Sousveillance as a Situationist critique of surveillance. This wearable wireless webcam imitates surveillance cameras common in casinos and department stores.

Sousveillance (IPA: [suːˈveɪləns], French [suvɛjɑ̃s]) is the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant in the activity (i.e. personal experience capture). Download high resolution version (800x1037, 62 KB)Sousveillance as a Surveillance-Situationist Inquiry This picture, of a necklace webcam, was taken in a stairwell in a building on St. ... Download high resolution version (800x1037, 62 KB)Sousveillance as a Surveillance-Situationist Inquiry This picture, of a necklace webcam, was taken in a stairwell in a building on St. ... The Situationist International (SI), an international political and artistic movement, originated in the Italian village of Cosio dArroscia on 28 July 1957 with the fusion of several extremely small artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International, the International movement for an imaginist Bauhaus, and the London Psychogeographical Association. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A department store organizes its goods by departments, such as womens clothes, home furnishings, electronics, and the like. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

The term also refers to the recording or monitoring of real or apparent authority figures by others, particularly those who are generally the subject of surveillance. Steve Mann, who coined the term, describes it as "watchful vigilance from underneath." Self-portrait of Mann in 1981 with wearable computing apparatus. ...

Etymology of "sousveillance"

The term "sousveillance" stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures doing the watching).

Inverse surveillance

Inverse surveillance is a type of sousveillance. The more general concept of sousveillance goes beyond just inverse surveillance and the associated twentieth century political "us versus them" framework for citizens to photograph police, shoppers to photograph shopkeepers, or passengers to photograph taxicab drivers. (Rheingold notes that it's much like the pedestrian-driver concept, i.e. these are roles that many of us take both sides of, from time-to-time.)

One of the things that brought inverse surveillance to light was the reactions of security guards to electric seeing aids and similar sousveillance practices. It seemed, early on, that the more cameras that were in an establishment, the more the guards disliked the use of an electric seeing aid, such as the EyeTap eyeglasses, by the public. It was through simply wearing electric seeing aids, as a passive observer, that it was discovered that surveillance and sousveillance can cause conflict and sometimes confrontation. This led researchers to explore why the perpetuators of surveillance are suspicious of sousveillance, and thus defined the notion of inverse surveillance as a new and interesting facet of studies in sousveillance. Large format camera lens. ... The EyeTap is a name for a device that is worn in front of the eye that Acts as a camera to record the scene available to the eye, and Acts as a display to superimpose a Computer-generated imagery on the original scene available to the eye. ...

Personal sousveillance

Apparatus for continuous live webcast of everyday personal life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from 1994 to 1996. Participants on the World Wide Web were invited to watch the world through a Wearable Wireless Webcam (stereo camera rig), and there was a social-networking component to the system in which participants could communicate back to the wearer in realtime, and even modify the wearer's visual perception of reality.

Sousveillance devices for ACM's CFP2005. 500 devices were assembled with wearable conference bags, and some included wireless webcams, transmitting live, but attendees did not know which units were live.

