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Your House Is About To Be Photographed
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 06, 2007 02:24 PM
from the little-brother dept.
from the little-brother dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Photographers from a Canadian company are going house to house, shooting pictures of every house in America, in hopes of building a giant database that can be sold to banks, insurance companies, and appraisal firms. While this activity is legal (as long as the photographers don't trespass on private property to get their shots), there are obviously concerns about security and privacy. Considering that an individual can be detained and questioned by the FBI for photographing a bridge in this country, why should this Canadian company get a free pass? Tinfoil hat aside, something seems very, very fishy here." From the Arizona Star article about the photographing of Tucson: "'The [handout given to people who complain] made it sound like they're doing it for law enforcement, when in reality they're doing it for sales and marketing,' said [a City Council aide], who received several calls about the company."
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That reminds me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That reminds me (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:That reminds me (Score:5, Informative)
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Enforcement != laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Hi. That's what I thought. I like to take pictures of architecture. Especially run-down old buildings right next to fancy new buildings. So, one day, I left with a friend of mine. Left my house, mind you, and went for a stroll around my own goddam neighborhood. A couple of blocks away, I was taking pictures of the Brew House, and the local evil hospital, when a security guar
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Let him call the real police. Unless the cops tell you you can take the picture and cite the actual statute by number that tells you why not, then you can take the bloody picture.
If people like you constantly give in to this kind of treatment, it only empowers them. Get some backbone.
Re:Enforcement != laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Be a little careful there....many places in fact use real off duty cops as their rent-a-cops. I know way back in the day when I was in school, and selling clothes at Dillard's...the plain cloths store cops were ALL real life LRPD. I was talking to one of them one slow night, and he explained the different guns he carried. The in-store gun with bullets that wouldn't go through the person...and the outdoor gun where if he had to shoot through a car...it would penetrate...etc.
And in some/many jurisdictions if I understand it...a cop really is never 'off' duty...so, even if working as a rent-a-cop...he has the exact same authority as if he were on direct police duty.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I got into it about this with a security guard at CompUSA once after he followed me to my car and wrote down my license plate number. Needless to say, this was the last time I shopped at CompUSA.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In addition to property-release issues, you also need to think about copyright concerns vis-à-vis buildings if they were built after December 1, 1990. Before that, buildings did not have copyright protection and were thus, by definition, in the public domain. Shoot away.
In general, buildings erected after December 1, 1990 do not pose a big problem eithe
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Firstly, figure out exactly where your property line in and erect an 8' tall fence around the parimenter in accordance with local codes.
Secondly, find out when they're going to be photographing your house and be ready with a bunch of high powered flood lights that you can turn on to blind their cameras.
Thirdly, install a bunch of infared LED's and have them rotate through a whole bunch of different obcene words, etc. They're camera equipment will probably see th
Re:That reminds me (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right of publicity [publaw.com]
Re:That reminds me (Score:4, Funny)
Sincerely,
Joe Public.
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Re:That reminds me (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That reminds me (Score:4, Informative)
http://littlerock.craigslist.org/etc/271792246.ht
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Re:That reminds me (Score:5, Funny)
"Your 30 day free trial of Photoshop has expired.
Please purchase the full version to remove this sign"
or
"Thank you for using a pirated version of Photoshop!"
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
What seems "very, very fishy?"
From my understanding, this has always been legal. Where we live, the size, configuration, value and tax record of your house is public information. So what would people do with this information that is so sinister?
Damned Foreigners (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Damned Foreigners (Score:5, Funny)
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It's just a prelude... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually we have invaded the US 47 times in the last 10 years, but nobody noticed.
Re:It's just a prelude... (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone could miss Canada, all tucked away down there.
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Re:It's just a prelude... (Score:5, Funny)
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Assuming they follow the rules (Score:5, Interesting)
Very little of my house is visible from public access. However, driving a hundred yards or so down my driveway will offer you a nice, clean picture. The first time I see photos of my house which I know had to have been taken from my private property, can I have their asses thrown in jail for trespassing?
Re:Assuming they follow the rules (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, not legally. Those easements are for the utility companies and only the utility companies. They do not confer any access rights to anyone else, including invaders from the great white north.
My easements are specific to a particular type of utility (power), so any other one would have to negotiate a new deal with me.
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Already been done (Score:5, Interesting)
Zillow doesn't take pictures (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for those who think that having trees right up to the building is a good idea to block the camera, lets just hope that you dont hav
How is this useful in any way? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing going on here is what always goes on in commerce: somebody sees an opportunity to profit from specialization. Instead of having each real estate agent hire their own photographer, why not specialize in real estate photography, build a catalog of photos, and sell it to real estate
More slashdot trolling (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone ever hear of propertyshark.com? [propertyshark.com].
Yeah, pictures of every building in Manhattan, and much of prime Brooklyn. They also have the tax photos from the 1970's.
Here comes the Transparent Society... (Score:3, Insightful)
What Privacy does this violate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Using something like a high-powered zoom lens to try to shoot pictures inside the house through the window, or trespassing on the property to better see the house, or driving a cherry picker down the street to take hard-to-get views over privacy fences and such would be different. But I don't see how the regular pedestrian view from the street can be considered "private." Presumably anybody with your address could get the same view by going there anytime. And to look it up in this company's database, presumably they've already got your address or could easily retrieve it from other sources. They're just changing the ease of access to this information, they aren't making any "private" information that wasn't previously accessible available, they're just changing the costs of accessing publicly available information.
If you care about people not obtaining information they can get from glancing at your house from the street, then you need a privacy fence or something to conceal that information.
