Sousveillance on Surveillance

Watching Amy Winehouse lash out at Glastonbury this year (YouTube brings out the worst in me), I was surprised by the number of cameraphones the star had thrust in her face by the front row of the Pyramid Stage crowd. When your fans start treating you as badly as the paparazzi do, is it any wonder you crack?

This column has written a lot about surveillance, but in a world of cheap, portable technology, there is also sousveillance.

Sousveillance, or "watching from underneath", counters the unblinking eye in the sky with millions of tiny blinking ones belonging to each one of us. In the surveillance society, or so the theory goes, sousveillance is the tool of the surveilled, keeping a watchful eye on the watchers.

The term was coined by Steve Mann, a Canadian computer science professor whom the Globe and Mail called "the world's first cyborg", thanks to his penchant for using wearable web cameras to record and broadcast his every move. That was back in the Nineties - it took the invention of the cameraphone for the rest of us to catch up. This month, I watched a video uploaded by someone who had been subject to a random stop-and-search at Waterloo Station under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act and who captured the incident on his cameraphone (watch it at http://qik.com/ video/203590). One man's experience of a chillingly routine exercise in security is as powerful as any parliamentary debate in bringing home the realities of an encroaching police state.

Apple Computers Interested in Surveillance?

You've probably heard plenty about video and access control companies working with Microsoft technology for their platforms. In the last year, a number of companies have promoted the fact that they are designed to interface to Microsoft's .NET platform, including HID, Lenel, Brivo and many other networked technology and security software companies.

Now, if a panel session at this upcoming ASIS show is any indication, Apple Computers may be following suit and interested in the security industry.

Video surveillance company videoNEXT announced this week that it is co-hosting a panel with Apple at the ASIS show. The panel features Garret Rice, senior manager of enterprise solutions for Apple as moderator, plus panelists Chris Gettings, founder and chairman of videoNEXT; John Honovich, founder of ipvideomarket.info; Steve Hunt of Hunt Business Intelligence; Peter Michael, principle engineer for surveillance and security at SAIC; and Fredrik Nilsoon, general manager of Axis in the Americas.

Man charged with stealing campaign signs

Police made an arrest in connection with stolen lawn signs for a Congressional candidate.
Four lawn signs touting Steck for Congress were taken from the lawn of a Loudonville home.
45-year-old Griffith Lewis turned himself in and is charged with petit larceny.
Candidate Phil Steck went to unusual steps to find out why his signs were disappearing.
"It was very costly to the campaign and a major distraction to have to hire a private investigator and we did do that," said Steck.
Steck's campaign then shared that information with Colonie Police.

Smile! Candid Cameras on the Rise

They're easy to hide, cheap to buy, and simple to use. Evolving technology makes them more useful than ever. They can ease personnel costs, reassure parents who employ baby-sitters and boost security.

Is it any wonder surveillance cameras are tucked away seemingly everywhere?

Recent arrests -- of a photographer accused of videotaping a mother and children changing their clothes, and an airport employee charged with hiding a camera in the women's bathroom -- highlight just how common these devices have become. And just this week, three Nassau women are among five former employees of a Manhasset cardiologist who charged in a suit that he secretly took pictures of them with the video camera.

The decreasing cost of surveillance -- a video system can be installed for under $1,000, and cameras can cost as little $200 -- as well as the simplicity of connecting them to the Internet have driven the cameras' popularity, experts said. An industry group estimates that $3.2 billion was spent on surveillance devices in 2007 -- not including home security. That was a 35 percent increase from 2006 alone.

Surveillance Video Before Lawnmower Theft Examined

Police Say Man Acted Suspiciously Hours Before Theft

Manchester police are looking for a man seen on a surveillance video hours before a $3,000 riding lawnmower was stolen.
Police said the lawnmower was taken from the Sears at the Mall of New Hampshire on Friday morning. Surveillance cameras didn't capture the theft, but they did show a man acting suspiciously the evening before, police said.
"He's in the store at 6:15 on the 14th, and like I said, the crime takes place between 4:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. on the 15th." Detective Robert Keating said.
Police said the man shown on the tape had bolt cutters in his pocket and, after taking a look around the store, went to the tool aisle and began sharpening them with a file hanging on the wall.
"It's definitely not normal surveillance, but people do some weird things these days," Keating said.
The surveillance video shows that the man stops filing as another man walks by before continuing. Later, the same man is seen looking at the riding lawnmowers outside. He then walks to a U-Haul van parked in the lot where another person is standing.
"There's a second subject he appears to have a quick conversation with and then leaves the area," Keating said.
Given the type of cable used to tie up the lawnmowers, Keating said a tool like bolt cutters would be needed to steal one.
Police said they hope someone might recognize the man after seeing the video, although they said he hasn't been positively linked to the stolen lawnmower.
Keating said whoever took the orange-colored Husqvarna may be planning to sell it. He said thieves sometimes approach landscapers and offer to sell them the equipment at a discounted rate.
Police said there have been similar crimes in stores in Massachusetts, and they are working with authorities there to see if there is a connection.

How Google put Bill's grief on show

Losing his best friend in a freak boating accident was bad enough.
But Google's Street View has made a bad situation worse for Bill, from Victoria.

Bill - not his real name - had been drowning his sorrows over the weekend after the Friday funeral of his friend and felt worse for wear when a taxi dropped him off at his mother's home early on Monday February 4.

Feeling ill, he lay on the grass, and fell asleep.

The next thing he knew was being woken up by police in the morning.

He wasn't aware that Google's camera-equipped car had driven by earlier and snapped his picture.

Last week when Google launched its Street View tool for Google Maps, that picture was on display for anyone with an internet connection to see. It has since been taken down after it was flagged by users.

Surveillance Improves Teen's Driving Skills

In an age when cameras are everywhere, a national insurance company is using the technology to help make better drivers and to provide parents of teenagers with some peace of mind.

The Teen Safe Driver program, an exclusive program American Family Insurance provides its clients, utilizes an in-car camera to record the behavior of teenage drivers behind the wheel.

Hilliard resident Dennis Williamson said it has vastly improved the driving skills of his daughter, Ameila, the senior class president at Hilliard Darby High School.

"It was a condition we had in order to let her drive again," said Williamson, whose daughter was involved in a single-car accident in the construction zone near Hilliard Crossing Elementary School soon after obtaining her license.