Personal sousveillance is the art, science, and technology of personal experience capture, processing, storage, retrieval, and transmission, such as lifelong audiovisual recording by way of cybernetic prosthetics, such as seeing-aids, visual memory aids, and the like. Even today's personal sousveillance technologies like camera phones and weblogs tend to build a sense of community, in contrast to surveillance that some have said^{[citation needed]} is corrosive to community. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (480 × 640 pixel, file size: 231 KB, MIME type: image/png) Self-portrait with Wearable Wireless Webcam, live webcasting from wearable camera system with virtual reality display including simultaneous realtime wireless broadcast and reception of everyday life... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (480 × 640 pixel, file size: 231 KB, MIME type: image/png) Self-portrait with Wearable Wireless Webcam, live webcasting from wearable camera system with virtual reality display including simultaneous realtime wireless broadcast and reception of everyday life... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1232x816, 95 KB) Summary filename Association_of_Computing_Machinery_CFP2005dsc567pcq. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1232x816, 95 KB) Summary filename Association_of_Computing_Machinery_CFP2005dsc567pcq. ... The Association for Computing Machinery, or ACM, was founded in 1947 as the worlds first scientific and educational computing society. ... Cybernetics is a theory of the communication and control of regulatory feedback. ... A United States soldier demonstrates Foosball with two prosthetic limbs In medicine, a prosthesis is an artificial extension that replaces a missing part of the body. ... Instantly sharing media A Sony Ericsson K750 camera phone in use Philippe Kahn Working on and early camera-phone A camera phone is a mobile phone which has a camera built-in and is coupled with a server-based infrastructure that allows the user to share pictures and video with... This article is about a type of web application. ... Sense of community (or psychological sense of community) is a concept in social psychology (or more narrowly, in community psychology), which focuses on the experience of community rather than its structure, formation, setting, or other features. ... A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. ...

The legal, ethical, and policy issues surrounding personal sousveillance are largely yet-to-be-explored, but let us consider a simple parallel example, namely the recording of telephone conversations. When one or more parties to the conversation record it, we call that sousveillance, whereas when the conversation is recorded by a person who is not a party to the conversation (such as a prison guard violating a client-lawyer relationship), we call the recording "surveillance". It has been suggested that Voice logging be merged into this article or section. ...

In America, audio sousveillance is allowed in most states, and by U.S. Federal law. Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic  - President George W. Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... The law of the United States is derived from the common law of England, which was in force at the time of the Revolutionary War. ...

"Targeted sousveillance" refers to sousveillance of a specific individual by one or more other individuals. Usually the targeted individual is a representative or proponent of surveillance, so targeted sousveillance is often Inverse Surveillance (hierarchical sousveillance).

Inverse surveillance as a branch of the more general study of sousveillance

"Hierarchical sousveillance" refers, for example, to citizens photographing police, shoppers photographing shopkeepers, or taxicab passengers photographing cab drivers. So, for example, targeting former White House security official Admiral John Poindexter with sousveillance follows this more political narrative. Classy's Kitchen describes sousveillance as "another way to add further introspection to the commons that keeps society open but still makes the world smaller and safer". In this way, we might regard sousveillance as a possible replacement for surveillance (imagine, for example, a law that required cameras to be attached to a human operator --- it's a lot easier to raise objections or concerns to another human than it is to have a heart-to-heart conversation with a lamp post upon which is mounted a surveillance camera). Rear Admiral John Poindexter USN (Ret. ...

Beyond the political or breaching of hierarchical structure explored in academia, the more rapidly emerging discourse on sousveillance within industry is the "personal sousveillance", namely the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity. In this sense, the Rodney King video was captured serendipitously by a citizen participating in a civil society. There was no political motive (i.e. the officers who were beating King were not targeted), and the material was captured more serendipitously. As the technologies get smaller and easier to use, the capture, recording, and playback of everyday life gets that much easier. In the limit, when the effort falls low enough, personal experience capture can be done without conscious thought or effort, wherein the person capturing the information becomes a "cyborg" in the Manfred Clynes sense. The "Sensecam" works this way, as does Gordon Bell's project at Microsoft. A logfile made in this way, with zero effort, is known as a CyborgLog. Rodney King Rodney Glen King (born April 2, 1965 in Sacramento, California) is an African-American taxi driver who became famous after his violent arrest by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was videotaped by a bystander, George Holliday [1]. The incident raised a public outcry among people... A cyborg is a cybernetic organism (i. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ...

The most widespread sousveillance has spread without conscious design. Camera phones have proliferated, affording the opportunity of easy,unobtrusive documentation using snapshots, videos and audio. The simplicity of a wearable camera phone makes cyborglogging possible simply by walking around in ordinary day-to-day life. Other devices such as a Holter heart monitor, can add additional tracks to an audiovisual cyborglog that make the 'glog useful for personal safety and health monitoring.

