EyeBorg is Watching (and so is the government…)

Filmmaker Rob Spence is missing an eye so he is in the process of making a fake eye with a tiny video projector installed within it, allowing him, eventually, to record everything he “sees.”

In addition to helping make important strides in the research and development of possible prosthetics for the blind, Spence is hoping to turn his eventual videos into a study on privacy and surveillance.

I was listening to a story about Spence on BBC World Service this morning and the commentators were saying they would hide if they saw Spence coming their way if they knew he was an “EyeBorg.”  Of course, what is so silly about hiding from an eyeborg is that we are being recorded by, depending on where you live and what you do, many cameras every day.  Take money from an ATM (or just walk past one slowly) and you’ve been taped.  Go in or out of almost any major retail store, you’ve been taped.

The notion that it is somehow more invasive for a private citizen to have the same recording capabilities as the government and businesses is kind of “head in the sand” thinking.

It’s interesting how many people reactly with a strong negative response if you take pictures of them in public.  It might not be against the law but people feel violated nonetheless.  Yet, nobody seems to be upset when they get money from the ATM.

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