Police Brutality & Misconduct | Bell Legal Group

"Up-skirting" refers to the use of video equipment to peek up women's skirts. These voyeurs may use them solely for their personal enjoyment, or may aggravate their criminality by posting them on websites or selling them to porn producers.

"Down-blousing" refers to the use of video technology to look down a woman's blouse without her knowledge.

Up-skirting and down-blousing have become a popular trend on college campuses and city streets.

Beginning around 2002, "up-skirt" and "down-blouse" images have been a driving force behind a wave of state, local, and federal legislation. Shortly after the introduction and subsequent widespread proliferation of camera phones, these sorts of privacy crimes almost became a national epidemic.

Lamentably, police officers also have used video surveillance cameras to engage in such conduct.

The Web can also be a dangerous surveillance tool in the hands of a criminal. Critically-acclaimed news magazine 20/20 recently did a special on identity thefts. Investigative reporters discovered the existence of literally hundreds of identity information "cyber flea markets." These illegal online "identity superstores" found thieves illegally selling everything from social security numbers, to credit card info, to web domains and "secured" banking statements.

Police surveillance – like racial profiling - can also be discriminatory in nature. Perhaps retail stores in certain communities are heavily monitored, whereas in others they are hardly monitored at all. This might be fine and good – save for the fact that the levels of surveillance have no correlation to the level of actual crime or need of the respective communities. Such arbitrary monitoring may be beginning to rise to level of surveillance abuse in the public consciousness.

Electronic Spamming. Spam is basically junk email. However, experienced hackers and identity thieves can use spam get personal information. Spammers can find out what websites you visit, what online shopping you do, and who you chat with, to name a few things. This kind of "cyber-surveillance" can be very effective in obtaining personal information. So you need to protect yourself.

Believe it or not, there is no limit to where technology hackers will go to get your personal information without your knowledge. Right now, hackers are fiendishly working to break security codes installed in GPS devices. Why? So they can get a record of where you travel, what stores you shop in, and when you're going to be out of town. All this information can be used to steal your property or identity.

A good rule of thumb is: "If it has a chip, its security can be tripped!"

Remember that any device that enables someone to "see" you – whether they see the "physical" you or a "digital" you – may put you at risk of being the victim of a surveillance crime.

A new, high-tech style of ATM surveillance abuse involves the installation of a magnetic card reader over the real ATM's card slot. The criminal can then use a wireless surveillance camera or a modified digital camera to observe the user's PIN. Once the card data is cloned onto a second card, the criminal can make standard cash withdrawals. The availability of low-cost commodity wireless cameras and card readers has made it a relatively simple form of fraud, with comparatively low risk to criminals.

Electronic toll readers, such as the EZ Pass system, gather account information about drivers who use toll roads. Although modern technological advances make life more convenient, remember our rule: "If it has a chip, security can be tripped!"

In fact, most people do not know that electronic tolling is only a small part of a much larger Department of Transportation Intelligent Transport System. The EZ Pass technology can be used not only for toll collection, but for automated vehicle registration and identification.

Traffic surveillance cameras are used to do everything from monitor vehicle speeds to providing surveillance for high drug transaction areas. Once again, though the intended purpose of such technology is to benefit individuals, they can be misused to violate privacy.

Web cameras ("webcams") are real-time vide cameras whose photos can be uploaded onto the Internet. These cameras allow users to reproduce video images on their computer, much in the same way that a camcorder allows them to reproduce videos on a digital video recording device.

Unfortunately, some software programs and viruses can allow malicious hackers to activate a computer's camera without the user's knowledge. This can provide the hacker with a live video feed from the user's camera. Although some webcam manufacturers are creating technology to thwart this, the potential for privacy intrusion still remains.

In mid-January 2005 some search engine queries were published in an on-line forum which would allow anyone to find thousands of high-end web cameras accessible through the web. Many such cameras are running on an automated configuration which does not require any password login or IP address verification. This makes them visible to almost anyone.