Webcams - Life Savers or Privacy Breakers?

Today’s papers are reporting the amazing story of a lost German photographer in the North west of the country saved by a woman watching the same sunset he was there to photograph from her home some 500km’s away. The lady was watching the sunset from a webcam set up on the remote beach when she saw glimpses of the lost man’s torch. He started flashing his torch in the hope of being spotted by someone much closer I expect.

The woman spotted the flashes, assumed someone was in trouble and alerted the police who guided the photographer to safety. He was lost when the sun went down and he lost the coast as it was covered in snow.

So all’s well that ends well and a story that could have had a different ending, but what does this mean for us?

It’s great that we now have the technology to stay at home and watch the sunset 500km’s away. We can stay in our lounge room, nice and warm and watch the snow fall on a remote mountain peak, or get dressed up or down and watch dancers at a full moon party on a beach far from home. And maybe the guy will take up this approach instead of traipsing around in the dark next time, but what about the dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of people out there doing more sinister things with their web cam viewings?

What if you’re spotted by your vegetarian girlfriend scoffing down a Big Mac and large fries when on a trip to the shops to get milk? Or seen by your boss sitting front row at the Australian Open final when you should have been in the office? Luckily for the lost photographer, who by all accounts wasn’t doing anything wrong, but what about us poor other innocents just trying to get a bit of pleasure in our ordinarily normal lives?

Not that our bosses or girlfriends catching us eating a fake meat paddy or perving up some girls tennis skirt is all that sinister, after all they’re entitled to know where we are, aren’t they? It’s the sicko’s sitting at home getting all sweaty over some webcam footage of someone eating their lunch in a park that bothers me.

But let’s not go there...

Where’s our privacy gone, where has the odd sneaky day off gone? Soon we will have to sneak out torches off, under the cover of darkness and drive for miles into some far off national park for a sickie. But then again, national parks will more than likely be linked via webcam set up to monitor the annual migration of some bush rodent from one hole to another.

So even the bush will be off limits. At least if we get lost, they may be able to find us.

If someone is actually watching.

And I guess that’s the thing. There are people who sit at their computer screens and watch web cams waiting for something to happen. What’s wrong with these people? Unless you’re a security guard, no one should have a job watching web cam footage. Nor should it be a hobby!

Now there’s an out for the Macquarie banker recently spotted looking at half naked shots of Miranda Kerr whilst his colleague was doing a live recording about the latest Australian Interest rates. He was watching web cam footage to make sure her shoot was going ok and she wasn’t in danger of getting lost.

I’ve seen those shots and I’m sure she’s carrying a torch, so there’s a strong possibility she was worried about getting lost.

So good for him for keeping an eye out.

Back to the lady who kindly saved the lost man last night. Good for her, and we should all be happy there are still concerned citizens in the world, but why was she at home watching web cams?

Let’s not go there either...