In a regular game I play in the GM has this perception that everything from people's glasses to cybereyes to micro cameras in every nook and crany are constantly recording. There are examples in the book where it implies this is certainly possibleAs a result, almost every run seems to lead to police getting loads of information about you, and even if you had your face covered they always seem to have resources to help them pinpoint who you are (for e.g. gait recognition software).

As a result the team seems to have to resort to awful practices sometimes of ripping out people's cybereyes (if they couldn't be hacked) to try and clean up their trail.

What I want to know is how people handle this? Is the interpretation that all devices from camera to shower curtains can provide information to police/corp security?

The way I run my games is that people tend to not just walk around recording and if guns start firing they just run away, CCTV is only located in certain areas and 9/10 unless police apprehend someone at the scene they can't be bothered doing any investigation.

I'd also like to know what characters do to avoid detection. Yes we can all wear balaclavas(?) or stealth technology. But what about runs that rely heavily on subterfuge (e.g. pretending to be cleaners to get into a building).

Glasses, no, as they do not, nor as I am aware of, cannot have any kind of recording capabilities. Cybereyes, as of SR4, come with image recording stock.

And as someone else here put it once, "Big Brother's got ADHD and is on sensory overload."

A lot of it has to do with a realistic approach to the technology as defined in the game world.

Yes, all cybereyes have cameras - but that doesn't mean I always have them on - we all carry cameras around every day with us, but we don't record everything - we wait until something interesting happens.

What kind of runs do you send your players on? For my group, we are not breaking into Yamatetsu's home office, it is usually smaller, less well protected sites.

In this case, you can expect cameras at the entrances, perhaps one in the lobby, and that's about it.

That being said, if you are going to go into a corporate building, there is going to be some film on you, unless you go in through an air duct, or disable the cameras, or edit the film afterwards.

If you are going to pull a job downtown, expect there to be cameras all around you - there are plenty of cities with today's level of technology that have tons of cameras to record events - and this is without drones flying around recording things.

Now, as for whether or not Lone Star pulls the footage - that is going to depend on the crime. Did you murder a well connected member of the community? Damn straight they are pulling the footage. Did you rob a liquor store? Maybe - depends how busy they are.

Obviously the rating of the neighborhood matters as well. We run in Denver, so if you are in the Aurora Warrens, most of the CCTV cameras are no longer functioning, and the Star doesn't really patrol there. Unless you are packing mil-spec gear and armor, I wouldn't expect a response from the law (you might get push back from some Vory or other organized crime, however, if you hit one of their establishments.)

For me, as a GM, the idea is that you should look at what the players are planning to do, think about it in a realistic manner, and then proceed accordingly. A healthy dose of common sense will usually see your way through the situation.

Why not? Wireless/Skinlink feed to the Comlink, and your Comlink has effectively unlimited storage. Voila... Storage for Glasses in Record Mode.

What do the glasses have to actually capture an image with?

Now take a sensor tag with a camera in it, hide it on the bridge of your glasses, and then skinlink it to your commlink to record.

If you're playing 4th edition invest in either a camera neutralizer (Arsenal) or a camera burner (Spy games).
Use personasofts to change your gait during runs.
Use a voice mask when on runs.
Encrypt your communications.
Remind your GM not to be a douchebag, you're trying to play a fun game and he's getting too bogged down by trees to see the forest. Also, remind him of the posts above mine.

These are available now.

Imagine where our technology will be in the future.. just sayin.

Shadowrun has introduced omnipresent recording, but this is mitigated by three things.

First, glut of information. Sure, you have the runner's (current) faces or gait patterns, and there might be a match for them somewhere, but with everything recording and storing data, wading through all of it is an arduous task. How often will they bother with that, in a world where shadowrunning is part of the accepted price of doing business, when those freelancers won't have the prototype any longer, or be able to tell you who hired them to get it, and their company might hire the same crew of misfits to hit their competitor next week? They might make a bit more effort if there was enough wanton destruction involved that they need to make an example of the perps.

Second, data balkanization. Data is hoarded by corporations and other entities that are often hostile towards one another. If you think the runners who hit your company were the same ones who hit Renraku last week, good luck getting the security recordings from them to verify it. People in Shadowrun treat data as a commodity; it is traded or sold, but seldom given out for free.

Third, unreliable data. It is very easy to change visual or audio recordings. Was that footage showing the rumored assassin eating a bagel while the limo was being hit a solid alibi, or was it something spliced into the coffee shop's security footage? Note that the PCs can not only take advantage of this, but get burned by it, too. A company man wanting to turn up the heat doesn't have to catch them in wrongdoing; he can just doctor something up.

Everyone is always recording, but also everyone is running AR and more recently holographic stuff. So the fun thing is you don't need to walk down the street looking like yourself, you can have Super Saiyan hair and aura going in AR and Holo. You can add digital facial tats and makeup and stuff. Likewise with AR games, someone IN AR may not realize the people around him are shooting REAL guns until it wings him.

