Priveillance™

Priveillance Technology, Priveillant Systems, and Priveillant Devices

The most fundamental issue that faces humanity is priveillance, the realationship between privacy and veillance (both sur- and sous-veillance), i.e. the relationship between "Big Data" and "little data" == the relationship between power and corruption, and absolute power and absolute corruption == knowledge is power, and absolute knowledge is absolute power!

Our world is shifting from "senseless to sensible", i.e. from that which does not sense ("senseless"), to that which has the capacity to sense ("sensible").

This is happening along three axes: the "Vironment", "Virtuality", and "Veillance", as pictured below:

Businesses that produce goods and services balanced along all three axes will succeed in the marketplace. Businesses that are out-of-balance (e.g. GOOGlass which is intimate body-worn technology, close to the origin on the "Vironment" axis but too "Big" on the Virtuality and Veillance axes, i.e. "Big Data" of Surveillance), will tend to fail in the marketplace.

  1. Invention title: Priveillance™ Technology, Priveillant™ Systems, and Priveillant Devices.
  2. Summary explanation -- how it works: Priveillance is a broad-encompassing invention, similar to the related invention Wearable Computing.

    Our world contains large numbers of sensors, e.g. surveillance cameras, as well as the cameras inside devices like light fixtures, streetlights, handwash faucets, and other fixtures and appliances. These range from the 128-pixel or 1024-pixel cameras used in automatic handwash faucets and the automatic flushomters in toilets and urinals (U.S. Patent 8355822 + see intro to the Sightfield paper), to the gigapixel cameras used in citywide surveillance systems for police and homeland security. Surveillant systems are not well understood by the people "beneath" them, e.g. at present the devices are only understood by those watching from "above" (e.g. the machines or large entities like governments and corporations watching us).

    Surveillance tends to have, associated with it, an inherent hypocrisy, e.g. "we're watching you but you can't watch us". Those who study surveillance (e.g. photograph surveillance cameras) are often told that photography is prohibited. See for example the following figure:

    Like many establishments where surveillance is used extensively, cell phones are both prohibited and required (e.g. to read the QR codes on the products in stores where cameras are not allowed):

    The opposite of hypocrisy is integrity. Thus we can safely say that surveillance tends to have, associated with it, an inherent lack of integrity. Take, for example, the video surveillance recordings from when killed (shot 7 times) the wrong person (mistaken identity) on the london subway. The police seized all the recording media from all of the surveillance cameras in the area, and claimed all the recordings were blank (even though transit officials had already seen the recordings of this shooting):

    The opposite of surveillance is sousveillance. "Surveillance" is a French word that means "oversight" == from "sur" which means "over", and "veillance" which means "sight". Thus in English, "surveillance" means "oversight" and "sousveillance" means "undersight". So when you hear someone say "the police need more oversight" or "government needs more oversight", they're really asking for more SURveillance on top of the existing SURveillance. But who watches the watchers? The answer is undersight (sousveillance). The opposite of oversight is undersight.

    Sousveillant systems (systems of or pertaining to undersight) make systems visible and comprehensible to end users.

    Sousveillance is a general design philosophy that should be built into a wide range of goods and services.

    Sousveillant systems are systems that enbody and enbrace this undersight, i.e. that make their inner workings and function and use clearly visible to end users (i.e. those on the bottom of the socio-governance-coroporate hierarchy).

    This design philosophy makes business sense in a world where people are losing their trust of government bureaucracy and large corporations.

    Examples of sousveillant systems are systems that are auditable or understandable by the general public, and by end users. A number of "Mannventions" (Steve Mann inventions) pertain to sousveillant systems, and we can form an important business enterprise == the world's first business enterprise that is built on the foundation of priveillance. Mann's contributions include:
    •"alethiometric systems" == systems that function as alethiometers ("truth meters");
    •"NotRecord™" == being able to retroactively ask permission to record something in the past (e.g. being able to get permission to record an excerpt from a movie or event or crime that you saw last week);
    •Sightfield-compliant imaging: imaging that adheres to standards of public auditability by anyone member of the public (or any official or bylaw enforcer, etc.) with a veillometer (see related inventions Veillance Wand and Veillometer);
    •Auditable sensing;
    •SMARTWORLD IoT + Wearables.

    See also, related invention Alibi Sousveillance.

  3. Example commercial applications: Wearable camera systems, Personal Safety Devices, Open Source software (i.e. products that are visible and comprehensible to an end user), and various cryptographic protocols to ensure sousveillance and "Privillance by Design" (akin to Cavoukian's "Privacy by Design", but on the relationship between privacy and veillance, not just privacy alone).

    We have been working on building the SMARTWORLD IoT + Wearables (Internet of Things + Wearable Computing) alliance == a business aliance and itself a business that certifies Priveillance-compliant devices and our aim is to protect both privacy and also sensory integrity (e.g. the right of individuals to wear a seeing aid or computer vision system, even in spaces like movie theatres where cameras are forbidden). Since establishments like department stores, McDonalds restaurants, movie theatres, and the like, cannot legally exclude a person with a seeing aid, there is a real situation with wearable computing and the whole reason the wearable computing industry has been failing and delayed is issues of priveillance.

    How do we protect privacy and intellectual property while obeying the law at the same time? That is the answer provided by Priveillance™!

    Priveillance also introduces the idea of suicurity in addition to security. Security is a Latin word that means "without care". "Se" means "without" and "curity" means "care". Thus the closest English translation to "security" is "carelessness". A suitable opposite would be "curity", but more specifically let us consider "suicurity" (see link to suicurity paper below).

  4. Link to technical papers associated with the invention:
    The inevitability of the transition from a surveillance-society to a veillance-society: Moral and economic grounding for sousveillance;
    Suicurity instead of Security;
  5. patents are currently being drafted.
  6. prototypes: a number of working protypes of various embodiments and related inventions are currently in the works.
  7. possibilities: Mir Adnan Ali, and Ryan Janzen, are highly skilled on the topics of priveillance and related work, and we'd likely want to recruit them. We've also been in collaboration with Robin Ingle CEO of Ingle International (Ingle Insurance), and they could, for example, be the first priveillance-compliant service provider.
Here is a brief biography on the inventor, Steve Mann; and also Wikipedia has more info on inventor S. Mann.

"Mannventions" ... Return to a list of some of Steve Mann inventions