Sousveillance: “someone reinvents something and might encourage people to use it…maybe” shock

WRITTEN ON June 3rd, 2007 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

You’d think sousveillance was about to be mandated across Europe to read this piece.

Public urged to record crime with cameraphones Andrew Charlesworth, vnunet.com 01 Jun 2007

Europeans will soon be encouraged to use cameraphones to photograph and video criminal activity to send directly to a national police database.

What kind of news story hangs on the phrase “Will be encouraged”? Perhaps “world governments will be encouraged to stop their wars on terror and on drugs when I can be bothered to get off my backside”? VNU were always screaming-headline merchants.

What the story seems to say is that some consultant called Siete Hamminga at a Dutch company called Waleli has told someone called Andrew Charlesworth at another Dutch company called VNU it has

developed MMS-witness, a system which enables citizens to send photographs or movies to a central police database as part of an emergency call….The concept is in its very early stages.

I think This feels like a vapourware story. It links to the UK surveillance system but not to the context and history of sousveillance. After all, Peter Gabriel launched his human rights service Witness – almost identical name – over a decade ago, and relaunched it as the Hub (“Youtube for human rights”) earlier this year. And there’s a happy trail of examples of sousveillance for anyone who cares to look. GFE Andrew 🙂

One Response to “Sousveillance: “someone reinvents something and might encourage people to use it…maybe” shock”

Richard S wrote on June 3rd, 2007 1:43 pm :

Humour is always the most important part of these “rags.” I often glance at the back page; often miss the screeching front & longer articles – especially if struggling with a horrid “digital copy.”