 Badges with eyes, killing the guards won't help |
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 May 16 2005, 09:51 PM
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#26
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Manus Celer Dei  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802  |
No need for execution, there are any number of indiscretions or illegal acts that a camera on a badge could catch that the guard could either be bribed to forget or discredited enough to be rendered irrelevant. When compared to the minimal benefit, no corp of major size is likely to risk it.
~J |
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May 16 2005, 10:49 PM
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#27
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
Institutionalized indiscretions and illegal acts hould be commited behind closed doors anyway. If the are on par with corp policy than it woldn't be difficult to bury, delete, or edit the video evidence. Personal indiscretions of low and mid level management and employees won't be of any concern to the corporation. Personal illegal acts of such employees will be, however. Any corp would want such acts to be punished since they disrupt the day to day operations of the corporation. For the Personal illegal acts of high level executives there may be some offical coverup but even the highest executives eventually have to answer to the Board of Directors and the stockholders. However, very few guards will be in a position to witnesses institutionalized crimes or the crimes of the highest ranking executives. Those that are would be chosen for their discression and would probably not wear any recording device. Most guards at most facilities would simply be expected to deal with average citizens on a daily basis and these average citizens will be expected to behave according to the law. In the Arcologies and similar facilities security is really a police force. Most of them will never see a corporate crime greater than an exec's kid spraying some grafitti or witness an indecression greater than some middle manager getting drunk and throwing a frying pan at his boyfriend. In the case of A or smaller corps the imortance of video is even greater. If a security guard in a major talismonger chain catches a shoplifter he'll need more evidence than just his word to get UCAS courts to convict. |
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May 17 2005, 03:44 PM
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#28
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Target Group: Members Posts: 66 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 582 |
Ok, here's where I have to disagree. Just because it's a mega-corp does not mean that it is evil on all aspects. Yes, mega-corps make their own laws. That apply to their employees. Which INCLUDES privacy laws. Which the upper levels of management will routinely ignore, yes. However - the average, every-day corp citizen is still governed by those laws. The vast majority of the employees will be subject to and bound by those laws. The level at which these badges would be implemented would also be subject to those laws. I do agree that anything that comes about from this type of monitoring that has real potential to damage the mega-corp would be suppressed, but the type of stuff that would provoke a privacy complaint (bathroom or bedroom monitoring, or private, personal conversations) would fall far short of the 'need to suppress' requirement, and would be handled under the privacy laws within that mega-corp's justice system. There's also the situation where one of these badges records something that is not on corp territory that concerns a non-corp citizen. Making the (rather-large) assumption that this recording somehow gets into the hands of the local government, via subpoena or other means, then the local privacy laws would be in effect. Plus, just to nitpick - extra-territoriality only applies to those countries that have extra-terriotoriality agreements with the corporation. There are still a few hold-outs that assert geographical control. Generally, mega-corps don't operate there, but a few exceptions still exist in those places where the business is lucrative enough to warrant the lapse of control. I'm not going to say that a mega-corp won't try and most often succeed in finding a way around any privacy laws that they feel like ignoring. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, and that the corp isn't beholden to them. |
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May 17 2005, 05:20 PM
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#29
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 142 Joined: 29-November 02 Member No.: 3,660 |
Actually I have absolutely no idea why no one bothered to write this in for Lone Star long ago . :please:
Tie it in with the Doc Wagon tag they have to have as standard issue and the black box idea is a no brainer . Just have it activate when the Doc tag goes off . Edit cause my Spell checker is goofy like that . |
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May 19 2005, 01:50 PM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 518 Joined: 24-February 03 From: Tucson Member No.: 4,153 |
He who has the gold, makes the rules. Mega-corps with extra-t can pick, choose, bend or break whatever rules they wish. Don't believe me? It's in the fine print at the bottom of the contract you signed when you became a wage slave. ;) If some mid-level manager thinks that cameras in the badges will help make him look more efficient, gather more evidence, and therefore increase his promotability... what do you think is going to happen? And he'll justify any "privacy" breaches with protecting the bottom line... if the corp has any privacy rules... which they probably don't. A wageslave is corp owned property and subject to observation at any time to make sure such assets are protected and secure. Evil has nothing to do with it. It's all about protecting the bottom line in the corps eyes. |
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May 19 2005, 03:24 PM
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#31
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 586 Joined: 22-November 02 From: Gordonsville, Virginia, U.S.A. (or C.A.S.) Member No.: 3,630 |
What was that line from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)?
Ah, NOW I remember: Gold Hat (Alfonso Bedoya): "Badges? We ain't got no stinkin' badges! We don't NEED no stinkin' badges! I don't got to show you no stinkin' badges!" Sorry, folks, but it seemed appropriate. :) Seriously, though: there are digital cameras NOW that are almost that small--small enough to fit inside a medium-sized fountain pen or a wristwatch, at any rate. I see no reason why technology wouldn't advance enough in the next fifty to sixty-five years (depending upon the version of SR you use) to make such things a possibility. Given the fact that there are currently cellular telephones with built-in digital cameras, and the ability to send images as part of a text message, I would think that a miniaturized camera (either still or video, and with or without sound) small enough to fit behind a security officer's badge would be relatively easy to come by--that is, something that could be specially made, if it weren't already standard issue. After all, people probably laughed at whoever it was that first proposed the idea of putting video cameras in police vehicles--but nobody's laughing now, except whoever's getting money out of it. He or she is probably laughing all the way to the bank. ;) --Foreigner This post has been edited by Foreigner: May 19 2005, 03:27 PM |
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May 19 2005, 04:27 PM
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#32
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Corporations are not people, they are made of people. Corporations will absolutely care about the personal indiscretions of anyone with any power whatsoever, because the people along the chain will care about it, because they will want any information or blackmail ammunition they can get. They will also have a great interest in their own illegal acts, specifically ensuring that those illegal acts go unseen. It's an unacceptable risk for a minimal benefit. Being investigated because of camera data is far worse than having a few prototypes stolen or a few dozen guards slaughtered. ~J |
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May 19 2005, 05:07 PM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 139 Joined: 6-February 05 Member No.: 7,059 |
First off, I think the sheer cost of implementing this technology is what makes it unlikely. You're gonna need some serious storage space to hold all that visual information, even more if you include audio. Okay, you can dump it every 48 hours or whatever, a small security force might implement that. But Lone Star? No frikkin' way, there's way too many cops out there and way too much information to try and store. Plus, give it a month or two (or less) and it would be easy for runners/deckers to crack it, thereby making it worthless at a large scale. Yeah, it might help in traffic stop situations like regular cops use now with car mount cameras, but Lone Star doesn't handle traffic violations anymore, they let the Grid Guide take care of all that. Plus, this kind of thing can be horribly abused. All you have to do is crack the frequency and then fake the images and bam, instant frame-up for anyone carrying one of these things. Plus, you're gonna have to trust the person handling all this information, and how likely is that? And who says someone is going to take out a sec-guard from directly in front of them, anyway, where the camera will be facing? And if this stuff were implemented, how far would the bean counters take it? You're already sticking a camera and a tracking signal in a badge ($$$), why not make it even more cost effective and put security codes in there, too? Opps, another way for runners to pervert the intended uses of the badges.
As for the biometric readers, no go on that bad boy also. I believe biometric readers for Docwagon don't come into play until Platinum or Super Platinum service, which means it must cost mucho bucks for that kind of thing to be made effective at long ranges. Put that into context, just how many folks out in the 6th world get Docwagon Platinum or Super Plat? Regular Docwagon service depends upon a oneway cell wristband that the customer must activate themselves, which I'd guess is also rare in that society. Just because shadowrunners make Docwagon a standard purchase doesn't mean Joe Average is going to, not by a long shot. It is plausible that a small security force tied to a site might implement this camera/tracker/biometric reader, but I don't think a municipal security force ever would. It's too expensive and too easy to muck with. You've got to weigh cost effectiveness with real world effectiveness. Granted, maybe someone like the Aztlan Jaguar Gaurds or Tir Ghosts may have this kind of thing going while guarding a home base or on a black ops mission, but no way is this going to be standard in regular security tasks. Don't get me wrong, it is a cool idea, but just unlikely to be used outside of high, high priority security jobs. |
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May 19 2005, 07:03 PM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 320 Joined: 13-August 02 From: Austin, Republic of Texas (not CAS) Member No.: 3,094 |
there is another factor I have not seen mentioned here. Most cops don't want security cameras, it implies that they are not trustworthy of the work themselves.
Many cops were unhappy with the cameras in the cars when those went into effect, it was the public who was demanding them, not the cops. those cameras make sure that if the cop does do anything even a little wrong, that it will be scrutinized after the fact. Any little slip up can be used as an out, even in the corporate world, a good lawyer can use that footage as much against the corp as it would to help them catch the runners. which it wouldn't really help them do. the runners are not going to be any more covered on the badge camera as they would on any other camera. so all you get is a buch of cops/gaurds who feel like they are not being respected. and that is bad for morale. it is really better in the secret Mega world for your gaurds to have the most discretion to do there jobs as possible. if you don't trust there judgement and there words, than you fire them. If they said that the guy they shot was a runner out to do a terrorist act, it's actuallyh in the corps best intrest to make that version true, even if it wasn't what actually happens. as long as the gaurd/cops have the last word, than the corp can spin it to there advantage, even in death. They can make a dead gaurd an "industrial Accident" if that would be better for PR - as long as there is no evidence suggesting otherwise. -fahr |
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May 19 2005, 11:58 PM
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#35
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
That would make sense if megacorps didn't use any security cameras anywhere. However, they do. Most guards are never going to have the opportunity to see anything compromising and most guards are never going to see a shadowrunner just like most police officers today will never have a reason to fire their weapons in the line of duty. The point is to have evidence that can be used against average perptrators, shoplifters, and such. What are the chances that the guy guarding an arcology clothing store from shoplifters will ever see the corporate President giving out bribes or ordering extralegal actions? That kind of stuff happens in clodes boardrooms and private offices, not public clothing stores. By the same token, corrput officals today don't fear cameras in police patrol cars because t hey wouldn't be stupid enough to accept bribes while a patrol cars are parked in their offices. |
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May 20 2005, 03:20 AM
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#36
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Security cameras are stationary. They're a known quantity, and they don't have habits of potentially going out of their way to spy on odd goings-on.
~J |
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May 20 2005, 05:08 AM
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#37
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
If the security guards are spying on you then they can just get their own cameras. If they're using your cameras then you have control of the recording. It is still a good idea in places where they cannot possibly see anything they shouldn't see. |
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May 20 2005, 05:12 AM
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#38
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,013 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
If you're a middle manager or an upper manager with enemies, they aren't your cameras.
Corporations are not monolithic. High-ranking people within a corporation are still at risk from that corporation's assets. ~J |
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