Comments on: Augmented Reality or Futuristic Invasion of Privacy?

By: Privacy: How to Avoid the “Third Rail” of Online Services: Tech News «

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:30:56 +0000

[...] Offender Tracker shows what is possible when databases of public information like criminal records are merged with location-based technology and “augmented reality,” or layering online data onto physical locations. And it’s not just [...]

By: Dave Elchoness

Dave Elchoness — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:11:51 +0000

Peter, These are good questions. The data is delivered to us by BeenVerified. We built the mobile application that presents the data. You might contact them directly with the inquiry. Thanks.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:20:11 +0000

I have a question for David around how the system is kept relevant please?

I have young children and think the idea is good but my question is how do you keep the data up to date? For example – if the address shown in the program was an offenders address it may be that the offender has now moved. If that was to happen then how long does it take before you remove the ‘flag’ off the address which now could be home to an ‘innocent’? A community could think there is an offender present when there is not which could create a difficult situation. The thing about AR is that it is by definition ‘real’ and so people will think it’s factual.

Equally a community could think that an address is ‘safe’ without knowing that a new tennant is an offender.

I wonder if there’s a responsibility here for the publisher to ensure the quality of his information?

In simple terms; do you ‘flag’ the person or the address. If you flag the address how current is your information and how ofter do you / can you refresh it?

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:33:06 +0000

What do they do about errors? EVERY large database contains errors of fact. If I move into a house that was previously occupied by a serial rapist, do I have to worry about waking up to the smell of smoke and the crash of Molotov cocktails through my windows? Even if the system correctly marks an address as that of a Registered Sex Offender, is he a child-murderer or someone who got caught taking a whiz behind a tree in a city park?

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:56:09 +0000

Yes, the data is present and available — even if most people don’t know it. But I think the use of AR brings it out in front of people in a much more public way that is going to catch some people off guard.

By: Stan Timek

Stan Timek — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:56:18 +0000

The public/private information argument I think is separate from the augmented reality presentation layer. When you combine databases with geolocation (mashups) you get a web-based app that can also easily show people where someone like a sex offender lives. This already exists as a mashup using Google maps as the geolocation component.

AR is great, its fun, and useful. Look at what my company is doing with it to enhance personal communication as well as business marketing (http://atomicgreetings.com) We are experiencing the rapid growth phase of a technology. Things are going to get wild so hold on!

By: Dave Elchoness

Dave Elchoness — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:41:10 +0000

I completely with Mathew’s comment. Augmented reality and other location based technologies add a new dimension for interacting with public information – i.e. location. This doesn’t change the public nature of the information, it only makes it, first, easier to get at and, second, more contextual. So before you could sit at your desktop and find a public servant’s salary and his home address at different urls. Now, using a system like Tagwhat, you could easily find both bits of information, place them on a location based tag, and invite followers to stumble upon that tag with the public servant’s name and salary outside of that person’s home. Is this right or wrong to do? Well, the data is public but disconnected on the web and also not contextual to the person’s location. It is less powerful outside of the location based AR context. Frankly, I think we’ll just get used to this kind of placement of data and learn to live with it.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:30:18 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Jack — well said.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:29:05 +0000

I think the problem is the degree of privacy that people expect with different information — it’s not just a binary choice between private and public. Some information might be public, but not readily available, for example — and taking that information and giving it to people on their cellphones via GPS takes it a step further into a more public arena than many people might be comfortable with (rightly or wrongly).

By: Daniel Vano

Daniel Vano — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:43:45 +0000

As many have already mentioned, this information is already available to the general public via the web (so I will not go into it further).

I often get a little downhearted by people referring to AR in a negative way. Of course, people are concerned, perhaps rightly so, of the invasion of privacy the technology may one day bring. As one comment said, how long will it be before other information is accessed?

But for me, the technology can bring so much more. Check this out for example. http://www.myboucheron.com/myboucheron_int_EN.html. This application allows users to virtually ‘try on’ products from the comfort of their own home, scrutinising each item in the process using the onscreen zoom and rotate options.

I feel this is the future of AR which we should focus on. Yes the technology may be frightening, but it can also be incredibly helpful!