This gets us to the central problem of today’s surveillance state. No one running the cameras wants to be observed. One reason that city officials object to releasing Flock data, for example, must that they themselves are among the recorded. The cameras are on them too; they too can be tracked. Everything means everything for these everywhere cameras.
Best option is to recommend people self host their camera feeds. People aren’t going to give cameras up, myself included, but keeping it all out of the ring/nest/netvue or any other cloud system is the way to go.
People can record in public, and that includes the area around their houses. Having 100s of thousands or millions of cameras sharing feeds with law enforcement for warrantless surveillance or corporate data hounds for more people tracking is the issue.
Yes. I would have no issue with all my neighbors having local systems like I’m switching to. But putting a cloud camera out on the sidewalk, where it’s not pointing at your entrance, but just filming passersby (my new neighbor)… eek. I am thinking of leaving him a note, just politely asking why he feels the need to record me walking my dog every day. At least put up a privacy notice we can all read and sign before crossing the public easement that people are totally allowed to walk. Let me know how me and my dog’s facial structures are going to be used to train mysterious backroom Planitir AIs. Like good neighbors do.
Don’t take it personally. You think your neighbor wants to record you and your dog specifically? I mean, it’s possible, but it’s likely they just want to be able to see who comes to their door, or have a general idea of what’s going on around their house. I have my locally hosted reolink doorbell set to trigger on zones if things enter my driveway or approach my door, because that’s what I care about. I get a bunch of crap with kids playing in the street running onto my property, people’s dogs straying off the sidewalk, and the occasional vehicle turning around. But I also figured out what kids were doing dong dashing, and have record of what deliveries were suplexed WWE style onto my doormat so I can more easily handle stuff damaged in shipping.
If you hear some crazy shit outside you probably get up and look out the window, don’t you? Well, a camera means you can go back and see what happened all the time. It’s a no brainer why people want them now that they’re cheap and accessible.
Most people don’t have any idea how bad cloud cameras are for overall society, and they’ll probably roll their eyes and think you’re crazy if you try to dive into that conversation with them out the gate.
They’re legally within their rights to do what they’re doing, so you can dislike it all you want but there’s not much you can do about it without some pretty diplomatic conversations. And a passive aggressive note left about them watching you and your dog isn’t going to help your case, at ALL. First you’ll have to become friends with them so they trust you, then find a way to educate them and change their minds.