智能服装贴身监控要来了吗

    曾在前纽约市警察局长雷•凯利手下任职的反恐副局长理查德•达达里奥曾告诉我，覆盖纽约市曼哈顿区从中城到炮台公园的视频监控系统跟从前预防犯罪的创新方式、也就是路灯，基本上是一回事。各位高度注重隐私的看官，你们是否同意达达里奥这一说法？按达达里奥的说法，有了路灯，犯罪分子就无法借着夜幕的掩护肆意妄为。而摄像头是一样的道理，只不过略有延伸。

    不过，哈佛法学院（Harvard Law School）教授格伦•科恩说：“这个类比有些虚伪、有些荒唐。”科恩近期在美国剑桥的拉德克利夫学院（the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Cambridge）谈到了隐私和技术，随后和我进行了邮件往来。“首先，路灯不存在‘功能扩展’的潜在可能。‘功能扩展’是指某种技术或系统在引进之初是用于某一用途，但后来被用于完全不同的目的，类似的例子是美国的社保号码。其次，路灯的效果是暂时的，它不会记录并长久保存我们干过什么事情。再则，人们真正想在没有照明的公共场合进行的活动非常少，因此在公共场合提供照明不会给多少人造成损失。相比之下，有许多活动我们不希望在被人拍摄或监控，比如说同性之间的接吻，因为它对某些人来说就意味着‘出柜’。一个监控无处不在的世界实在令人不寒而栗。”

    唉，在后斯诺登时代，这样的担心似乎有些落伍了。毕竟，要想避开街道拐角处的监控摄像头，只要躲进室内就可以了。而跟踪记录用户活动以备将来未知方检查用户电子邮件、博客、照片和Twitter的智能手机就没那么容易对付了。

    不管怎样，我们已经进入了窥探被默认为无处不在的时代，而我们还没有开始分析它的含义。这是我从科恩的演讲——“伦理学家及律师的新衣：智能服装的戒律与道德准则”中学到的观点。本月底，这个演讲将在拉德克利夫学院的官网上供人们免费观看。

    为了配合演讲的需要，科恩演讲当天的穿着十分醒目。他身穿红鞋和超大红色眼镜，带领听众了解了最新的可穿戴监控技术，其中包括谷歌眼镜（Google Glass）、功能齐全的钮扣摄像机以及可以织入衣服里的无线射频识别（RFID）芯片。

    科恩拿莎士比亚的作品《威尼斯商人》（The Merchant of Venice）进行了类比。这部作品中的情节发生在两个城市，威尼斯以及威尼斯附近的贝尔蒙特。前者是商业和贪婪的温床，后者则是主人公们追寻爱情和艺术的避风港。科恩警告称，就算我们不把手机带在身上，智能服装也可能“毁掉我们的避风港”。“有时候，我们总想疯狂一把。很多人都有自己想做或想尝试的事情，但如果事事都被记录在案，他们可能就不会付诸行动了。”

    法律能保护我们吗？科恩认为，我们不该指望法律，因为“大部分针对私人监控的行为永远不会曝光，因此可能永远不会有人提起起诉。”科恩更希望看到企业带头，将隐私保护融入技术中，依靠所谓的西海岸代码，也就是硅谷发明和实施的技术，而不是东海岸代码，也就是华盛顿制定的法律。

    但这样的话，我们必须信任这些公司。我们可以对此心怀乐观吗？科恩承认说：“我本人不乐观。”（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    Here's a question, privacy hounds: Is the video-surveillance system that blankets Manhattan from Midtown to the Battery, river to river, really not so different from an earlier anti-crime innovation, street lights? That's what Richard Daddario, deputy commissioner for counterterrorism under former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, once told me. Street lights mean criminals can't operate with impunity under cover of darkness. Cameras, same principle, slightly extended.

    "That comparison seems a bit disingenuous and silly," according to Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School, who spoke about privacy and technology recently at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Cambridge, and corresponded with me afterward by e-mail. "Lights don't have the potential for 'function creep' whereby they are introduced for one purpose but then used for something quite different in the future, like social security numbers. Lights are temporary in their effect and don't record what we do for the indefinite future. Finally, there are few activities that people actually want to do in the dark in public, so losing darkness is not a loss to many people, if anyone. By contrast, there are many activities we want to undertake without being recorded and watched -- a same-sex kiss, for example, for someone stepping out of the closet -- that a world of total surveillance would chill."

    In the post-Snowden era, alas, such concerns can seem almost quaint. A street-corner surveillance camera, easily evaded by ducking indoors, is one kind of intrusion. A smartphone that tracks our movements and hoards for future inspection by parties unknown our emails, blog posts, photos and tweets, is something else altogether.

    Like it or not, we have entered the era of assumed ubiquitous snooping, and we have not begun to parse the implications. That was my takeaway from Cohen's lecture, "The Ethicist's and the Lawyer's New Clothes: The Law and Ethics of Smart Clothes," which will be available for free streaming by month's end on the Institute's website.

    Cohen, himself dressed smartly for the occasion in red shoes and oversized red glasses, led us on a tour of the latest in wearable surveillance technology, including Google Glass, fully functional button cameras, and radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that can be woven into our clothing.

    Cohen drew an analogy with Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where the action takes place in two locales: Venice itself, a hotbed of commerce and greed; and nearby Belmont, the refuge to which the protagonists escape for love and art. Smart clothes threaten to "disrupt the place of refuge," even when we leave our phones behind. "At some point we squeeze out the space for living a life," he warned. "Lots of people have things they want to do and try but wouldn't if everything was archived."

    Can the law protect us? We shouldn't count on it, Cohen thinks, given that "most acts of private surveillance will never be detected, and therefore will likely never have a legal claim." He'd rather see business take the lead and bake privacy protection right into the technology -- so-called West Coast Code, devised and implemented in Silicon Valley, as opposed to East Coast Code, or laws made in Washington.

    But then we have to trust the companies. Are we optimistic? "I'm not," Cohen admitted.