Your glasses don't have cameras in them?

This... Glyph has nailed it on the head. Unwired goes into this.

Honestly, as a GM?

I just ignore this. It is a concept that follows from where the worldbuilding's gone, yes, but it also makes the anonymous nature of shadowrunners essentially impossible. Any decent technomancer, or a low-rent AI / knowbot could index publicly available footage to track anyone fairly easily. After all, red light cameras and most people's PANs are essentially undefended.

I do wish they'd thought it through a bit more before writing it in, but I've been saying that since 4e released.

Correct me if im wrong but, from what I understand gait is the way you walk right? If so why do you need personasofts when you can just change it. I mean you can change the way you normally walk by actively thinking about it right? I'm guessing im wrong about the first sentence because otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

Because Gait is a generally unconscious thing, and while you can indeed change it, it is hard to maintain if you are not well trained at it. You will often find yourself reverting subconsciously to your normal gait. A Personafix will take care of that for you. A Good Disguise will too, but you will likely be constantly rolling it, and as a result, you are more likely to fail at it.

Easiest way to fool gait analysis, put a couple of pebbles in your shoes.

Indeed... As mentioned, there are ways to alter your gait. Some work better than others.

Check out Runners Companion p. 20-35. The Survival Tips chapter has information about staying off the grid, bypassing security systems, and avoiding Big Brother's 24/7 surveillance net.

Forgot about that one... Yep, good resource.

+1

I would also add one important factor: Too Much Crime. The world of Shadowrun is NOT today + 60 years or so. The 6th world is a fucked up hellhole awash with violent crime. People have long stopped trying to prevent, punish or stop crime - there is too much of it. Instead, people do their damnest to ignore it, or to push all that crime where they aren't. Police forces are woefully inadequately staffed to investigate and hunt down criminals. As a Shadowrunner, so long as you manage that fine balancing act where you don't piss of the target SO MUCH as to get your own personal kick squad assigned to hunting you down, you can pretty much expect 0 repercussions.

Soo just like Canada then? ;P

Not quite:

Link

EDIT: I couldn't help it. Just read the article this afternoon.

Also the fact that there are places like the Barrens in all major Sprawls. This means places where the powers that be have no control, only a faint idea of what's going on and where anyone they send won't be welcome. Someone disappearing inside the Barrens is just like someone going in hiding in North Korea or some remote place in the Columbian jungle, or Corsica.

That being said, its layered. You MIGHT get by in a mid-zone with criminal stuff if the watchers are too busy/etc. But if your target happens to be IMPORTANT, you can get disproportionate responses even in 'lower security' zones. Likewise if someone high up the food chain goes, FIGURE THIS OUT, people will hop to it, even if the busywork is a pain in the ass.

There was another factor I wanted to mention: Data Lazyness

The premise of Shadowrun is that you are a Shadowrunner, which is defined as someone that doesn't have a SIN.

This is important.

In the world of Shadowrun, the authorities rely on the fact you exist in the system under your SIN to track you down if you commit a crime (taking into consideration prior points about them not being able to investigate that much crime). If you don't have a SIN, they go "Duh.. what now??". I mean, they KNOW what now: you gotta get boots on the ground and do some old fashion investigative work. But, that's too much trouble, They can nab 5 criminals with SINs in the time it would take to nab 1 SINless. And, since security is private, it's "number of arrests" that count, no WHO you arrested. So if you're SINless, you're of course not impossible to find - just more difficult, and combining all other factors discussed, again, you're generally just not worth the effort.

Again, thouigh - all bets are off if you piss off the wrong person.

You kind of have to accept that all this information isn't actually accessible. You have to assume that it isn't all being collected and having big data algorithms run on it constantly to find abnormalities, to assign faces to SINs, to detect every SINless, and to profile people. Given all the other facts about the setting, of course this would be happening. But then Shadowrunning becomes impossible.

So, just assume that people aren't recording everything and that Lone Star or the Corps can't slurp all that data up to run analysis. People or agents have to do it the slow way.

Or it could very well be accessible, but only in part. And all of those that have the parts aren't sharing with anyone, so no one can make a complete picture.

That being said, if you're going out in your runner 'personae' and have it look like your 'off duty/hiding' personae, you're asking for trouble Almost Distinctive Quality type of flaw.

In my group it's assumed that unless otherwise stated everyone has bought hits on their disguise checks for the entire run. It cuts down on the unnecessary dice rolling and means that people don't have to say 'I come to the meet wearing a disguise' at the start of every session.

Everyone in the game I am playing has some sort of shadowrun "how to shadowrun 101" type knowledge skill to know what to do and what not to do and the requisite Active Skills to back it up. Whether it is Countersurveillance Techniques or Espionage Tradecraft to the catch-all Shadowrunner Lore, I think that it is an essential Knowledge skill to have.