IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2014 - 41

uring the last century
a variety of surveillance technologies
have arrived, have
been deployed, and
have had impacts on society, both
significantly positive and seriously
negative. One of these, digital cameras, emerged in the late 1980s, and
quickly developed into a means of
creating high-quality images and
video. These cameras have become
both inexpensive and sufficiently
small to be not merely carried but
also worn.
The concept "Point of View"
has been of significance in filmmaking for decades. reduction
in the size and weight of devices
that can record and/or transmit
images and video has resulted in
the notion migrating into many
additional contexts. The term
"point of view surveillance (PoVS)
technologies" has emerged as a
means of distinguishing these
capabilities from other forms of
monitoring of people through
their actions, their communications, and the data-trails that their
activities generate.
This article commences by providing a brief background to the
nature of PoVS technologies, sufficient to establish that they are in
need of coherent regulation. The
main body of the paper presents a
survey of the legal context within
one country, Australia. Because
it is a national jurisdiction with
eight, diverse sub-national (State
and Territory) jurisdictions, Australia embodies a rich set of alternative approaches, preoccupations,
and prevarications. Prospects for
the emergence of a more effective
framework are discussed.

Nature and Impacts
The defining feature of PoVS is that
the camera is human-borne, and
points away from the human, generally following the orientation of
the person's head, hence enabling
capture of the scene in the person's
line-of-sight, or from the person's

point-of-view. This differentiates it
from, for example, fixed installations. Although the term is of recent
origin, the concept is not, being
traceable to at least 1980, when Steve
Mann applied the term "wearable
computing" in particular to wearable
cameras and head-mounted displays
[12], [13]. See also [20].
Many commentators use the
term with considerable looseness,
with some discussions also encompassing the use of cameras attached
to other parts of a person's body,
clothing or equipment, the use
of cameras held in a human hand
irrespective of the position relative
to the person's eyes, and even the
use of cameras installed in other
devices, such as motor-vehicles,
drones, and "telepresence robots."
There is also considerable laxness in the current literature in relation to the functionality involved in
PoVS. A device may merely display
image or video, in which case it may
display it to the person themselves,
or to others, by using not only imagedetection but also transmission capabilities. It may or may not include
an audio-stream. The stream(s) may
be recorded, in which case the storage may be local, or remote. The
live and/or recorded stream(s) may
be limited to use by the individual,
or they may be intended for use by
others. They may be disclosed to
others and/or accessed by others
without the intention of the party
that captured or acquired them.
The live video-stream may be raw,
or processed. Processing includes
image-enhancement, such as the
accentuation of particular visual features, and image-augmentation, e.g.,
the overlaying of additional images
or animations over the raw feed.
Another distinction, of considerable
consequence in some applications,
is between a single point-of-view
and correlation among multiple
points-of-view.
A wide range of actual and
potential applications exists. Education and training can take advantage of PoVS to provide vicarious

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SuMMEr 2014

but highly realistic experience.
People preparing litigation or seeking to stimulate prosecutions can
use it to gather evidence that may
have higher value in the courtroom than testimony based entirely
on their memories. Law enforcement agencies are using it to record
scenes as they are experienced by
an individual employee (or, increasingly, contractor), and in some
circumstances to monitor developments in real time. Members of the
public are also using it to record,
and in some cases transmit, their
experiences in dealing with organizations, particularly law enforcement agencies. Those members
of the public thereby change their
roles from passive "usees" to active
"users." The term "sousveillance"
was coined in order to distinguish
this form of inverted observation. It
is inverted in the sense that the surveillance in undertaken by those
who are usually observed, and is
directed at those who are usually
the observers [14].
The question arises as to what
extent the use of PoVS technologies is authorized, tolerated or
prohibited by law. The question is
an important one, for several reasons. Some applications of PoVS
promise considerable benefits,
both economic and social, for individuals, groups, organizations, and
societies. There will be inevitable
side effects, however. A regulatory
framework is essential in order to
authorize highly desirable uses,
preclude highly undesirable uses,
and ensure the balancing of interests and the mitigation of unnecessary harm. Further, use of the
technology can give rise to strong
feelings on the part of those being
subjected to unwanted observation
and recording, and hence there is
a considerable risk of breaches of
the peace. Finally, the democratization of PoVS, as a result of the
emergence of low-cost and readily hidden devices, is bringing
about a degree of change in the
politics of surveillance. Powerful
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