New Legislation Would Ban Silent Camera Phones, Reveals the Need for Faster, Smarter Government
January 27 2009 / by Alvis Brigis
Category: Government Year: 2009 Rating: 2
When discussing accelerating change I often remind people that technology is a double-edged sword. Reinforcing this mantra, a new bill, the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, that would ban silent picture-taking via mobile phones to combat child exploitation has been presented to the U.S. House of Representatives.
The problem is legitimate and therefore requires what futurist John Smart would call an "immune system response", which may come in the form of a social, technological or hybrid solution.
But the proposed bill is invasive and a bit naive (not accel-aware) considering the quickly dropping component costs fueling an explosion in small devices sporting sophisticated cameras, video cameras and audio recording devices.
In other words, the problem is actually MUCH BIGGER than Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the author of the legislation, recognizes at this time.
In just a few years we'll have micro-devices capable of always-on, persistent video streaming. Many will argue that these are critical to their health (longitudinal life logs for doctors and software to analyze, prosthetic sensing for those who need it - or even those who don't), business (reality TV x 10, regional quantification efforts, selling feeds), education (process capture for superior feedback), social life (symbionts, real-time dating services), entertainment (mixing real-time feeds with other content, critical component of augmented reality), right to document history for future purposes and so forth.
On the flipside, this will further expand the abilities of predators, criminals and other social griefers. They'll be able to remotely operate arrays of micro-cams (a world of bugs), stalk people in new ways, hack massive amounts of personal data, etc.
In other words, both the risk and value creation made possible by cheap sensors and broadcasting devices are about multiply very, very quickly. Throw into the mix additional technologies that will spawn similar connondrums and it becomes clear that we're about to live through a never-before-seen, explosive capability expansion that requires lightning-quick adaptation.
Soon, governing bodies all across the world will be forced to quickly assess and regulate behaviors and technologies that can catalyze big growth but also may lead to big social costs. Despite Obama's initial forays into web-mediated Blitzkrieg government (which are a welcome step in the right direction), it seems that most of our existing institutions and governing structures are presently incapable of processing the socio-tech variables quickly enough to create legislation, anticipate new problems or even properly assess current problems accurately.
As we move into the Knee of the Curve, a decade of massive change, these governments will be forced to increase their speed of quantification, debate and legislative compromise, lest they fall behind the nations or regions that figure out how to more nimbly manage operations and business.
So when I look at King's legislation I can't help but visualize him poking a finger at an oncoming flood.
Ideally, he'd be pulling together futurists, stategic planners and industry people (probably through a customized web-based forum) to quickly establish the lay of the land and then to forecast the future opportunities and costs made possible by emerging personal broadcast technologies. Such a process would net not only a more accurate simulation of the situation, but would also generate powerful and elegant new solutions that may require advance action to properly enact.
But the reality is that we're nowhere near to implementing Fast Government. Still, the need for ultra-flexible assessment and decision-making is upon us.
(via CNET)
