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Cameras can help provide safety to people. The most popular ways in which cameras are currently used for safety today, are, to record people who break the law in order to discourage them from breaking the law, to stop people at the time that they are breaking the law if the video is being monitored in realtime, or to identify people who have broken the law so that they may be caught later.
In this essay, I propose a completely different way of using cameras, the aim of which is not to attack others who have broken the law, but to protect yourself from the harm of others, and from the harm of law.
Not too far in the future, I see myself owning dozens or millions of little cameras. Each one is hovering around me, and following me wherever I go. They record every one of my actions, as well as the actions of anybody within range. The cameras send all the visual data in realtime through a wireless encrypted channel to several different servers. The servers in turn spread the data by making it available to others through websites and p2p software. On my servers I will also be running harm detection software that detects any harm being committed on me. If any harm is detected, the information and video is immediately made available to several other people I know and trust, and they are alerted to the fact that one of their friends is currently being harmed.
The safety system has at least 2 main modes: safety, and privacy. When I set it to safety mode, the cameras record everything. When I set it to privacy mode, they don't record anything.
There will be many defense organizations, and I could hire a subset of them to help defend me. They will provide their own harm detection software, which defines what kind of harm they can protect me from. The video feed will run through their software, and anytime their software detects harm, they will send people to my aid. This harm protection system is completely opt-in. I choose which organizations I want to protect me based on their qualifications and my needs. There is no universal authoritative police system forced on me by a government.
If anybody punches me in the face, I will get a recording of the act from many different angles. Destroying the cameras after the act is pointless, since all the data has already been sent to servers and people all around the world. Destroying the primary servers is also pointless, since the servers already forwarded copies of the data to other places. Trying to destroy the cameras before the act is even executed will be quite hard since if you don't destroy them all at the exact same time, some of them will record you in the act of destroying the other cameras, and this will alert my friends that I am in danger of losing my safety. Trying to destory the servers before the act will also be hard, since the servers will be spread around the world, and unless you destroy all the servers at the same time, some of the servers will realize that some of the other servers have been compromised and alert me to the fact that I am in danger of losing my safety.
I call this system: "Safety by Visibility", or SxV for short.
Keep your cameras on 24 hours a day, and never turn them off. You will have a recording of every single thing you do. If anybody ever accuses you of doing something bad, or anybody suspects you did something bad, you will have proof that you did not do it. Therefore, you will always have proof that you are innocent.
Today, there are hundreds of people who are incarcerated for crimes they never committed, or attacked by people who believe they did something bad. This system makes it possible for everybody to know that you are innocent. With SxV, you will always have proof that you are innocent, and the proof will be available to everybody who cares.
Besides recording audio and video, a lot of other kinds of data may be recorded. Location may be recorded with systems similar to today's GPS. Heartrate and other vital statistics may also be recorded, with software that can alert medical doctors if any danger is detected. All this and more can be used to increase the amount of safety that SxV provides.
Here is the summary of the three main benefits of SxV.
If anybody attacks you, friends will be alerted immediately.
If your health is in danger, doctors will be alerted immediately.
You will always have proof that you are innocent.
Every living being has the right to defend themselves using SxV, all the time. Nobody can ever force another to turn off their SxV system.
Being able to call for help is a right, not something you need permission for. Being able to prove that you are innocent is a right, not something that you need permission for.
Anybody who denies people of their right to SxV is a criminal.
There is the possibility of people faking videos and showing those to others. This is made very difficult in this system due to the fact that the event is recorded from many different angles, and not only from your own cameras, but from cameras of passers-by. Besides video, other kinds of data such as 3d body scans can help make forgeries almost impossible.
Anybody that you wish to have full trust in you can supply you with their own cameras in addition to your own. If they don't trust your cameras, they can still trust their own that you have decided to use.
When there are enough cameras overlapping, a fake video needs to be done in accordance with what every camera in the network sees. For example, if somebody wants to create a fake video of a baseball hitting him in the face, then there are some cameras that may need to show the trajectory of the ball before it appeared into the first camera's view. If there are enough overlapping cameras, you should be able to trace the the baseball all the way back to the factory in which the ball was made. If the density of cameras is large enough, there can be a very large global network of self-consistent videos that exists for everything that happens. So in order to create fake video, every single camera in this global network needs to have its footage altered.
With enough cameras, fake videos, can be made into a complete impossibity.
It is important to note that SxV is a system that people put on themselves on their own volition. They choose which cameras to keep, and they always have the ability to switch to privacy mode so that if they are shy, they may masturbate without others seeing them. They also have the ability to switch to privacy mode in order to protect themselves from those who are violently prejudiced against certain things.
