East Ottawa Star
Published: Friday, April 3, 2009 

Smile, you're on camera

You are being watched every minute of every day. Yes, Big Brother has come to our lives in a big way, even in Orléans. 

Don’t believe me? Then let’s retrace your daily routine out and about.

Coffee at Tim’s at 6:55 a.m.: Smile you and the cashier are on camera. And not just one, but multiple cameras above the counter.

Need some gas? No worries, choose a station, any station. Yep, the station has overhead cams or eyes in the sky watching you fill up with a good shot of your license plate to boot. Want to pay at the pump or inside? Great, you get a two-for-one special today. They will gladly video you waiting in the cash line and that debit or credit card transaction will leave a nice electronic footprint to boot.

Oops. Now you’re running late so you zip through that very dark yellow light at the intersection of Tenth Line and Charlemagne and as you do, smile, you’ve been snapped by the city’s red light camera.

Then you continue down St. Joseph and gun it again at Jeanne d’Arc and voila, the city has captured another beautiful shot of your plates and the bright red light simultaneously. Your mail in a few weeks promises a nasty and expensive surprise.

As you head to the job and work away, remember each site you surf is likely recorded on your desktop cache and cookies list as well as being logged deep in the basement of your government or private sector server room.

As you head home you drop into Ray Friel for a swim, quick workout or 30 minutes on the treadmill. Please swipe your card on the optical reader so we know you are here and smile for the eyes in the sky again.

Wow, that was a great workout and you have just enough time to get the kids out of after school daycare. Remember to fix that part in your hair as you punch in the school’s side door code and smile again for the pinhole camera in the ceiling.

Forgot to get groceries on the weekend? It’s just as well given the surveillance – both electronic and human – that is omnipresent at Loeb, Sobey’s or the Superstore.

Just hit the bank machine instead for some quick cash and the date and timestamped photo from the ATM camera and use the OnStar phone – quick, Jack Bauer, get CTU to triangulate this guy’s position with GPS – and order the extra cheese and pepperoni pizza for delivery.

Finally you are back at home, the alarm has been deactivated – yes, another clue to your whereabouts – and the pizza guy is there 10 minutes later. As he leaves, he punches in the time of delivery to the central delivery computer.

So please go about your business today and try to estimate the number of times you have been on camera or leave a trace of your activities, it’s a high number.

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Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca.