New map allows users to report and view the location of security cameras. Some have raised privacy concerns. A Portland-area company has created a website that lets people view reported locations of now-ubiquitous surveillance cameras, including tens of thousands of the devices some estimates put in downtown Portland.
The effort is just getting started, with about 2, cameras reported in and around Oregon. The issue raises troubling privacy concerns for some, who say unchecked use of cameras can lead to warrantless tracking of almost anyone. Not only could privacy rights be easily violated, they say, but also such access would open a dangerous door to virtual stalking. However, support for constant monitoring of public places is quickly gaining popularity. A new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News shows a majority of Americans are comfortable with being watched by a phalanx of surveillance cameras when they are in public.
In the recent Boston Marathon bombings, such cameras proved hugely valuable in quickly identifying the suspects. Nor does it guarantee that the cameras mapped at various points are actually working, are pointed in any particular direction or even are accurately reported. Instead, Daniels said, it simply gives people scanning the website the knowledge that a camera might have captured a particular moment of time.
Cameras everywhere. The locations of the nearly 2, cameras statewide have been reported — through a function known as crowdsourcing — by site users who map them.
Of those, 1, are in Portland, mostly peppering the downtown core. Salem weighs in with camera locations. Another 40 have been mapped around Corvallis. Daniels, 42, founded VideoSurveillance.
