Marinas using cameras for rules enforcement

[Mike OReilly]

I do find it odd to think of a marina that bans pets like dogs and cats (I presume). Especially, dogs seem to go with boats.

Private owners can do whatever they want (within the bounds of certain laws), so if they don't like dogs, then they can be banned. But I've never been in a marina that does so. It would be a reason to avoid the place -- and I don't even own a dog.

As for the broader issue, I don't think any of us should just lightly accept the loss of privacy. It's always sold as a way to improve security, which is true in some cases, but not always. And once the cameras are in for "security" reasons, it's an easy step towards this kind of 'zero-tolerance' enforcement of private rules.

We are increasingly living in a panopticon of our own making.

[JPK]

Apologies for the terrible pun, but this ship has already sailed. As already pointed out, there are countless ways your movements, purchases, browsing history, driving habits (just to name a few) are being tracked every single day. Even our actions on this forum are being tracked. Private businesses have cameras, municipalities are increasingly installing cameras with face and license plate recognition, nearly every home has a Ring doorbell camera... I could go on and on. Like it or not, any notion of "privacy" is just a quaint and naive idea nowadays.

[wholybee]

I would be very relieved to be in a marina that doesn't allow dogs. Having had dogs use my boat as a toilet and dogs barking all night are worse than halyard slap. What happens when an excited dog runs down the dock and scares a kid and they fall in the water? With all due respect to dog owners that love their pets, I don't want them around my boat.

There has never been any assumption of privacy when you are in a public place. You really can't lose something that you never had.

[Shrew]

Think about the volume of data and time it takes to scour that data. There's 1440 minutes in a day. How fast can you reasonably FF through that content? Even at 10x, it would take 2.5 - 3 hours a day to scan the previous days video. Nobody is going to pay someone to spend 2.5-3 hrs a day scanning video for infractions.

Conclusion 1: They were looking specifically for that person.

Conclusion 2: They were likely observed, or observed and reported by a neighbor.

While Big Brother CAN watch, he rarely does. Don't give them a reason to go looking for problems.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Shrew

Think about the volume of data and time it takes to scour that data. There's 1440 minutes in a day. How fast can you reasonably FF through that content? Even at 10x, it would take 2.5 - 3 hours a day to scan the previous days video. Nobody is going to pay someone to spend 2.5-3 hrs a day scanning video for infractions.

Conclusion 1: They were looking specifically for that person.

Conclusion 2: They were likely observed, or observed and reported by a neighbor.

While Big Brother CAN watch, he rarely does. Don't give them a reason to go looking for problems.

That's my thought. If the management is going to sit there watching the cameras closely enough to start noticing every little thing, they'd likely be driving people crazy via other methods if they didn't have the cameras. For the most part, the cameras are there just in case, as looking through all of the video without something to prompt it would take up a lot of time (even if you're only looking at video where something is detected as moving).

[marcjsmith]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Leaving the dog home to go out on the boat for a few hours in one thing, but if we spend a weekend on the boat, or are leaving for a trip, the dog is coming with us. Plus, he absolutely loves the boat. So the idea of a marina banning pets would mean that marina is useless to us, as we'd have to either not have a dog, or we can't use boat for more than a few hours at a time.

or you find a marina that likes pets.

I was kinda referring to seeing pets everywhere and now the whole ESA craze home depot, grocery stores, pharmacy, restaurants...

dog lover and cat owner....

[CrispyCringle]

Maybe the dog owners in this case are not being good owners and not picking up, or the dogs are a yapping or nipping nuisance. There are lots of reasons this rule may suddenly be enforced. Since forever, it just takes one bad apple to ruin it for everyone.

No way they have time to stare at a monitor all day every day to catch every infraction. I doubt it will come up again once this situation is resolved.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by wholybee

There has never been any assumption of privacy when you are in a public place. You really can't lose something that you never had.

This is a ridiculous statement. Do you expect your social insurance number, your credit cards, your home address, your BMI, your... thousands of other data points ... to be available to everyone just because you are in a public place? Of course not. There are certain, very specific, privacy points we give up while in a public place. But the vast majority of our private lives remain private, and no one would expect otherwise.

Privacy is a bedrock of a free society. Yet we are all being slowly trained that it can't exist in this digital age. Utter BS! As a society, we can choose to put limits on tracking and constant surveillance. We are not yet in a totalitarian, authoritarian country. But we have to be willing to push back, and not just roll over.

Resistance is never futile.

Sorry... back to the question at hand. Dogs... surely it's not the dogs, is the bad behaviour of some dog owners. So why not focus on the behaviours. Obviously, no dog should be out of control of its owner. Nor should they be crapping on the dock, and not being cleaned up. Excessive noise past a certain time should never be allowed, whether it be from a dog, or a person.

[sailorboy1]

I feel there is no moral highground to complaining about having to follow rules that you agreed to follow.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

This is a ridiculous statement. Do you expect your social insurance number, your credit cards, your home address, your BMI, your... thousands of other data points ... to be available to everyone just because you are in a public place? Of course not. There are certain, very specific, privacy points we give up while in a public place. But the vast majority of our private lives remain private, and no one would expect otherwise.

