As everyone knows, Privacy is the talk of the town at the moment and people have begun worrying about their Privacy being violated. But at least now your Privacy can be violated with an extra dose of cute. Parson’s, an Italian design company has launched an Animal range of surveillance cameras almost definitely targeting the home consumer market. I say almost definitely because the usual customers of surveillance technology, namely Private Detectives wouldn’t be caught dead with a surveillance camera designed to look like a parrot. It’s not that Private Detectives have anything against adorable things. Private Detectives just want something much more subtle than what Parson’s is providing.
This is probably why it irks us so much when we see Private Detectives in media using something ridiculous like a fake parrot with a camera where its eyes are supposed to be as a surveillance camera. No matter how built the fake parrot is, the fact is that it stands out and standing out is something that Private Detectives cannot afford to do. A Private Detective’s job entails blending in with a crowd and never being seen while doing their work. Novelty surveillance devices like that never work because they always stand out. Any Private Detective we know would rather choose a pen with a small camera and recorder in it than a fake parrot and they’d also choose to put cameras and recorders in vases or lamps instead of pens since they’re out of the way and innocuous. Anyone we know would be way more wary of what clearly looks like a fake bird or a pen with a worryingly reflective cap than of simple household objects. If we know this, I think we can rest assured the Private Detectives know this too.
This is not a slight on Parson’s though, for what they’ve gone for, a professionally designed alternative to regular surveillance cameras, they’ve done a great job. But I think everyone should be wary of this trend of trivialising something as serious as surveillance. Because some beautiful design is involved, we can’t forget that surveillance is serious business and random civilians having access to hardcore surveillance devices is worrying for privacy. We’d definitely rather trust professional Private Detectives over civilians with Surveillance devices.