Surveillance Camera Video Finding Its Way To YouTube

from the you-have-no-privacy-anywhere dept

While governments like to talk about how security and surveillance camera footage is in safe hands with the government, it probably won’t surprise many of you to find out that’s simply not the case at all. Officials in New Jersey are apparently increasingly annoyed to find highway surveillance video of highway accidents consistently finding its way to YouTube. They’re trying to crack down on the practice, but that seems unlikely to be particularly effective. This seems like a good time to second the call for some recognition of “Harper’s Law”: “The security and privacy risks increase proportionally to the square of the number of users of the data.” Remember that the next time the government wants to set up some large database and insists your data will be kept private. Update: And now, New Jersey is suing YouTube over the videos. Nice work there. The state is unable to keep the videos private — and rather than punish themselves, they sue YouTube.


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Comments on “Surveillance Camera Video Finding Its Way To YouTube”

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15 Comments
Ajax 4Hire (profile) says:

Sunshine laws, there is a reason they are called

Sunshine laws.
You cannot hid you activity under a rock for long.
If it is the government, then it is you.

You cannot sue the government because ‘it’ says that you would be suing yourself. This also means that the government cannot sue the people because that is the people simply suing itself.

Government cannot keep secret just because it might embarass someone.
Sunshine laws.

Avatar28 says:

aren't government created videos public domain?

Like with the lawsuit over the copied C-span videos. The lawsuit had no legs because the video was shot by the government and therefore is automatically public domain. Would the same rule not apply to the traffic camera videos? In any case, sounds like NJ is about to get a good explanation of the Streisand Effect.

Hagbard Celine (user link) says:

Best of Mall Cop videos?

Hey, ix-nay on the cop-car videos. I want to see Mall Cop “Best of” compliations! THink about all the teenage tarts that the average suburban mall contains. Think about all the surveillance cameras. THink about bored, minimum-wage mall cops. Do you think that a huge quantity of micro-mini-skirt, nipple-popper and cleavage videos don’t exist? Do these show up on You-Tube?

Coises (profile) says:

public + public + public + public = state secret?

A public entity uses public funds to set up a camera to record occurences in a public place — presumably without a warrant, since there would be no specifics known in advance, and therefore presumably doing nothing that would not be permissible for any ordinary member of the public. Can someone explain to me why the resulting video wouldn’t be public property anyway? If I do something embarassing in the middle of Main Street, since when do I have a complaint if someone publishes a picture of it? Peeking in my window is one thing, but if I make an ass of myself in front of your face, isn’t that my problem?

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