Industrial interest in sousveillance, but not necessarily inverse surveillance

Microsoft is also exploring cyborglogs, as are Hewlett Packard, Nokia, and many others. Joi Ito's use of the camera phone approaches the idea of a cyborglog, in the sense that his images are sent often, and with little conscious thought or effort. Ito is part of the Program Committee for the International Conference on Sousveillance, along with the attendees of the International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance. Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... The Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), commonly known as HP, is currently the worlds largest information technology corporation (by revenue) and is known worldwide for its printers, personal computers and high end servers. ... Nokia Corporation (OMX: NOK1V, NYSE: NOK, FWB: NOA3) is currently the worlds largest manufacturer of mobile telephones, with a global device market share of approximately 36% in Q1 of 2007. ... Joi Ito at the Ars Electronica Joichi Ito (伊藤穰 Itō Jōichi, born June 19, 1966), more commonly known as Joi Ito, is a Japanese-born, American-educated, activist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. ...

The recent industrial and corporate interest in sousveillance has led to a recent satire of the sousveillance industry. Thus it appears there may be two different "sousveillance factions", one using it as a detournement (in the Situationist tradition) to subvert the Panoptic gaze, while the other using it in a more commercial everyday sense. Of course the two "factions" are not necessarily irreconcileable, in the sense that high-art culture and "low-art" culture are often held to be indistinguishable in the postmodern world. In other words, the co-opting of the subversive nature of sousveillance by industry may well be just another example of art-in-action. Conversely many artists are using the commercialization of sousveillance itself as a social commentary, thus creating a detournement of a detournement of the detournement of surveillance.

Social Software as Surveillance and Sousveillance

Social software such as Facebook and MySpace aid surveillance by encouraging people to publish their interests and their friendship networks. They also aid sousveillance by making this information available to peer networks as well as to the authorities. It has been suggested that History of social software be merged into this article or section. ... Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto Facebook is a social networking website which was launched on February 4, 2004. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ... Surveillance cameras An helicopter flying over Lille, France, watching for possible rioting after the 2007 presidential election Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior. ... A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes. ...

Sousveillance activism as a form of inverse surveillance

Since the year 2001, December 24th has been World Sousveillance Day with groups of participants in New York, Toronto, Boston, Florida, Vancouver, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. However, this designated day focuses only on hierarchical sousveillance, whereas there are a number of groups around the world working on combining the two forms of sousveillance. One such group is the group organized by Dr. Stefanos Pantagis, a New York physician, who leads a group of approximately 25 poets, artists, and other hospital workers on experiments in 'glogging. Among the New York 'gloggers are some blind poets making a cyborglog called "shootingblind". There is a certain irony in the blind exploring the all seeing eye of the Panopticon. This has given rise to some interesting debates within the poetry communities in New York, and around the world. Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 358th day of the year (359th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... December 24 has been designated as World Sousveillance Day. ... NY redirects here. ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ... Official language(s) English Capital Tallahassee Largest city Jacksonville Largest metro area Miami Area  Ranked 22nd  - Total 65,795[1] sq mi (170,304[1] km²)  - Width 361 miles (582 km)  - Length 447 miles (721 km)  - % water 17. ... Motto: By Sea, Land, and Air We Prosper Location of Vancouver within the Greater Vancouver Regional District in British Columbia, Canada Coordinates: , Country  Canada Province  British Columbia Region Lower Mainland Regional District Greater Vancouver Incorporated 1886 Government  - Mayor Sam Sullivan (NPA)  - City Council List of Councilors Suzanne Anton (NPA) Peter... The Doctor by Luke Fildes This article is about the term physician, one type of doctor; for other uses of the word doctor see Doctor. ... The poor poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. ... The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practising the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ...