Privacy is a bedrock of a free society. Yet we are all being slowly trained that it can't exist in this digital age. Utter BS! As a society, we can choose to put limits on tracking and constant surveillance. We are not yet in a totalitarian, authoritarian country. But we have to be willing to push back, and not just roll over.

Resistance is never futile.

I feel this is very flawed argument. But Whoybee is right. In the US there is no "right to privacy". What people falsely call their "right of privacy" is really the right aganist unreasonable search and seizure.

If you believe you have a right to privacy while out in public spaces maybe it is time for you to pay attention to how many camera are in fact watching you.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I feel this is very flawed argument. But Whoybee is right. In the US there is no "right to privacy". What people falsely call their "right of privacy" is really the right aganist unreasonable search and seizure.

If you believe you have a right to privacy while out in public spaces maybe it is time for you to pay attention to how many camera are in fact watching you.

Have you even bothered to read any of the thread?

And you are simply wrong. Here's a nice summary you should read. There's a long legal history in the USA, and indeed most other "free" countries, around the right to privacy. The right against unreasonable search and seizure is connected, but is certainly not the same as privacy.

[Fore and Aft]

Jammer that is no surprise, I know one marina that used their cameras to prove they had a few sneak aboards. They were given a warning and told next time they would not be allowed back in the marina if they were caught again.
My wife's work has a whole paragraph in her employment contract stating that they are being monitored by camera (it's only a fast-food shop). Plenty of times if there is a complaint from a customer and the customer provides a rough time the complaint is investigated. They're monitoring all areas and problem employees seem to get special attention and reprimands.
Mike, I doubt you can ever roll back digital surveillance. Once everyone could afford dash cams and home CCTV in a funny way it's not just the government doing the monitoring anymore. Personally, it doesn't worry me. We had a 70-year-old grandmother killed in a botched carjacking recently and a home CCTV camera caught the killer abandoning her car.
Cheers

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

This is a ridiculous statement. Do you expect your social insurance number, your credit cards, your home address, your BMI, your... thousands of other data points ... to be available to everyone just because you are in a public place? Of course not. There are certain, very specific, privacy points we give up while in a public place. But the vast majority of our private lives remain private, and no one would expect otherwise.

Privacy is a bedrock of a free society. Yet we are all being slowly trained that it can't exist in this digital age. Utter BS! As a society, we can choose to put limits on tracking and constant surveillance. We are not yet in a totalitarian, authoritarian country. But we have to be willing to push back, and not just roll over.

Resistance is never futile.

Sorry... back to the question at hand. Dogs... surely it's not the dogs, is the bad behaviour of some dog owners. So why not focus on the behaviours. Obviously, no dog should be out of control of its owner. Nor should they be crapping on the dock, and not being cleaned up. Excessive noise past a certain time should never be allowed, whether it be from a dog, or a person.

That argument makes no sense and is just a strawman. Of course being in public doesn't grant anyone access to those data points and never was it suggested that it does. And none of those data points are available to anyone taking your picture or recording you with cameras. When you are in public, anything you do, what you you look like, or anything else that is directly observable is public domain, anyone can observe you and photograph and record you and their right to do that is protected by law as much as your right against search and seizure. That isn't a new change, that has existed since signing of the bill of rights and is a cornerstone concept of the first amendment and the freedom of the press.

The technology has changed, but it fundamentally is no different from a reporter in the 19th century recording (on paper) a record of you as you go about your day in public. Or a reporter standing on a corner for a day recording everything that happens on that corner.

I no longer buy into the "it's the owners argument." Years ago I did, and in theory that is true, but (no offence intended to dog owners here ) but I have never seen a good dog owner. After decades of seeing owners not take care of their dogs, not clean up after them, not keep them on leases, not walk them often enough, and the damage done to other peoples property, at best most owners are bad owners, and they ruin it for the few that do take care of their dogs. And I have also observed (by talking with dog owners) that they all think they are great owners and the exception, when in fact, they are not.

From the viewpoint of a marina or other property owner, they have no way of knowing if a dog owner is a good or bad owner, and need to make rules that work in either case. Usually, they seem to allow dogs.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Shrew

Think about the volume of data and time it takes to scour that data. There's 1440 minutes in a day. How fast can you reasonably FF through that content? Even at 10x, it would take 2.5 - 3 hours a day to scan the previous days video. Nobody is going to pay someone to spend 2.5-3 hrs a day scanning video for infractions.

In this particular case, I think they were checking busy times -- Friday and Saturday night, and Saturday and Sunday morning -- when people were arriving, departing, and relaxing. Like most marinas, activity drops off during the week.


I do not believe they were targeting specific individuals.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by CrispyCringle

Maybe the dog owners in this case are not being good owners and not picking up, or the dogs are a yapping or nipping nuisance. There are lots of reasons this rule may suddenly be enforced. Since forever, it just takes one bad apple to ruin it for everyone.

Certainly possible in general but not true in this particular case. Like some of the posters upthread, the marina management just doesn't like dogs.