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9 S. Cal. Interdisc. L. J. 295 (1999-2000)
Facial Recognition Technology, Video Surveillance, and Privacy

handle is hein.journals/scid9 and id is 301 raw text is: NOTES FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO SURVEILLANCE, AND PRIVACY CHRISTOPHER S. MILLIGAN* You are on a video camera an average often times a day. Are you dressed for it?** I. INTRODUCTION A. BACKDROP TO THE FISHBOWL 1. Orvellian Reflections The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit and instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.! Of course, with night vision enhancement, Winston's movements could now be observed even in the black pitch of night. Today, the warnings of Orwell and others seem almost clich6. The United States is not the totalitarian society that Orwell envisioned. That Orwell's warnings do seem clich6 perhaps means it is wise to be wary lest we become immune to intrusions on our privacy and personal autonomy. * J.D. candidate, University of Southern California Law School, 2000. B.A., University of California, San Diego, 1996. The author would like to thank Professor Michael H. Shapiro for serving as his faculty advisor and the members of the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal for their help in editing this Note. Thanks also to Eugenia Chiang for all of her help and support. .. Taken from an October 1998 Kenneth Cole advertisement in the Century City Shopping Mall, Los Angeles, California. A more appropriate question might be Are you dressed at all? Video surveillance has the ability to strip individuals of their privacy while making them feel naked before it. ' GEORGE ORWELL, 1984, at 6-7 (New American Library, Inc. 1961) (1949). Winston is the main character in the novel.

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