the potential for abuse.
Liv Darcey, a London-based content creator, posted a video on TikTok that featured footage taken from her own doorbell camera. She said that people might be reading into the trend too much and that it’s more about playing with frames and angles that feel less curated.
However, others, such as Julia Scher, a pioneering artist, see the emergent surveillance aesthetic as something layered and self-referential. She said that it’s not only accepting of ‘constantly being watched,’ but it’s also announcing that they are not being victims of the surveillance state.
Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
