USA Today has published an interesting article on the reality of pervasive digital cameras in our modern lives, including the privacy problems they are creating.<\/p>\n
From the article —<\/p>\n
Traffic cameras zoom in enough to capture your dangling cigarette. Crime cameras “see” in the dark. Satellite images show whether your car is in the driveway. Most Americans realize ubiquitous monitoring is the price of living in a high-tech world.<\/p>\n
These days, surveillance cameras aren’t just mounted on buildings and satellites, controlled by government and businesses. Now they’re carried by a nation obsessed with its own image.<\/p>\n
Kids snap cellphone pictures at parties and instantly put them on the Web; fans who nab photos of unsuspecting celebrities share them on celebrity-watch sites. The guy in the car next to you is leaning out of his window, taking a video that he later uploads to a video site where it could be seen by dozens or hundreds of people \u2014 maybe even millions.<\/p>\n
“Our computers are about to become unblinking paparazzi,” says Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif. “And we’re all going to feel a little bit like Brad and Angelina.”<\/p>\n
Thanks to the availability of cheap digital cameras and websites that simplify photo-sharing, Americans have a new favorite pastime: creating their own reality shows, featuring themselves \u2014 and anyone else they see along the way.<\/p>\n
While many, especially young people, think it’s all fun, privacy watchers are eyeing the new trend, trying to gauge just how it will affect us legally and shape us socially.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be a society where tons and tons of photographs and information about us are available online without our consent,” says Jason Schultz, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy and civil liberties advocacy group that focuses on computers and digital technology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n