Atlanta police are monitoring 3,000 video cameras in the city and hope to have 12,000 online by 2018.
"Between now and 2050 there is a very high likelihood, if you chose to, if you’re in a major metro, I could have eyes on you for 80 to 85 percent of the time that you move around," says Mayor Kasim Reed.
In fact, experts tell the AJC's Bill Torpy, that level of surveillance will be here long before 2050.
Reed talked of a theoretical young woman of the future who meets a man on a social media site, goes out on a date and uses an application on her phone that enables cops to keep tabs on her, even linking in with video cameras that she passes.
This scenario would theoretically keep her safe — or at least help police to more easily find her body.
“As people increasingly move into cities,” Reed said, “a number of individuals will opt into that approach, as long as they have the ability to turn it on and turn it off.”
And, “for the 15 percent of the time that you weren’t covered by video, there’s an algorithm that can predict where you were.”
So, like it or not, you're sharing your personal space with a highly impersonal camera.
Subscribers may read the full Bill Torpy at Large on our premium website, MyAJC.com.
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