It can and does happen, but isn't supposed to (Score:5, Interesting)
What it sounds like (to me anyway) is a number of local agencies get overly zealous at times. I suspect part of the problem is there hasn't been much, if any, guidance provided to local law enforcement from the feds. Another part of the problem is these people, from the feds on down, seem to be flying the security ship by the seat of their pants, and worrying about what's actually legal/illegal later - the old "Shoot 'em all, and let God sort 'em out" philosophy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You may have that a little backwards. I think that most of these people are deathly afraid of the parasitic lawyers (or grandstanding politicians) that will descend like a plague of locusts on whatever municipality's police department didn't stop an actual ter
boring job (Score:5, Funny)
"Number 134?"
"Yeah"
"It's just a door with a number?"
"Yeah like the last 133 units we've shot dumbass"
*Click*
"Okay got it"
I have a proxy house (Score:5, Funny)
Don't know where it came first... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't know where it came first, but here in Finland a company called Igglo [igglo.fi] photographed every house here a couple of years ago. There are now photos of every building online. And I have to admit, that if your buying or renting something it sure is a very nice service. But I understand the privacy issues. There was some protest over here especially about photographic single-family houses. And I actually saw these guys photographing the house I live in. My first impression about them was to call the police. Kind of funny later on when I figured who they were.
Anonymity Is Doomed Get Over It (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly I think it is unfortunate that the distinction between privacy and anonymity is so often blurred. This technology does not infringe on your privacy, the front of your house is visible to any passerby and has undoubtedly been published in some picture on the web or a newspaper already. Nothing that was not previously visible to complete strangers has been revealed. All that has changed is that it is now easy for people to find that information and make use of it. In other words your anonymity has been reduced though your privacy has not been affected (they aren't always so clearly cut but here it is).
Now I find it pretty ironic that the same vocal slashdot lobby that is so strongly against any sort of free speech restriction or data lockdown technology seem to think that we can and should do something to stop the loss of (physical) anonymity. Frankly the two goals are fundamentally incompatible.
As it gets easier and easier for people to post information to the web they will do it. Today we have camera phones, tomorrow we will have glasses that record video, recognize faces and code geographic information into that data. Either you pass draconian laws that prevent people from posting the snapshots/movies online or that data will eventually be there, and sooner or later better search and geographic information will make it possible for search to organize it in ways that let people determine what city your in on a given day (face recognition on photos taken that day) and certainly they will be able to track down a picture of your house.
This sort of loss of anonymity is inevitable if we don't want to give up our freedom. It isn't all bad, after all this is the way people lived in small towns for most of history. But so long as we keep whining about it rather than facing up to the fact we make sure that it will be lost in the worst possible ways, i.e., useful features that expose the information to us will be stopped but governments and corporations will be able to use it as they wish. What we need to be doing is making sure that anonymity is lost equally, i.e., we don't get situations where the ghetto is filled with cameras but the suburbs are not (it is too easy to demonize 'other' people when the unblinking eye isn't trained at 'your kind'), and beefing up genuine privacy protections in the face of this loss of anonymity.
Cook County already does this (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.cookcountyassessor.com/ccao/startres.h
You can just search by address and find a lot of the public information about private residences online, including photos in most cases (in all cases in the small sample I've tried).
I wonder how common this is with other regional governments?
Oh noes, a conspearasee! (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Canadian-born citizen, I'd have to agree with you. There is definitely something very wrong with Canadians being able to take pictures of your public property, while you are not. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the tone of the above statement. But if anything, this should help open your eyes to the problem America has with overreacting to everything. In my opinion (and an opinion also shared with a lot of other non-Americans) a lot of American citizens don't seem to realize the problem isn't with other countries, it's with your country. You need to lighten up, as a nation.
My home has an EULA (Score:3, Informative)
Time to start selling... (Score:3, Funny)
Free Pass (Score:3, Informative)
Who said anything about them getting a free pass?
The FBI detains people they have reasonable grounds to be suspicious of plotting an act of terrorism. If they suspect these people of plotting terrorism, they'll most likely detain them until their story can be confirmed too. There's absolutely no difference in treatment nor any kind of free pass being given.
Similarly, if the guy photographing the bridge contacted the local police department and said, "Hey, I'm going to be photographing such and such a bridge. If you want to run any background checks to verify I'm not a terrorist, go right ahead. No, you can't tell me not to do it - it's a legal right - you can only confirm I'm doing it for lawful reasons which I both am and am giving you an opportunity to check in advance." they would most likely have completely ignored him. I'm guessing, to simply avoid hassle, this company's going to have a prepared statement and will contact local PDs before going in to each area too.
In short, it's totally legal to do things like film a scene of a kidnapping but you're most likely going to get temporarily detained if you don't notify the police first. Film companies don't get a "free pass" either - they simply make sure the police are notified. The same goes for fears of terrorism and photographing potential targets and fears of burglary and and photographing homes.
Is it unfortunate that we're in a world where the gut reaction is to arrest first and ask questions later? Sure. But that should be addressed on its own merits rather than accusing people who're smart enough to recognize it sadly happens and thus take precautions of getting some kind of a free pass.
Oh Crap! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, my privacy! We need to outlaw neighbors...
On the other hand, when I forget to close my garage door, one of the neighbors will probably keep an eye on the place to make sure no one walks off with stuff, and may even walk over and close it for me. Nice thing about having neighbors where you know their names...
Not Every House (Score:4, Insightful)
I also agree this is fishy. While i do realize its legal to stand in the street and take pictures of anything you can see, including people's private belongings, perhaps this legalty should be reconsidered. Whatever happened to 'expectations of reasonable privacy in public'?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do it from a vehicle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Canadians Do Know We Are Armed, Right? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:+7 Spit Take (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)