Alv20121208 cameras

Outline

Some people have suggested they want a virtual presence, for instance a camera in the space which can be viewed online with or without authentication. Others have objected to this and have said they will not come to the space if there are camera's present.

With the hacker community there have always people who have been wary or opposing to camera presence from a privacy point of view. But hackers have also used cameras to broaden there public and forms of communication. Most hacker-events tended to either be completely free, or as of late have at least a camera free zone to accommodate those opposed to camera presence. Hackerspaces have had a whole range of implementation, pretty much everything between everything publicly viewable for everyone to no cameras at all.

At the moment we have a non-official practise of at least asking those in present if they object, which falls in line with rule 6: Respect fellow members, their privacy and their possessions. Be excellent to one another.

The question now is, do we want to formalise this further? do people want a more permanent virtual presence setup which might or might not mean excluding certain members. If we do, can we think of a way of doing this which accommodates those who would like some visual communication outside of the space and those who would a like a more private setup?

Another argument that has been mentioned is the security aspect, so question I'd like to pose is, do we think cameras add any security to our space and is this to the extend that we find it worth it to sacrifice any privacy issues people might have with this?