privacy

Naming and shaming shoplifters with CCTV footage – legal?

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:20:30 +0200

In an attempt to crack down on shoplifters, a UK storeowner has begun posting CCTV images of suspected thieves on the company's website, along with the incentive of a 500 pound (€580) reward for those who successfully identify thieves. On Saturday, the scheme claimed its first victim. But is it legal?

Early last month directors at Home Bargains discount shopping chain, which operates 190 stores in the United Kingdom, gave instructions to their managers to begin sticking up posters in shop fronts, displaying CCTV images of suspected shoplifters. A few weeks later, an online version of the anti-theft campaign was launched. A page entitled "Crimebusters" was added to the company's website, and eight purported thieves were named and shamed. Just three weeks after the launch, and one of them, whose image has since been removed, was arrested at the weekend.

Home Bargains, which raked in £384m (€446m) in annual revenues last year, says that six million (€6.9m), or the equivalent of 1.5% of revenue, is lost to shoplifting. Operations director Joe Morris says that the new scheme is the store's only way of countering the problem. He assures that the police are aware of and cooperating with the work, and that your mugshot will only go up on the site if the company is "very confident" that you stole from them.

Facebook: the new Big Brother?

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:53:10 +0200

One of our readers has sent us a warning to Facebook users — a site which he says has far too much information about our private lives.

Sacha Dratwa is an Israel-based Belgian specialist on online social networking.

Facebook is basically an enormous avenue on which every user opens a shop with a window display on their private life. With all the information you upload onto the platform — photos, interests, occupation, hobbies, favourite books, films and music, marital status, political leanings, dress sense — you're handing over your electronic DNA to the network's managers, and all for free!

Facebook knows everything about each user. The obvious next step for the company is sell our profiles — which we ourselves have created — to companies more than willing to survey and analyse our habits in order to create more efficient — even personalised — advertising.

We no longer have a private life. We've reached a stage where our bosses can find out what we do at home, where our children can follow our adult relationships, our colleagues can spy on us and advertisers can find out exactly what makes us tick. We've lost our freedom and the ability to do the things we like without anybody's knowing about it. Through Facebook, we're unknowingly feeding companies which manipulate us by watching us.

As a Facebook user myself, I wonder if it really is a social network platform and not the world's biggest people database?

Watch yourself... Google's watching you

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:02:00 +0200

This scantily-dressed Londoner is the latest victim of unwanted fame that Google Street View can bring you as you go about your daily business. The image has reignited the debate over the legitimacy of Street View - a topic we looked at in December.

The image, taken at 108 Queensway, Paddington, England, United Kingdom, has already received 5982 diggs, provoking comments like "Google, always keeping abreast of new technology" and "Google Baps". Google Street View has not been well received in the UK, with concerns over privacy rights leading to various incidents (one Street View car was blocked from entering a village, another was attacked by local residents).

Our Observers looked at this subject a few months ago. Here's the post:

Beware of tripping over, sunbathing topless, cheating on your partner in public... - if there's a Google van passing by, the evidence will be forever set in a 360-degree photographic panorama and posted online for all to see.

Google's ever-increasing mapping applications are getting ever-increasingly closer to our personal lives. Suspicious minds won't need to bother with private detectives - they can simply log on to Google Maps and access the pedestrian-level view of the entire city - if they're lucky enough to live in Milan, Paris, or the majority of the US, New Zealand, Australia or Japan... Otherwise, not long to wait: Google Street View is soon to arrive in the UK and looks set to pan the entire world.

So far the application has been received warmly, and perceived as a meeting, directions and house hunting tool. There are even activities like scavenger hunts set up for those who find Street View more aesthetically-pleasing than real life. However, as the data collector travels further afield and more "Street View Tourists" find themselves online - not necessarily doing something they're proud of - Google has found itself under fire for privacy concerns. In Japan, a group of lawyers have set themselves up under the name "The Campaign Against Surveillance Society", just weeks after the application was rolled out there. And in the UK, there's already an anti Street View project going, before the programme has even been launched.

Facebook’s got rights to your photos - forever

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:09:47 +0100

Facebook has enraged users by subtly changing its terms of service. From now on, even if you close your account, the American company reserves the right to use any of the content you've uploaded. In other words, even if you decide to "deactivate account", Facebook could still, in theory, go ahead and splash your face across billboards around the world.

UPDATE (18 Feb.09 - 11am Paris time): following the public reaction Facebook has now returned to its original terms of service. The site's team has even set up a group where users can discuss the text.

Flickr user "cogdogblog" suggests using the Creative Commons License.

In response to the outcry Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had come up with a lengthy explanation on his blog. According to him, the alterations to the terms of service were put in place to protect Facebook from potential legal proceedings. He clarified that Facebook could not delete the content posted by users once they delete their account because it also belonged to the profile pages/ inboxes of their friends. He assured users that by placing trust in the company, they "wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want". But not everyone was reassured. According to various specialists, the change simply meant that Facebook held full rights over your stuff, forever.

The vending machine that fights crime

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:28:57 +0200

A new generation of vending machines is out in Japan. Fitted with a direct line to the police and CCTV, the flash machines don't just serve coke, but combat crime at the same time. Not such a good idea, according to one of our Observers in the country.

The Help Vending Machine, introduced on Friday, is the product of a collaboration between Coca-Cola and the Aichi district police. The first model was installed in a park in Toyohashi, a town 250km south of Nagoya, which decided to pilot the hybrid system after a relapse in vandalism since August. As soon as someone approaches the machine, the surveillance camera turns on and starts recording. The distributor is also equipped with a telephone, programmed to automatically call the emergency services number, 110. If someone gets into trouble, they only have to open a window on the front of the machine to call for help.

The police insisted that the device would dissuade potential offenders and push passers-by to condemn suspect activities. But soon after, the machine itself became a victim of vandalism. On October 12th, somebody ripped off the not-so-all-seeing camera and spray painted the message "surveillance society" onto the side of the distributor.

"Smile! You're on CCTV" - naked

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:54:04 +0200

A Chinese journalist managed to get access to a stream of images delivered by a surveillance camera located on the roof of a building. Although the camera was supposed to be keeping an eye on a set of crossroads, the journalist noticed that during the night, the policeman in charge was lingering on the windows of a building across the street.

It was a hack from the Southern Metropolis Daily who unveiled the scandal (which was then passed on by blogger NorthEastSouthWest). He had been scanning the real time broadcast of the monitoring camera in the town of Yayuan (southeast) since April 26. He started to notice that, once night had fallen, the devise did not merely fix its attention on the crossroads below, but scanned the building across the road at length. It also stopped, with no apparent reason, on windows where the curtains were open. The reporter published an extract (below) illustrating this strange method of observation, as the camera spent 59 minutes and 41 seconds "surveying" the same window frame, which happened to expose a young woman naked in her bathroom. Local authorities reacted to the affair by promising serious punishment for the person responsible. They also suggested the camera was being operated by a "temporary" staff member.

The incident serves as a reminder that security cameras operating inner-city - and not only those in China - are a serious cause for concern in terms of respect for private life.