New surveillance program in the NJ transit system sparks privacy concerns
By: Rodrigo Moncho Stefani
April 20th, 2016
Panel 1
Video surveillance seems relatively normal in modern society. Maybe not all video surveillance systems are as prevalent as the one that London has in place all around the city, but it has become normal to see signs that warn “You are being videotaped”. Nowadays one is expected to be under video surveillance pretty much in every business, or spaces with access to the general public, especially if that place is a public institution.
In terms of privacy protection and regulations, this reality could be translated into the fact that there is little to no privacy expectation when we are in a place that we know (because we have been warned by one of the abovementioned signs) or we should know (because we are in a bank, a transit terminal or similar places) that we are under video surveillance. That being said, in those situations people expect to be videotaped, meaning that a camera is capturing their image, and the information is possibly being stored for certain amount of time. But those cameras usually only capture images, and even in some instances not particularly good or very defined images, as the video from the recent scandal surrounding Trump’s campaign manager showed.
Therefore, it could be argued that one cannot expect in those places to have privacy about one’s image, actions and physical interactions, but those expectations could remain for the contents of one private conversations. Cameras can see you, how you are dressed, what you are doing, and maybe even who you are talking to, but there is no way of knowing what you are saying. A similar distinction has been made between meta data on an email, or the address on a letter, and their contents, the latter having a stronger protection than the former. The feeling of intrusion is different if an observer can see a person or an interaction, than if that observer can also listen to a conversation.
That seems to be the case in the recent announcement that the New Jersey transit authority would begin recording audio in some of the trains that it operates in the state, on top of the video surveillance that it already conducted (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/04/12/us/ap-us-nj-transit-surveillance-systems.html?_r=0).
The trains are limited to the light rail trains, and the change has not taken place in the entire system, but still the announcement brought some reactions from privacy advocates. There is a feeling that from now on, riding those trains would be like being in a place where the walls have ears. The questions are generally around whether the privacy invasions that the new system would imply, are justified by the law enforcement and crime prevention benefits that it can bring.
It seems clear that the benefits of a measure like this will hardly outweigh the privacy invasion that some train users might feel. Any benefit that the audio of an event could bring, would seem to be the same as those that a video could provide (not including of course the sounds in the driver cockpit). And also, if the recordings are going to be used in a targeted investigation, it seems that a specific warrant should be required.
That being said, it should also be noted that these types of systems are very hard to monitor constantly, even when they are only video systems, clearly a constant monitoring of an audio surveillance system would almost require of an army of officers hearing to every conversation, which would mean that the actual harm could be limited.