Is it time to ring the alarm on internet door cameras? | Eva Wiseman
Do we really want to introduce quite so much surveillance into our domestic lives?Where once the suburbs were characterised by net curtains and the drone of lawn mowers, now they are defined by Ring doorbells. An unsleeping gaze is fixed on our gnomes and driveways, our children walking home and our midday deliveries. The houses have eyes now.My street WhatsApp is populated with daily reports from neighbours’ doorbells – suspicious roofers, sinister car thieves at 3am, sometimes just a guy, standing by the wall, leaning oddly. The group buzzes frequently, too, with videos from other streets’ doorbells, images that have been forwarded so many times they have the weary sheen of photocopies. Watch out, the messages say, for men in hoods, men with bricks, men stealing packages from doorsteps, or, yesterday on our road, a doorstep itself. Continue reading...
Do we really want to introduce quite so much surveillance into our domestic lives?
Where once the suburbs were characterised by net curtains and the drone of lawn mowers, now they are defined by Ring doorbells. An unsleeping gaze is fixed on our gnomes and driveways, our children walking home and our midday deliveries. The houses have eyes now.
My street WhatsApp is populated with daily reports from neighbours’ doorbells – suspicious roofers, sinister car thieves at 3am, sometimes just a guy, standing by the wall, leaning oddly. The group buzzes frequently, too, with videos from other streets’ doorbells, images that have been forwarded so many times they have the weary sheen of photocopies. Watch out, the messages say, for men in hoods, men with bricks, men stealing packages from doorsteps, or, yesterday on our road, a doorstep itself. Continue reading...
