A camera behind every window?

If you live in New York and have a nice view on a passing street, you might be interested in the offer made by the startup, Placemeter. The new company pays you to monitor the movements in the street. To do that, you simply put an old smartphone behind your window and run the Placemeter app, as explained on the website from which the picture below is extracted (http://placemeter.com/).

The goal for the startup is to record movements in the street in order to give a better insight in the use of public space. Eventually it will allow stores and urban planners to improve their strategy and to have livelier public spaces. It is a great motive, isn’t it? And as so many people pointed it out: if the app only records the shapes and moves and therefore protects the privacy of people in the street, why would there be a problem?

Well, this reaction bugged me a little, because, speaking of myself, I immediately had two strong reactions. I do claim there is a problem.

Let’s admit that the app does respect completely the privacy of people in the street. In my view, it is clearly not enough. With Placemeter, a smartphone behind a window and recording all day will become something completely banal. If a pedestrian frets and shows a window claiming: “Wait, I think I am being filmed”, he will be explained that he does not have to worry because it is a harmless public space enhancement device. Yet nobody knows that for sure, it is just an assumption. I know people will say that we are already being filmed by tons of cameras in the street. You may be ok with that but the difference is that in most cases they are public authority cameras or, if not, are in the private space.

The other problem is that you are getting paid for monitoring the street. There are more and more talks about paying to get data and this is a good example of this textbook debate. You may completely overlook privacy matters because you want the cash. In this case, if you are lucky (and rich enough) to have a nice view on a street, you will have an opportunity for additional income. If you are unlucky (or more accurately, not rich enough), you don’t have such an amazing view, and you can just ponder about rich people getting richer. There is nothing new in the fact that money attracts money, but it is slightly annoying that this becomes an automatic trend in the beautiful world of smart cities.

 

All that being said, I will let you judge by yourself and look at the website. So far, Placemeter is only located in New York. You might wonder if you want it to come to your city?