Results tagged “privacy”

It’s a surreal experience—interviewing a guy about an online “lifecasting” experiment and unwittingly becoming a part of it. But if there’s one lesson we can take away from the hour we spent with Hal Niedzviecki and his surveillance equipment (in his home, no less), it’s this: we should probably get used to it. That is, we should—and you should—probably get used to being watched.

Several years ago, Steven May did what any heartbroken, web-savvy individual would do: he blogged. Why throw gravel at your ex-girlfriend's window, or leave groveling "Iloveyou" [sniffle] "Imissyou" [honk] "Canwepleasepleasepleasegetback— tooooo—" [voice crack] "—gether?" messages on her answering machine when you could just as easily get her attention by broadcasting your woes on the web? But May never really intended for his ex-girlfriend (and ex-girlfriend’s friends, and ex-girlfriend’s friends-of-friends) to see his post-breakup blog. Really—he just needed to get a few things off his chest. Although May’s reactions were "virtual," the ramifications of his online grievances were real; he received a phone call from his ex-girlfriend, asking him to stop blogging about their breakup. "She thought it was an invasion of her privacy," says May, "even though I never used her name, or posted her photo. But a friend of hers had directed her to something I’d written online, and she asked me to stop."

The TTC management and its workers' union have agreed that the TTC is not an essential service. However, they are saying this not because they are saying, "Yes, we are useless," but because they both want to avoid contract arbitration. However, since management wants to pay workers less than they would receive through contract arbitration, and the union wants workers to get more than they would receive through contract arbitration, one side or the other has really, really not thought this whole thing through.

Over in the U.K., closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are a ubiquitous sight: the country—led by London—has more of the tiny public surveillance cameras than any other country in Europe. They're now a part of pop culture and are referenced in songs, used as album artwork, and in the case of one intrepid band, used to make a music video.