Wednesday, January 09, 2008

YOU'RE BEING WATCHED

Adam Rifkin recently released LOOK, a film about the fact that the average American is photographed about 200 times per day. According to Rifkin there are 30 million surveillance cameras capturing 4 billion hours of footage per week in the US in department stores, parking lots, shopping malls, hotel lobbies, public bathrooms, gas stations, and on the roads. That's pretty scary. The idea came to him when he received a traffic ticket that included a photo of him realizing his stupidity of driving through a red light while singing to the radio. He was caught on tape. "The idea that a photograph could be taken of me without my knowledge and then sent to my home address freaked me out a little bit. I started to think, "What other cameras are out there, taking shots of me that I'm not aware of?" There seem to be mixed reviews about the film, but it's worth the consideration just in order to think critically about the "privacy" implications of being watched 24/7, especially when we forget the cameras are out there or don't even realize it.



The film appears to use only surveillance camera footage, but is actually shot using actors and scripted scenes. Probably worth a Look.

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