How Many Times was your Picture Taken Today?

Having been inspired by the Surveillance Camera Players, I took a look at the environment around my workplace to see what the security camera situation was near me. The results are interesting, if not sobering.

The Scenario: It's raining. I walk halfway to my building, then duck in a side entrance to the "esplinade" and walk indoors to avoid the rain. Much like it was raining this morning.. The distance is about two city blocks.



Normally I walk outside the entire way, but the cold rain wasn't comfortable. So our count starts as soon as I make the right in the first picture, above.



Eight feet inside the entrance is our first camera (above). A small security cam in a black opaque dome. It is angled to view people entering and exiting the doorway. I wave!



At the first corner (above) I see our second camera, what I call an "Angled drop ceiling" cam, designed to look down long hallways. It's pointing in the direction I'm walking.

I make a left, moving out of Cam 2's range of vision.



Camera 3 is a real oddball, being perched on top of a cellular phone display. I'm not sure if it's there only for the cellular display or for the entire surrounding area. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Rounding the corner from Camera 3, in about fifty feet, I encounter a security multi-screen flat panel dropped from the ceiling, giving a live view of several cams.



The display indicates 11 live views in real time. Hard to make out from the distance it's displayed...



Fifty feet down and around the bend, another look-down-the-hallway cam, probably broadcasting to that monitor we just passed. Is my hair okay?

Camera 4 has me in its sights all the way down the hall, where I do a dog leg and ..



.. followed quickly by camera 5, angled to see me LEAVE the little underground area I'm passing through...

At which point I'm outside, crossing a street...



To be greeted by:



It's CAMERA SIX! Cheeeeeeeeese!



Camera 7 is the most normal looking surveillance camera of the whole lot.. shooting down a long gallery...

I go about 75 to 100 feet, crossing right around a corner, and leaving Cam 7's viewpoint, only to be picked up by...



Camera 8 of course.. a non-descript, larger black globe surveillance cam. Hard to figure out which direction it's pointing, but likely towards the entrace I'm about to walk out of, to cross the street to my building.

Where....



Camera 9 recorded me walking down the street in front of my building.

Going through the front door, I immediately encountered Camera 10, which looks just like Camera 8. I don't work in an environment where I can take pictures indoors (security is stringent, and a fellow walking around taking pictures of security cameras sends just the right sort of signal to create a paranoid reaction), though, so just imagine it. That makes TEN TIMES IN A TWO BLOCK WALK.

Now the other day I made a similar journey and thought I had counted closer to TWENTY cameras. On closer inspection some of these were fire control systems in opaque domes and motion control sensors for automatic doors, which look a lot like cameras. I undoubtedly missed a few cameras I didn't take a picture of. However, the ones pictured here are most definitely ACTIVE and sending live signals.

Food for thought?