People cannot bring or place cameras inside your own private space without your consent. They cannot violate your right to privacy. You always have a right to be able to do things privately in your own home without any recording of the act being made.
Notice that the unability to bring your own camera into somebody else's private space doesn't violate your right to SxV, because you can never be forced to enter somebody else's private space. If somebody forced you into a particular area or room, that area ceases to be anybody's private space, and you have a right to keep SxV on to defend yourself.
Even if nobody can force a camera on you in your private space, if you decide to go out and hang out with others, you will surely be in view of other people's cameras. Just as you cannot stop others from looking at you and remembering what you did, you cannot forcibly stop others from recording you if you happen to be in a public place. A person's set of cameras hovering around him should be regarded as an extension of that person's eyes and memory.
Monitoring their children is the kind of thing parents would love to do to keep their children safe, and that's great. Unfortunately, that's not the only reason many parents would love to monitor their children. Many parents desire to monitor their children without their children's consent, in order to better keep them under control. Just as nobody can force a camera on you within your own private space, a parent cannot do that to their child. SxV is not to be forced onto children.
There is a lot of discrimination in the world against video. As an example, even though it is perfectly legal in many countries for two 17 year olds to have sexual intercourse, it is illegal in almost every country for these two people to record themselves having sexual intercourse. The only difference between the legal and illegal act is whether or not the act is recorded on video. This is an example of discrimination against video, in addition to also being discrimination against sex and youth. Due to this discrimination, anybody who is 17 years old or younger cannot use SxV for maximum safety, because they will be forced to switch their cameras off during sexual intercourse or masturbation or any other hot sexual act. They are therefore prevented from having the 24 hour alibi to prove that they are innocent. They are also prevented from having safety while they are in the process of masturbating because all the cameras are off, and somebody may attack at that moment, and their friends will not be alerted to the harm in progress. A bad person may also take advantage of this by falsely proposing to have sex just to convince the other party to turn off their camera.
Threats of incarceration due to video recording and ethical acts need to be eliminated before anybody can successfully use SxV for maximum safety.
If you are arrested, you are not only incarcerated, but denied of at least most communication to the outside world. This is a huge violation of your rights. Furthermore, when the police are hurting and attacking you in their police station, they do so with impunity, because you have no way to notify others about what is happening. It is important that you never ever turn off your SxV cameras. Especially if you are arrested by the police and taken into detention.
Police officers often threaten people to turn off their cameras in public. If people refuse to turn off their cameras, the police often destroy the camera, and arrest the people. It is important that people never turn off their SxV cameras.
Every so often, some pictures are released into the public taken within prisons showing law enforcement abusing prisoners in ways that you never see outside of the prisons. Prisoners often get tortured and murdered in prisons by law enforcement officials. This is one of the results of complete denial of communication to the outside world, and complete denial of video recording by the prisoners. When the prisoners cannot call for help, or record the activity, police often take advantage of the situation to do what they enjoy doing most: harming others.
Besides prisons, courts of law also deny any kind of SxV system within their walls, even though they take people in there by force. Being kidnapped and taken to a room by force means that you have a right to keep SxV on for your safety. Courts are not private property, where a judge sits alone in the room masturbating. What he does under that robe is done with his full knowledge that he's in a public space in front of other people and in the presence of a kidnapped victim.
I already explained above, that anybody who denies people of their right to SxV, is a criminal. Therefore, police officers are criminals.
The goal of government is to govern and control the population. Using cameras to surveil the population clearly helps governments in that goal. That is why governments are all drooling with the desire to put cameras everywhere, not only in the streets, but also in people homes.
A population that accepts government is easier to control than one that rejects it. That is why government will try to make people accept their cameras by offering to use some of those cameras to help people being attacked. People need to be aware that even though government cameras are sometimes used to help them, most of the time, the cameras are used to control people, not to help them. Governing and controlling the population is the main goal of government, not helping people.
By now, it should be clear to all readers how completely different SxV is from the big brother system of cameras being developed by governments. When governments place cameras in public spaces, they do so to increase the amount of control they have on innocent people. When people place cameras around their bodies, they do so to be safe.
My system is called Safety by Visiblity, not Control by Surveillance.
I hope for a future in which everybody can protect themselves with SxV. It means anytime anybody is attacked, friends will be notified to help. It means anytime good people are accused of something bad, they will have proof that they are innocent. It means everytime the police attack innocent people, everybody will know. The amount of harm in such a future will be incredibly small compared to the amount of harm in today's world. This is what SxV can make possible. So let's work together on developing SxV and defending our right to SxV. I see a future when SxV is in everybody's hands. A future so good is within reach.
Safety by Visibility, by The Humanoid