Ethical and social issues of WearCam

William Gibson

On the "safety versus privacy'' argument

The ease with which wearable wireless video cameras allow one to roam about and share viewpoints with others raises many privacy issues [1], and it is important to look at these issues within the broader context of video privacy in general.

When I first joined the Media Lab, I expressed concern regarding the possible development of surveillance technologies, such as ubiquitous use of video cameras, face recognition and the like. My advisor, trying to relieve my concerns regarding a possible Big-Brother future, presented me with the argument of her advisor (Sandy Pentland) who was the director of the research on face recognition:

Cameras make the world a smaller place, kind of like a small town. You give up privacy in exchange for safety. In a small town, if you were suffering from a heart attack and collapsed on the floor of your kitchen, chances are better that someone would come to your rescue. Perhaps a neighbour would come over to borrow some sugar, and, since your door would be unlocked, would just come right in and see you had collapsed and come to your aid.

Although this analogy makes perfect logical sense, there was something that bothered me about it: On the safety versus privacy axis, the small town of the past and the Orwellian future I feared are very similar. However, if we look along a different dimension, characterized by symmetry, the small town and the Orwellian future are exact opposites. In a small town, the sheriff knows what everyone's up to, but everyone also knows what the sheriff is up to.

Phil Patton [23] discusses the surveillance dilemma, making reference to the ubiquitous ``ceiling domes of wine-dark opacity'', making mention that ``many department stores use hidden cameras behind one-way mirrors in fitting rooms'', and in general, that there is much more video surveillance than we might at first think. Sheraton's use of hidden cameras in employee changerooms [24] takes surveillance to new heights. The number of companies selling devices with hidden cameras inside (for example, smoke-detector cameras, fire sprinkler cameras, exit-sign cameras, etc) is growing rapidly.

With so much video surveillance in place, and growing at a tremendous rate, one wonders if privacy is a lost cause. If we are going to be under video surveillance, we may as well keep our own ``memory'' of the events around us, analogous to a contract in which both parties keep a signed copy. Falsification of video surveillance recordings is a point addressed in the movie Rising Sun, and in William Mitchell's book, The Reconfigured Eye [25]. However, if there is a chance that individuals might have their own account of what happened, organizations using surveillance would not even consider falsifying surveillance data. Even though it is easy to falsify images [25], when accounts of what happened differ, further investigation would be called for. Careful analysis (e.g. kinematic constraints on moving objects in the scene, the way shadows reflect in shiny surfaces, etc) of two or more differing accounts of what happened would likely uncover falsification that would otherwise remain unnoticed. The same technology that is used to demonstrate a person has removed an item from a department store without paying may be used by a person to demonstrate that he or she did, in fact, pay. One can only imagine what would have happened if the only video recording of the Rodney King beating were one that had been made by by police, using a police surveillance camera. Of course, most officials are honest, and would have no reason to be any more paranoid of the proposed virtual small-town than of the Orwellian world we might otherwise be heading towards.

With two sets of the apparatus, two people can swap viewpoints --- someone else would see through my eyes and me through the other person's eyes.

`Safety net'

Now suppose that instead of just two people, we have a community (network) of individuals wearing the apparatus. This could either be a homogeneous community (all wearing the same form of the apparatus) or a heterogeneous community wearing different variations of the apparatus.

: A network of individuals, three with WearCams --- author at left with original CRT-based WearCam, fourth and fifth (with cellular antenna which has been cut shorter to operate in an Amateur Radio band) from left wearing newer LCD-based WearCams recently built by author.

In some sense people might pay attention mostly to their immediate surroundings, but may, at times, get an image from someone who thinks there might be danger. This fear of danger might be triggered by a `maybe I'm in distress' button pressed by the wearer, or automatically (e.g. by a heart rate monitor and activity meter such as a pedometer, where the heart rate divided by the physical activity gives a `non--athletic--arousal' index). A community of individuals networked in this way would look out for each others' safety in the form of a `neighbourhood watch'. This `safety net' could be used for a `virtual safewalk': a participant, about to walk home or enter an underground parking garage late at night, sees `eye-to-eye' with one or more people (perhaps in a different time zone, say somewhere in the world where it is morning, so the virtual escort has fresh alert eyes).

Conclusions

With further research, the wearable, tetherless, computer-mediated reality apparatus (WearCam) will hopefully be of assistance to the visually handicapped, as well as those suffering from a memory disability. These two applications were presented in the form of a personal visual assistant (spatial visual filter) and a visual memory prosthetic (temporal visual filter). The former reconfigures vision through a completely mediated reality, while the latter reconfigures reality through a partially mediated reality.

Because WearCam is tetherless, it has been possible to wear the apparatus over an extended period of time, in day-to-day interactions. Getting it out of the lab and onto the street has raised some interesting privacy issues.

WearCam offers an alternative to Big--Brother type video surveillance. It suggests a future in which people, through prosthesis, might have both improved visual memory and improved ability to share it. But it also suggests a hope that the visual memory be distributed among us, and be less likely to be abused than if it exist in a centralized form, as is more common with a network of surveillance cameras, such as is commonly used on the streets in the UK. The proliferation of hidden cameras everywhere has the possibility to threaten our privacy, but suppose the only cameras were the prosthetic elements of other individuals. Then at least one would still have privacy when one was alone.

Applications of Wearable Computing

Every emerging discipline in computing is born first as a theoretical approach, almost a dream in the mind of the inventor. Some of such theories have clear practical ramifications, such as encryption algorithms. Others, on the other hand, take some time to evolve from the concepts on paper to something that can be applied in the real world. The transistor is the best example of this: legend has it that Bell Labs' engineers almost failed to register the patent on what turned out to be the concept that revolutionized computers.

Mediated/Augmented Reality is the ability of the computer to offer enhanced presentations of reality to the user. Face recognition programs utilizing Fourier analysis have long been around. Having them process everyone you encounter in your visual field, perhaps building a data-base, has strong importance in various day-to-day situations: enhancing your own personal safety or recognizing all of your clients being only some of the important aspects. Imagine bumping into someone you have only met once and immediately knowing not only their name, but having access to a whole database of information about them. Other applications of augmented reality lie in adding to your perceptual field. To aid in repairing a broken photocopier, an overlay of the internal structure of said photocopier can be put in the repair person's visual field and thus can help him/her in his/her work.

Visually challenged and/or impaired persons can benefit much from BlindVision. It is a personalized radar system that is integrated in a close-fitting vest and which is able to process objects in the vicinity of the wearer. Returned waves from the said objects are transformed by a wearable computer and sent over to the vest, which sends electric stimuli to the wearer. The exact position of a moving object with respect to the wearer is simulated, as well as the proximity: closer objects exhibit stronger "pressure" via stronger current, while objects further away accordingly output milder current. In a very real sense, one can experience what could be described as the sensory vision. BlindVision does not only apply to visually challenged persons: any cyclist, motorcyclist or professional who has to work on the open environment would appreciate this invention.

MEDIWEAR is closely related to BlindVision, but with an interesting twist: where BlindVision is involved with processing the outside stimuli and presenting them introspectively, MEDIWEAR does the opposite - clothes with embedded wearable computers closely monitor the wearer's body functions. The moment that any one of them becomes critical, the predefined medical unit is notified remotely. The paradigm of BlindVision is then inverted, as the transmitted signals are internal and they are relayed on to an external source.

Another application of wearable computers following the approach of MEDIWEAR is ENGwear, the acronym which stands for Electronic News Gathering Wearable system. As with MEDIWEAR, the introspective impressions of the wearer are forwarded to an external source. This application, however, introduces something that all previous ones lacked: the sense of community. Whereas the user is treated as the individual both in BlindVision and in MEDIWEAR, ENGwear implies the existence of a group to which the user might want to offer his or her sensory impressions. Just about anything that the wearer would see at a given moment could be shared. The usefulness of this paradigm of wearable computing is more than obvious.

Having listed only several applications that come to mind, one can easily see why you would have to answer positively to the questions posed at the beginning of this article. It is clear that wearable computing as a concept has survived its fragile infancy as a theoretical approach and furthermore, that the exciting era of applied research is at hand. The current rate of expansion in the field suggests that there will be many new inventions in the near future - and to stay updated, be certain to visit this site regularly.