With a tangent to predators - Re: [LINK] Google denies Street View has privacy issues

[Adam Todd]

At 08:22 AM 6/06/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>At 07:36 AM 6/06/2007, Antony Barry wrote:
>>Google denies Street View has privacy issues
>
>I did an interview for Perth radio on this yesterday. At this point, 
>I tend to agree that this is a tempest in a teapot. It's far lower 
>on the continuum of privacy threatening than the street surveillance 
>cameras recording our every move in public spaces. At least this way 
>we can partially check what was snapped and request it be removed. I 
>think this thing is more about embarrassment, like 'candid camera' 
>or backgrounds in any type of photo taken in public spaces.

I tried to find some sexy girls in bikinis, or people having sex in 
cars, or look into houses with bathroom or bedroom windows, but 
didn't see anything.  I was very disappointed really.

(smile)

Although it occurred to me later that perhaps I should be looking for 
primary schools and junior high schools.  Then alarm bells went off in my head.

Although this kinda connects to the story oin Today Tonight last 
night.  Apparently they took some kids (and the mother of course) 
aged up to around 6 years old, and dropped them into malls and very 
public places.

The idea was to see how long it would take before a stranger saw the 
kids being unattended and approached the kids.  (Yes they had a 
security guard loitering and the sound crew was milling around discretely.)

Anyway, in all instances it was between 2 and 3 hours before anyone 
approached the kids.  In most cases it was a mother dragging along 
two or three of her own.

What shocked me most, as it did the mother and crew, was the police 
officer that stood three feet away from the two little girls on the 
seat and in fact approached the sound crew asking what they were 
doing, with his back to the girls.

Then only minutes later another police officer walks right on past 
the girls sitting looking scared on the seat.

I think this has set a very dangerous message to those nasty people 
out there that like kids.

That being - no one notices.  Those kids, if it wasn't for the mother 
and crew and security guard, were ripe for the picking and would well 
be picked by a predator.

What it also says is that our society is so scared about approaching 
children for fear of being picked up as predators we'd rather walk on.

I was in a shopping center the other day with my four kids.  My 4 
year old daughter decided to put on a show screaming "I want my 
mummy, let me go, let me go."

I freaked, I had no idea what to do.  I don't carry their birth 
certificates with me, they don't have photo ID that links them to me, 
they don't have ID at all in fact.   And the last thing I want is my 
kids being pulled away from me by security guards and police while 
they interrogate me and demand that a third party person who can 
verify the situation "attends" the station.

Given that I had the car, my wife wasn't going anywhere at all in any hurry.

I'm sure for a mother a screaming child is no big deal, just an 
annoyance.  But a child that screams for "Mum" when a weedy unshaved 
long bushy haired male is pulling her along is going to draw 
attention that isn't warranted.

Anyway, that's some tangent huh!

>The last question was something like "Since Australians are usually 
>an uninhibited lot, when they come to do Australia, should people be 
>advised in advance so they can line up in the streets in their boarders?"

What about bikinis!  I'd rather see a bikini clad (is cladding possible?) ...

NO!  Not the guys!  YUCK!

>I suggested if anyone had in mind to drop their daks, they needed to 
>remember the pictures were going out on the net and a lot of people 
>would see them.

You mean like the male students at Bass High regularly do in groups of 15-20?

>I don't think the interviewer expected that answer.

(smile)