David Welly Sombra Rodrigues, a 35-year-old French teacher, loves to travel. After the pandemic forced him to offer language lessons online, he seized the moment and moved from Brazil to Europe. So he was overjoyed to hop on a train to a new city and documented it all on his Instagram.
Earlier this month, a photo he took in Ireland went viral for his over 7,000 Instagram followers. But he didn’t realize it until his friend sent him a message. news article about “follower‘ digital art project showed just how many images can be captured by sending a webcam broadcast from a public place.
The artist combined Instagram photos with video footage showing the process of shooting them. The artist didn’t include the Instagram user’s name or handle, but Rodriguez’s friends were aware of him, of course.
In Rodriguez’s case, a webcam operated by a company called EarthCam captured a seemingly nonchalant photo of him leaning against the distinctive bright red entrance of Dublin’s Temple Bar. He experimented with several angles and poses, changed his outfit slightly, and finally added props. An expensive pint of beer from a famous pub. Articles about the project misrepresented the subject matter of the work, including Mr. Rodriguez. @avecdavidwelly As an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. However, most of them were typical social media users with a much smaller audience.
“I was completely shocked. I had no idea someone was recording me,” Rodriguez said in a Zoom interview.
Dries Depoorter, the artist behind “The Follower,” said his project showcases both the sophistication of images on social media and the dangers of increasingly automated forms of surveillance.
“If one person can do this, what can the government do?” said 31-year-old Depoter.
“Broadcast live from Times Square in NYC!”
Based in Ghent, Belgium, Depoorter came up with the idea for “The Follower” about a month ago. Another Art At the time, he was investigating cameras that he had privately installed in public places that he might use for his projects. While watching a live online feed from Times Square, I saw a woman taking pictures of herself “for a long time.” Thinking she might be an influencer, he recently tried to find the product of her long shoot among her Instagram photos geotagged in The Times Square.
He felt empty, but it made him think.
24/7 Broadcast Depoorter Saw — TitledLive from Times Square, New York!— provided by EarthCam, a New Jersey company that specializes in real-time camera feeds. EarthCam has built a network of live-streaming webcams that it says “takes people to interesting and unique places around the world that may be difficult or impossible to experience first-hand.” its websiteFounded in 1996, EarthCam monetizes its cameras through advertising and licensing of footage.
Depoorter realized he could come up with automated ways to combine the photos people posted on Instagram with these public cameras. So, over the course of his two weeks, he collected footage of his EarthCam broadcast online from Times Square in New York, Wrigley Field in Chicago and Temple in Dublin.
Rand Hammoud, an anti-surveillance activist at Access Now, a global human rights group, said the project shows how people are often unknowingly filmed by surveillance cameras and how automated biometric scanning technology It shows how easy it has become to string those movements together using .
“A dystopian reality exists now that many people are unaware of,” Hammoud said.
Hammoud, who is based in Brussels, was most annoyed by the unwitting broadcast of people’s activities in public spaces. Hammoud said EarthCam needs to rethink the risks of live-his streaming, given the power of surveillance technology that’s been made public.
“These cameras no longer serve the purpose they were used to many years ago,” says Hammoud. “I can track people”
EarthCam declined to answer questions about its cameras and how they could pose a risk to the privacy of individuals captured by the cameras in an era of stronger biometric tracking technology. , Simon Kerr, said only that Depoorter “is using EarthCam images and videos without permission, and such use violates our copyright.”
Depoorter said his project is not about the specific company that made it possible. “It’s not just EarthCam,” he said. “There are a lot of unprotected cameras all over the world.”
invade someone’s privacy
While recording feeds from EarthCam, Depoorter simultaneously downloaded public photos from Instagram where users had tagged those locations.
Instagram discourage Collect tons of photos from the platform. “Collecting information in an automated manner” is a violation of our Terms. terms of service You can ban users.
“We reached out to the artist to learn more about the work and understand his process,” said Thomas Richards, a spokesperson for Meta, which operates Instagram. Protecting people’s information when sharing it is a top priority for us.”
After collecting data from EarthCam and Instagram, the hard part was finding the right person to stick the needle into the digital haystack.
Depoorter used to go art project About the amazing gaze of public cameras that had to create software to organize a lot of video footage. Last year he said,Scroller of Flanderstagged Belgian politicians on social media When I looked down at my phone during a parliamentary session that was broadcast live on YouTube. Before that, he had used an open surveillance camera to spot a jaywalker ignoring red lights. he sold online About the cost of the fines that the rogue would suffer if he were caught.
To search for faces in Instagram photos in EarthCam footage, Depoorter turned to open source facial recognition software. The code for this software can be found on sites such as GitHub.
“It’s not perfect,” he said. He had to manually review proposed matches extensively to find an exact match.As for the handful of people he chose to include in his “followers”, he hoped diverse groupA couple kissing in Dublin, two friends strolling through Times Square, a woman with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. Depoorter said he had not been contacted beforehand and had not heard from anyone.
Former White House technical adviser and Brown University professor Suresh Venkatasubramanian found the project interestingly “disruptive,” demonstrating casual privacy violations possible with modern technology. said there is. But he said he was disturbed by Depoter’s deployment of surveillance on “random people.”
“You don’t break into someone’s house to show that it’s okay to break into someone’s house,” Mr Venkatasubramanian said. “Don’t do it unless asked”
Depoorter compiled the Instagram photos and accompanying surveillance footage into a YouTube video that was viewed more than 100,000 times before YouTube took it down.
It wasn’t caused by an invasion of privacy.Earthcam claimed ownership It said the YouTube video violated the company’s copyright.
Depoorter is trying to find a way to restore the video. Lawyers said he converted surveillance footage, placed his AI-powered bounding boxes around people in a short clip, and displayed the footage alongside his Instagram portraits, which was legally protected. I advised it was fair use.
spontaneous subject
Depoorter is based in the EU, which has strict privacy regulations called the General Data Protection Regulation to protect citizens’ personal data such as photos and biometric information. Omer Tene and Gabe Maldoff, privacy attorneys at law firm Goodwin, said the law has exceptions for artistic expression, but artists need to be careful about how their work affects subject matter. .
“I don’t think ‘art’ gives you a free pass,” Maldoff said.
Depoorter did not include the names or Instagram handles of the people he enlisted in the project.
Except for Mr. Rodriguez, he refused to identify them for the New York Times, provided that the New York Times would not write articles about Brazilian French teachers without Mr. Rodriguez’s express permission. did.
Rodriguez said he doesn’t mind being in the spotlight. “I love taking pictures. I love recording videos. I’m not obtrusive,” he explained.
Rodriguez has had an Instagram account for 10 years. He now uses it to promote his business, showing potential customers the experiences a new language might bring to them. He said he wouldn’t mind joining Mr. Depoorter’s project and was pleased with the increased exposure, about which he even posted on Instagram as a “story” that expires in 24 hours. .
Although he was worried that he might be spied on without his knowledge, he said there might be an advantage in showing what an Instagram post could hide.
“In front of the camera, you can lie, and that’s the point,” Rodriguez said. “You are not happy, but you show that you are happy.”
But that was not the case with him. That day in Dublin was “perfect” as he visited Temple his bar with his friends, followed by other pubs (not all documented on his Instagram). did.