**Posted by:** Bree Manning, [[Argonauts|Argonaut]] Open Society Forum <Info Msg Rep>
No discussion of our ubiquitous surveillance society is complete without a look at the people behind the cameras. One of the unique aspects of daily life is not just that we are surrounded by sensor-equipped devices that record us, but that we are likely actively monitored at any given time. Your everyday activity is likely to be surveiled by people-watchers, random folks browsing for something interesting going on, bored security AIs and infomorphs whose job is to scan for signs of suspicious activity, and griefers and criminals looking for their next mark. Your lifelog/Xcast may have a fan base, voyeurs who keep up with minute details of your daily experiences. So let’s take a look at the people doing the looking.
==Intermittent Spotters== 
If a reputation falls and nobody is there to see it, does it truly fall?
Fortunately for most, this isn’t a pressing concern. The vast majority of transhumans are too busy with their own lives to spend large amounts of it watching others. Even those who subscribe to lifelogs and X-casts often have their muses whittle down the highlights into manageable chunks.
Nevertheless, many transhumans do intermittently have their eyes on others, simply as part of their daily affairs. We often check up on friends by surveiling the area we know them to be in, so we can get an update on their situation without needing to bother them directly. We access the interior cameras of shops, and restaurants to see how crowded they are before we go. If we’re trying to contact a friend lurking in privacy mode, we may check out the sensor feeds from their common hang-outs to see if we spot them. Parents keep a watchful eye on their children. When driving somewhere, we may ping the traffic cams to see which route is least congested. By the very nature of our society’s transparency, we each end up watching over the shoulders of others multiple times a day. At any given time, the number of transhumans watching the world is almost as high as the number actively participating in the world.
Not all of our casual surveillance uses are positive. Bosses periodically snoop on their employees’ activities, to keep an eye on productivity. Jealous people may spy on their lovers, looking for signs of inﬁdelity. Competitors may keep tabs on each other’s activities, looking to gain an edge. Paranoid residents spy on neighbors they deem untrustworthy out of prejudice. 
We also use these tools to balance, enhance, and manipulate our social interactions. If we hope to avoid running into someone, we scan the areas ahead of us, or locate them ﬁrst. If we want to ﬁnd where our friends are hanging out, we look. Or maybe we’re too busy to hit the club tonight, but we’ll check in on the dance ﬂoor’s live feed and experience it vicariously. When we develop romantic interests in someone, we are likely to investigate their lives to ﬁnd out more about them. Some new romantic partners take this a step farther, engaging in simultaneous voyeurism as part of their courtship. Some go as far as to grant each other privileged access into their private areas and private lives, offering a deep level of intimacy with no strings attached.
===Hobbyist Voyeurs=== 
Some people simply enjoy watching others. There’s a certain romanticism in watching the world turn. For most of us, that romanticism falls short when one realizes that most transhumans live rather boring lives. For this reason, full-time voyeurism is rarely a hobby undertaken for long.
There are enough people engaged in social voyeurism to make it a noteworthy phenomenon. Many services, in fact, rely on crowdsourcing surveillance work to people who make little or no money from the endeavor. Numerous security hypercorps allow public access to cameras watching over their clients’ holdings, with rewards offered to anyone who reports suspicious activity or crimes. News outﬁts offer payouts to those who point them towards public sensor feeds that happened to capture newsworthy events. Many voyeurs aren’t interested in rewards, however. To them, the act of watching is an obsession. They are fascinated with knowing what is going on, with watching over what people are doing. There is a thrill gained from the one-way transaction of spying on others without their direct awareness.
Some think that this form of hobby surveillance is a means of control. The voyeur looks on in the way a child might look on to an ant farm. Knowledge of others’ activities and behaviors is empowering, especially when not reciprocated. Though there is no direct malice involved, it does bolster feelings of superiority—many voyeurs are thrilled at viewing people in their weakest moments, being happy to ﬁnd people more pathetic than they are. It is no surprise that many hobbyist voyeurs embrace privacy shrouds when in public.
The same element of control is evident among vigilante voyeurs that go out of their way to monitor criminal elements. Though these watchful eyes have been known to impede some criminal operations, there have also been repercussions and backlashes from those who do not appreciate wanna-be crimestoppers messing with their affairs.
==Fans, Stalkers, and Paparazzi== 
A step above and beyond the hobbyist voyeurs are those who idolize and obsessively watch over others. Following celebrities is the most socially acceptable form of hobby surveillance. While X-casts and lifelogs are common sources, the old fashioned method of spying via cameras and microphones is more popular for the hardcore hobbyist.
Most celebrities came to the realization long ago that their privacy is forfeit—as did the companies that pay them. In the inner system, icons who can’t manage a public lifestyle may ﬁnd themselves cut off, lest their dropping reputation come to smear the media corps. Most hypercorps protect their investments, hiring memeticists and lifestyle managers to coordinate a celebrity’s public image. Metacelebrities are increasingly becoming common, in part because they function well as micro-managed icons.
Why watch someone else’s life? The typical answer is, “because it’s more interesting than my own.” While that can certainly be true, long-term celeb stalkers usually have other reasons. The nature of transhumanity is one of transformation, of changing appearances and forms. Over time, that has a lasting effect on many minds. What if you could look like whatever you want, but you couldn’t be whomever you want? For most voyeurs, this is the root problem. A cool and exciting morph doesn’t change who you are fundamentally. No matter what shell you jump into, you’re still yourself. You still do the same silly things you used to. You have the same tells, the same colloquialisms, and the same insecurities. This is why entertainment still exists; icon voyeurs just take it to an increased level. They live the lives of their icons vicariously, in place of their own.
In extreme cases, when one follows another’s identity for long enough, one begins to absorb it, to own it. Before long, the voyeur may refer to the celebrity as “we” when uncalled for. The hobbyist becomes unnecessarily defensive of the subject’s choices. Those critical of the icon become enemies. Many celebrities have small legions of fans that follow their every move and rush to defend their reputation. The smart icons learn to manipulate these followers to their advantage.
One phenomenon that arises from this particular fetish is celebrity imitation. If one wants to be watched, what better way than by impersonating a celebrity? This is hard to maintain in earnest, though it has been known to fool some fans for short periods. Most impersonators are brazen about their intentions, relying on humor and kitsch appeal. They also tend to impersonate dead or retired celebrities, ones not expected to maintain a following. The solar system has one notorious Elvis Presley impersonator with a handful of near-religious followers. While they know he’s not The King, they don’t let that get in the way of their hero worship. A few eccentric fans have gone so far as to undergo voluntary psychosurgery to fundamentally change their knowledge of the fact, becoming true believers. A brief fad of impersonating religious ﬁgures in recent years has failed to gain much momentum for the impersonators, though some have developed small cult followings.
==Digital Security Watchers== 
Complex security systems require full-time maintenance and tending. Ubiquitous surveillance means that there are more camera and sensor feeds than there are physical eyes to watch. Though software automates many tasks and can monitor sensory input for signs of suspicious activity, the availability of AIs and infomorphs is irrefutable. AIs are easily copied, meaning that any surveillance network is likely to have as many as it needs. Infomorphs are a cheap source of labor, even more effective than AIs. In many habitats, space is at a premium, morphs aren’t cheap, and job opportunities are limited, making security work an ideal situation for disembodied egos.
AI and infomorph security agents are invaluable. They don’t take smoke breaks. They don’t fall asleep on the job. They’re intimately familiar with every little exception to protocol that occurs on their watch. 
Unlike an AI, infomorphs understand the subtle nuances of life that no machine truly can. An infomorph is much more likely to have an intuitive understanding of a complex situation than any weak AI ever will. For all the value in these egos, however, they suffer the same frailties that plague the rest of transhumanity. They may view a situation through the lens of their own particular cultural bias, for example, or they may be vulnerable to temptations such as blackmail and bribery. The weak point of many security systems is deﬁned as the transhuman element, and infomorph watchers both counter and exacerbate this fact. Theoretically, the watchmen can also be watched, but only the most paranoid security operations go to this length. Most colonies recognize these failings, and understand that without a modicum of respect and trust, no number of security ofﬁcers will ever be effective. On the other side of things, it guarantees that there’s always room to bend the laws, overlook rules, and otherwise take advantage of imperfections in the system.
Given the availability of AIs and infomorphs, they are not just used to protect and overwatch secure systems. They are frequently employed as a preventive deterrent, watching through publicams and also private sensor networks to which they have purchased or obtained access. These watchers spend their time scanning for suspicious activity, running recognition scans against databases of wanted/known morphs, and analyzing the behavior of random subjects. More than one terrorist plot and criminal operation has been preemptively busted by keen-eyed infomorphs that picked up on subtle clues. 
AGIs take on the same roles that weak AIs and infomorphs fulfill. Some habitats embrace AGIs as they are more effective than AIs and more at home in the mesh than other infomorphs. In much of the system, however—particularly the inner system—AGIs are not trusted when it comes to surveillance and security matters. Too many people fear that putting the keys to their society in the digital hands of machine intelligences will inevitably lead to another situation as occurred with the TITANs.
One drawback to digital security is that it is confined to areas with sensor coverage. For this reason roaming patrol drones are also incorporated into a surveillance network, enabling AIs and infomorphs to investigate off-sensor areas remotely. Synthmorphs and pods are also sometimes made available for puppeteering, giving such watchers a more direct physical counterpart.
===Sidebar: Indentured Infomorph Watchers=== 
For some infomorphs, security work is less a choice, more an obligation. Indentured infomorphs serve long terms of menial labor in order to earn a body. Security is far from the worst assignment, and many infugees jump at the opportunity. The demand makes these limited jobs quite competitive, which the hypercorps use to their beneﬁt. The smallest failures can be interpreted as a breach of contract, terminating the indenture’s earnings and replacing them with the next enthusiastic worker in line. When the alternative to security work is mining, terraforming, and other manual labor in a cheap and uncomfortable case, security indentures don’t let go of jobs easily. While they are less talented than many professional security infomorphs, they’re ironically less likely to fall to bribery and other corruption as the risk is just too high. 
On the ﬂip side, some indentures are naturally resentful of this situation. They have been known to install backdoors into systems, sell security secrets to outsiders, or on occasion aid and abet those they are supposed to be guarding against. A few have claimed whistleblower prizes on their employers after brutal and improperly handled security incidents were covered up. For this reason, many hypercorps treat their indentured security infomorphs with care, keeping almost as careful an eye on their activity.
==Physical Security Watchers== 
Physical security assets are often treated as secondary to digital watchers for surveillance duty. The most secure facilities, however, realize that AI and infomorph watchers have several distinct vulnerabilities: they can be hacked, jammed, and isolated. Serious security set-ups therefore incorporate physical security as a layered defense, with overlapping surveillance duties.
==Griefers and Criminals== 
On the other side of the proverbial fence, many voyeurs are using surveillance networks for illicit purposes. Griefers remain a persistent annoyance, using omnipresent sensor nets to gain information on and harass their targets remotely, purely for laughs. Griefers also tend to operate in packs, increasing their ability to saturate an area or target with coverage before they initiate their campaigns.
On a more sophisticated level, criminals were among the first to take advantage of ubiquitous surveillance for their own purposes. Targets can now be thoroughly cased and evaluated beforehand, and the positions and response of security forces and police can be monitored. Criminal cartels are also careful to keep an eye on rivals.

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