"I'll be watching you": What do Canadians know about video surveillance and privacy?

The growth of video surveillance systems and their augmentation by biometric and smart algorithms has significant implications for personal privacy. The growth of ICT networks and technologies such as face recognition make it increasingly important for people to know their personal information rights. Our project assesses what citizens know about the privacy implications of developing video surveillance technologies. We have three key questions: 1. What do Canadians know about their visual (video) information privacy rights?; 2. Does information about the current technologies and capabilities change people’s perspectives on visual privacy policy?; and 3. What information do people need? Three research stages are planned: interviews regarding video surveillance, workshops and round-table discussions on visual information policy, and a Public Forum to promote discussion among stakeholders including citizens, government agencies, vendors, academics, civil society, and media. This Research Note summarizes the project and reports on preliminary findings from 126 interview participants.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe