Talk:Key:surveillance

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surveillance=indoor, outdoor vs. public (previously: Indoor/Outdoor)

What is the purpose of surveillance=public? Is this a camera that is neither indoors nor outdoors? Please clarify. Fbax (talk) 15:07, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Fbax: I would be interested in how others interpret this as well. According to my interpretation, this relates to the zone of surveillance.
* The indoors case is simple: when the area under surveillance is the inside of the building (note that cameras planted inside could very well record outdoors activities as well).
* I consider a camera to be public if public domain property gets recorded on the footage where the activities of pedestrians incidentally passing by on the street can be monitored. It is imperative that this monitoring is very difficult to avoid, i.e., if somebody is on her way from point A to point B, they could get recorded at any number of intermediate points X, Y that they did not intend to visit.
* A camera is outdoors in other cases, when it monitors private property not considered indoors, for example inside a parking lot of the supermarket where I wish to shop at or at the entrance, exclusively monitoring those who enter the door. This kind of monitoring is avoidable because if you do not wish to be monitored, you simply don't use the parking lot or you don't go to the given supermarket.
Bkil (talk) 15:38, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

What about surveillance of train stations, e. g. platforms below street level that have a ceiling? Is that outdoor? And what about cameras at the entry to train stations? Until where would you consider it outdoor and when does it become indoor? Maybe indoor requires it to be in a space that has a ceiling on top and is enclosed from at least three sides. --666nQWv342323tJ9 (talk) 19:48, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

You have valid questions and we welcome your proposals for clarifications. Here is my personal opinion.
The most important knowledge for a privacy conscious individuals is whether an area is being monitored by unknown parties for unknown purposes from possibly candid or difficult to see locations when I am passing by, doing my business. I've also seen many who illegally store, reuse and distribute such personal/commercial recordings. I usually consider mapping outdoor and public surveillance as giving more information, because indoor surveillance even inside small commercial entities is common nowadays and people expect this. We could just as well map non-surveillance ones instead! And fake cameras are much more common inside too, lowering the value of any such database assembled manually. The only value I see in mapping indoor surveillance is if they also provide a public webcam feed, because mapping those is a real deed.
Showing this on a map can also help those looking for a new place to live, as cameras could also be a deterrent to crimes. Though an excessive number of cameras could also indicate a shady neighborhood that originally warranted such surveillance in the first place, so your mileage could vary.
Wiktionary does not give a clear definition for "indoor" other than "Situated in, or designed to be used in, or carried on within the interior of a building". It defines "indoors" as "In or into a building". It defines outdoors when used as an adverb as "Not inside a house or under covered structure; unprotected; in the open air". It given two noun meanings: "the environment outside of enclosed structures" and "the natural environment in the open air, countryside away from cities and buildings".
If I go indoors/inside, I have a reasonable expectation that I am (somewhat) protected from the outdoors elements (like temperature, wind, rain, animals or prying eyes of strangers). A square structure having three sides and a roof still provides open air (giving access to some wind, smoke, birds, insects, etc.). So if I either go home, or to the library, I can rest assured that what I do there, stays there (given no indoors surveillance is operated at the respective place).
Outdoors/outside is usually understood to be outside of a building. Indoors also hints at the fact that a door (barrier) of some sort is usually involved. They close and lock the door of many small railway stations at night. I can build a small hut that has a door, go inside, close the door, and then I am inside from that point on. I can also similarly go inside a garage or tent, regardless of material. However, we only go *under* a roof, not inside it, so it is still considered outside.
So in light of this, here is my interpretation:
* "train stations, e. g. platforms below street level that have a ceiling" -> We would need a picture of it, but most train stations I've seen are clearly outdoor. For underground stations which only has two exits which are not lockable doors (i.e., along the tunnel), many would say indoor (natural air circulation is minimal, protects against temperature, wind, rain and land animals due to fences and protection at the ends and 99.9% of flying animals).
* "cameras at the entry to train stations" -> if the railway station is outdoor, so is the camera at its entrance. Need some pictures or a more accurate description. At many of our railway stations, many small indoor shops have been built under the railway station roof/structure, which are themselves considered indoors. Cameras at their entrance would probably be indoor inside the door, outdoor outside if placed on the other side of the door.
Bkil (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
First, thank you very much for your thorough response! My recent interest in mapping surveillance cameras is caused by the high number of camera that I pass on my daily commute. It just gives me a bit of creeps, to be honest. Nowadays, you bareley notice it, because you're just too used to it and shrug it off. Sites like Surveillance under surveillance are already doing a great job at visualizing everyday surveillance.
I'd like to help mapping and want to make sure I provide the most relevant data in a proper way. Reading the wiki, I felt like there could be some more clarification, examples and best practices.
Indoors also hints at the fact that a door (barrier) of some sort is usually involved. I think this might fit for the case of the train station I had in mind. If you imagine that the only entrance you can see could be closed off if there was a door it's probably indoors. Here are some examples to make things a bit more visual:
- This bus station in Beijing is clearly outside, even though it features a small roof
- Even with larger roofs like the one at this train station, I'd still consider them outside, because, as you said, there's nothing to protect you against wind or cold
- The olympic park train station in Sidney is a bit more difficult. Even though you could feel the wind, I would always refer to myself as being "inside" when describing my position behind the gates
- The Butler St transport interchange is clearly "inside" to me
- The places features in this article, especially the example camera in the first picture, are also "inside" to me. Any pathways to the subway underneath should also be considered "inside" as well.
I found this Proposed features/Extended tags for Key:Surveillance and try to stick to it. Maybe that proposal the place to extend with "inside/outside" examples/clarification. What do you think? --666nQWv342323tJ9 (talk) 20:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
I have a similar question in connection with train stations: a Packstation inside the train station building provides a camera. It is IMHO both, indoor and public, even if the main purpose is to protect an asset (like those in atms). It is public because a train station, although operated in some cases by a private or semi-private company, is very similar to a public square. It is also private, because it is operated by DHL, who are a private company. --Dieterdreist (talk) 11:47, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Another value

I propose to use surveillance=traffic_monitoring for cameras that monitor street jams and surveillance=traffic_control for cameras at traffic signals that switch the green light. --Lulu-Ann 13:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Drive-through surveillance

For way 79211326, there is a sign affixed to the wall of the building for which this is a drive-through=* lane which indicates "video surveillance in progress". My thinking is that surveillance=yes or surveillance=video would be an appropriate tag to add to the way which traces the drive-through lane. At this point, I am going to go with the "yes" value and provide source:surveillance=survey and note=sign affixed to building wall states "video surveillance in progress" in support of the tag. --Ceyockey 04:03, 8 July 2011 (BST)

Two proposals

There are two proposals:

I suggest to let them in see also's chapter and let the advertissement in the begining since no vote have be done --Agaric (talk) 08:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

How to tag a "simple" webcam ?

According to this query, theses tags are used for URL :

Count for man_made=surveillance 2022-01-10
Key Count Percentage
contact:webcam=* 2772 50.4 %
website=* 1509 27.4 %
url=* 427 7.8 %
url:webcam=* 27 0.5 %
url:m3u8=* 14 0.2 %
webcam=* 12 0.2 %
webcam:url=* 3 0.0 %
website:webcam=* 3 0.0 %
camera:stream=* 1 0.0 %
camera:website=* 1 0.0 %
url:rtmp=* 1 0.0 %
url:stream=* 1 0.0 %

Does any man_made=surveillance with an URL are webcam ?

How to distinguish clearly the URL for humans and the stream for apps ?

Some webcams are used to see the weather on site (ski ressorts, airfields, roads,…)

  • What subtag(s) used ?
  • Are they mandatory ?
Count for surveillance=* 2022-01-10
Value Count Percent
public 2497 45,4 %
outdoor 841 15,3 %
webcam 817 14,8 %
traffic 352 6,4 %
indoor 198 3,6 %
guard 10 0,2 %
camera 8 0,1 %
cctv 6 0,1 %
Public 3 0,1 %
weather 2 0,0 %
ANPR 1 0,0 %
PTZ 1 0,0 %
indoor;outdoor 1 0,0 %
nature 1 0,0 %
outdoor;public 1 0,0 %
outdoor_meteo 1 0,0 %
red_light 1 0,0 %
republica 1 0,0 %
storchennest_thräna 1 0,0 %
transportation 1 0,0 %
webcam;public 1 0,0 %
yes 1 0,0 %

--Pyrog (talk) 13:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

private vs public?

The proposal seem tell that surveillance=indoor mean inside surveillance of public places (such as museum, shop…), surveillance=outdoor mean outside surveillance of private places and surveillance=public is monitoring peoples in public places.

The purpose of surveillance cameras couldn't be only monitoring people.
Some of these "webcams" are used for touristic purposes and/or for monitor the weather.

For example:

  • the weather, especially the snow of a piste, the "sky" in an airfield[1], the sea in a port…
  • the crowd, is there too many people in a ski resort, a beach…

So the description of surveillance values should be clarified.

--Pyrog (talk) 17:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)