A recent area of research further developed at IWIS was the equilibrium between surveillance and sousveillance. Current "equiveillance theory" holds that sousveillance, to some extent, often reduces or eliminates the need for surveillance. In this sense it is possible to replace the Panoptic God's eye view of surveillance with a more community-building ubiquitous personal experience capture. Crimes, for example, might then be solved by way of collaboration among the citizenry rather than through the watching over the citizenry from above. But it is not so black-and-white as this dichotomy. Rather, there is a simple shift in the equiveillant point, as, for example, more camera phones enter widespread use, we might be able, as a society, to be more self-reliant, on our own communities to keep an electronic neighbourhood watch. Sometimes this variation of sousveillance ("personal sousveillance") has been referred to as coteveillance or coveillance in the literature. Equiveillance is the balance between surveillance and sousveillance. ...

See also

• EyeTap
• The Light of Other Days - A novel set in a world with a complete lack of privacy; anyone can view the activities of anyone or anything else, including looking into the past.
• The Transparent Society
• Lacey and his Friends - A novel set in a world where nothing is private, where privacy is illegal and where private acts are monitored by camera continuously. Some of these records are unavailable except to authorized investigators. Small exceptions for passwords and other authorization systems are allowed (boxes over keyboards), etc. David Drake basically envisions a world without any privacy whatsoever, where the privacy of the powerful is regarded as a threat by the society.
• The Neanderthal Parallax - A parallel-worlds novel, in which Neanderthals inhabit the alternate Earth. Their justice system (and part of the plot) depends on an embedded forearm implant that continuously records everything in your environment and transmits it to the alibi archive, accessible by your word or by court order. Thus any observer or close relative of a victim can report a crime and open that part of the archive to investigators, effectively ending most serious crime.
• Earth - A novel set in the future, where personal cameras are ubiquitous and privacy is at best rare and often unavailable.
• Freeze Frame - Is a film featuring Sousveillance.
• Clinical Sousveillance

The EyeTap is a name for a device that is worn in front of the eye that Acts as a camera to record the scene available to the eye, and Acts as a display to superimpose a Computer-generated imagery on the original scene available to the eye. ... The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. ... The Transparent Society (1998, ISBN 0-7382-0144-8, ISBN 020132802X) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts the erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology. ... Lacey and his Friends (Baen Books, ISBN 99927-45-73-8) is a 1986 compilation of three stories by David Drake, about Jed Lacey, a ruthless ex-rapist turned detective by a psychological computer. ... The Neanderthal Parallax is a trilogy of novels by Robert J. Sawyer. ... Cover of 1991 Spectra mass market paperback edition. ... Freeze Frame is a 2004 psychological thriller written and directed by John Simpson. ...

External links

• Over and under the Valences of Veillance (Exploring Equiveillance)
• Cyborglogging with Camera Phones: Steps Toward Equiveillance, Proceedings of the ACM Multimedia 2006, Santa Barbara, California, Oct. 23-27, 2006.
• CARPE 2004, Continuous Archival and Retrieval of Personal Experiences
• University of Ottawa Cyborg Law Project, Sousveillance Workshop, and Special Issue on Cyborg Law, etc.
• "MIT Media Lab are doing their bit to help make ours a sousveillance society" (Reason online)
• Steve Mann, Jason Nolan and Barry Wellman. Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in Surveillance Environments. Surveillance & Society 1(3): 331-355
• Existential Technology, Leonardo 36(1), 2003, pp19-26, explores the fundamental philosophical question of inverse bureaucracy, i.e. "Can humans being clerks make clerks be human?".
• Microsoft is also exploring cyborglogs
• Joi Ito's use of the camera phone
• International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance
• satire of the sousveillance industry
• World Sousveillance Day
• shootingblind
• Performance Art (The Surveillance Camera Players and others)
• The First ACM Workshop on Continuous Archival and Retrieval of Personal Experiences
• Sousveillance Blog: Thought and images from Stefanos and the NYC sousveillance crew.
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) CFP 2005, opening keynote (plenary panel) on equiveillance, along with the Bell Canada Sousveillance Tour, April 2005
• Free-running sousveillance program for camera phones