Ah okay, then I understand it’s quite a contrast compared to the situation in Prague. My guess would be the cameras act as a deterrent, and may be used to alert if activity is detected near the fence. Community members (typically home and/or business owners) increasingly contribute to local surveillance initiatives as well; for neighborhoods a homeowner association (HOA) may lead its members to collaboratively surveil their neighborhood with privately owned cameras. This can also be seen in some shopping centers or industrial areas here in The Netherlands, while home surveillance is typically centered around monitoring front doors (including doorbell cameras) and driveways (typically mounted on garages).

Traffic cameras are increasingly used by police too, similar to footage from (cloud connected) consumer cameras, and cameras operated by businesses or public organizations. All these seemingly separate systems are becoming increasingly interconnected, and that to me is pure nightmare fuel: the ability to be tracked from the streets into buildings, and from stationary objects into moving vehicles (also being monitored in real-time). I live up north too, and although I do agree it isn’t immediately obvious, I have noticed an upward trend regarding camera surveillance (especially surrounding transportation infrastructure: traffic cameras, cameras at transit stations, cameras in and surrounding public transportation vehicles, etc.). The nice thing here in The Netherlands is that you can often stare back at them haha :)

That’d be great, I’m quite interested. :)

You may be fined €140 if they catch you placing a sticker outside of designated areas over here, and modern cameras are great at detecting objects being left behind (your sticker being left on scene after you leave); so yes, that seems like a reasonable concern (especially alongside political tensions). And considering you’re from the US, I assume traffic cameras are Flock ALPRs? But yeah, being privacy conscious is increasingly at the cost of being able to express, or even simply to be; and it’s sad it’s something to worry about.

Yeah, they might as well start wearing body-cams… oh wait, we have that, it’s called a “smart” pin; and police are also increasingly using smartphones to record and upload evidence; quirky, isn’t it? The difference is night and day, especially between analog and modern smartphones: always within reach, effectively without storage limitation, and uploaded within a moment’s notice (boldly assuming the device’s OS, or apps with media access don’t analyze device contents, without the user’s explicit consent).

There’s technically no reason to be selective with moments being captured, and as a result nearly any moment classifies. Often without realizing a recording is a memory cue at best, and poorly captures the emotion you felt in the moment; or rather didn’t, as you were too preoccupied viewing it through a lens. I simply can’t wait until spy… I mean “smart” glasses become mainstream; and people literally experience most of their lives through a lens.

It sometimes surprises me how easily people adopted the concept, of maintaining an aptly named “profile” on one’s self, and are continuing to refine the profile, over a span of decades at this point; and seemingly have no issues with this profile, directly relating to them as a person. I’m sure most algorithms or AI “assistants”, know their users better than they know themselves, and is actively being exploited for advertising, political campaigning, and trapping users in echo chambers; it’s really no wonder society is as polarized: it seems to be by design.

Interesting, in what country is this? And is it in specific areas (like retail for example), or implemented more broadly?

Same over here, with local chains increasingly forced to shut their doors (primarily as a result of the COVID pandemic, and the various developments ever since). And I completely agree, for most people it’s physically an unnoticeable change, but the change from: local, short-term, manual systems, to digitally transferable, long term, and automated ones, makes all the difference.

I’m quite confident most large chains were somewhat forced to have modern, GDPR-compliant systems in place (like Genetec for instance): undoubtedly allowing for integration of such analytics tools. And apart from that, they’ve had trackers in their carts (hidden in the locking-chain, or wheel-break assemblies) for as long as I can remember, and likely track user-location through app-use, or dedicated scanners too (for scanning products before you place them inside your cart); so I’m quite positive they utilize surveillance systems for that too.

Oh, did you want to opt out? Sure! You can. All you got to do is stop eating food!

I would just love to see those, that claim to be human, which are knowingly in support of these systems, try to justify the ethical ramifications in that statement alone. Which is “just” restricted to grocery shopping for now, but if the current trend continues, you’ll effectively become a prisoner to your own home. And quite rapidly so, if Europol’s ambitions to protect citizens from hypothetical adversary (kamikaze) drones, by use of drone swarms, atmospheric satellites and microphone meshes, becomes reality.

It’s an insane timeline we’re living in, and it’s so easy to give up all faith; but perhaps that is exactly what they want us to do. For us to feel powerless, and believing we are incapable of making a relevant change. I share the same ambitions as you, and I believe most human beings do naturally; but it’s becoming increasingly difficult when you have principles to stick by. I’ve already experienced this by transitioning away from big-tech platforms, and I would absolutely hate this translating into the physical world.

Surveillance surrounding car infrastructure is the most notable currently, but every larger public transportation hub has cameras all over too, together with on-board cameras in pubic transit vehicles, which are monitored in real time (despite moving around constantly). Perhaps you could give me a generalized description of your whereabouts and your activity, so I have a little bit more context on your surroundings. And yes, like I mentioned, it’s technically not allowed to have private cameras facing the public space, but without enforcement, you might as well not have it (or actually incentivizes people to hide them).

I’m quite interested in your experience in Prague, and would love to hear more about it. From your description it seems cameras in Prague are very apparent, which I consider to be a good thing. Whereas in The Netherlands surveillance systems are often installed to be unobtrusive; including those installed by authorities or businesses (which are typically recording the store’s entrance; and as a “by-product” the public space; and dome-style cameras are increasingly placed in public retail areas too: mounted (typically in groups) on poles, or to exterior of buildings).