Small and always online: "Smart cameras" concealed on glasses, jewellery or bicycle helmets could soon completely digitalise our lives in public spaces. A new research project is analysing technical opportunities and the need for legal regulation - an interview with project leader Jürgen Taeger.
QUESTION: Smart cams, intelligent cameras, are at the centre of your research project CHARISMA - how present are they already in our everyday lives?
TAEGER: As a new technology, smart cams are on their way to becoming a big hit, especially the so-called data glasses. At the same time, manufacturers are realising that there is resistance from people who could be recorded by smart cams in public spaces. There is also criticism in the legal literature because personal rights, such as the right to one's own image, can be violated if recordings of people are distributed without their consent. This is why the demand for smart cams is there, but manufacturers are still rather cautious with their distribution. Data glasses, for example, are not yet seen so often in public because they are not yet available to the general public, the technology is still quite expensive and no convincing use cases are recognisable. In addition, wearers may get into trouble with other people.
QUESTION: Can you give us an example?
TAEGER: Airlines, for example, prohibit the wearing of data glasses because they don't want their customers to be filmed by other people and then spread the word about who is flying where and when. After all, these glasses not only record images and sound, but also have a small screen on which - via a connected computer or smartphone - you can display a range of additional information from the internet about the other person thanks to image recognition. This is naturally unsettling. However, the technology is there and is constantly being refined. As manufacturers continue to miniaturise the elements, data glasses will be almost indistinguishable from regular visual aids in the medium term. So there is no doubt that this will happen in the next few years, despite much resistance. We will see whether they can be worn in public spaces without restrictions or whether bans will increase.
QUESTION: In addition to smart glasses, there are other "smart" cameras ...
TAEGER: Yes, narrative clips are already more common. These are small, inconspicuous cameras that automatically take photos of the wearer's surroundings at adjustable intervals. You can attach this clip to your clothing or hang it on a cord around your neck, and when this clip is activated, it records the surroundings - while jogging or cycling, on holiday while hiking...
QUESTION: ... or on the way across campus, for example.
TAEGER: Exactly. These narrative clips or bodycams are used by people who no longer keep an analogue diary but want to record their lives digitally. Of course, it's also sensitive if you take the clip into certain rooms, even if it's just a cafeteria - I don't even want to talk about changing rooms, that's obviously a no-go. This device does not switch itself off, the user has to switch it off. And it saves the date, time and GPS coordinates for every picture. Such clips are making photography increasingly inconspicuous and are also being sold intensively; you can find them every week in the advertising brochures of technology companies. But those who use narrative clips also realise that their use can lead to discussions and even hostility.
QUESTION: So I have to be prepared for someone coming towards me in the city with such a camera clip and possibly photographing or filming me?
TAEGER: No question about it! What is also particularly well known among the population are the so-called dashcams behind the windscreen. Drivers in Germany also use them, although they are not yet as widespread as in Eastern Europe. These cameras naturally also record people travelling in the vicinity of road traffic. There is no legal ban, but due to the right to one's own image and data protection law, case law almost invariably states that dashcams are prohibited. There are enough taxi drivers who nevertheless have such cameras and are not bothered by them - but perhaps they don't realise that the courts predominantly consider them to be illegal.
QUESTION: How do people react when they realise that others are watching them, so to speak - photographing or filming them?
TAEGER: That is one of the questions we want to address. Our project is interdisciplinary. On the one hand, we have legal experts who are analysing whether or not there is currently a right to use these devices in public spaces against the background of the constitution and laws. Then the Computing Science experts involved in the project come into play with the question: How can the technology be designed differently in order to avoid violations of the law? We call this "Privacy Enhancing Technologies". Computing scientists are tasked with developing proposals on how privacy rights can also be protected by technical solutions. And we have social scientists on board to empirically analyse how the population is reacting now - and at the end of the two-year project period.
QUESTION: CHARISMA was launched in August. What are the first steps?
TAEGER: We are taking a close look at the state of the art and are now developing scenarios based on this. We are starting with people who typically represent certain groups in society: the young, smart, tech-savvy single person, the single parent, families with three children - in other words, groups of people who want to use smart cams. For what purposes could they use them, what are the potential applications? Only by looking at this can we assess the opportunities, risks and also the legal dimension. In addition to personal rights and data protection, copyright also plays a role; for example, the cinema operator and the holder of a film licence do not want the film to be recorded when people go to the cinema. Once we have carried out the social science surveys, politicians expect us to come up with suggestions for future regulation, for example.
QUESTION: But you obviously don't just want to give politicians suggestions, but also the industry on how it could show better consideration for the rights of others.
TAEGER: Exactly. Many things are conceivable: Automatically pixelating faces, automatically switching off cameras in non-public areas such as saunas, making personal objection to being recorded for cameras recognisable - that sort of thing. Computing scientists from OFFIS are taking care of this as our joint partners.
QUESTION: You have mentioned some of the risks of smart cams. Where do you see the opportunities of this technology?
TAEGER: In the case of so-called bodycams, which the police are using in field trials in some Federal States, it is obvious that they can use them to identify people more easily and document events when averting danger or prosecuting crimes. Small high-performance cameras in football stadiums can help to clarify who has set off pyrotechnics or thrown an object onto the pitch. For certain professional groups, it can be very helpful to transmit recordings of their highly specialised work to other parts of the world. Dashcams can help the police to identify the perpetrators of accidents. Of course, the interest of a livelogger who wants to digitally record their life may also be legitimate. All of these could be possible interests, of which we do not yet see so many, but which will probably exist, otherwise the demand for these cameras would not be so great. These must then be weighed up against the interests of those who are being recorded. The images taken from the air by the increasingly popular drones also affect personal rights on the one hand and sometimes endanger air traffic or passers-by if they get out of control - but they enable fantastic landscape and sports shots.
QUESTION: As an information law expert, you deal with both sides of the coin, so to speak. Is it generally the case that enthusiasm for technological progress is met with legal concerns?
TAEGER: Many people rightly associate great expectations and hopes with technical developments. In principle, this also applies to lawyers who, as information lawyers, do not want to hinder technical progress. Nevertheless, from a legal perspective, we must also draw attention to the risks for individuals and society. We are expected to do this in order to ensure the acceptance of digital applications in society. The aim is to find regulations, if necessary, that make legally compliant use possible.
QUESTION: Do you yourself use a smart camera in one of the forms mentioned?
TAEGER: We have purchased various cameras for the project for the initial tests, but I personally won't be archiving my life in this way. I still can't quite imagine how to filter out what is valuable to me from the amount of image information - despite all the big data technology. However, the application scenarios we have found show that there are definitely useful applications.