With the advent of Flickr (and video equivalents like YouTube), the online world is filled with visual information captured from the real world. Meta-information, such as date and time, shutter speed, exposure etc. is stored with each capture. In the future, this meta-information is likely to grow to include the photographer (verified via biometric information), the location (via GPS), the orientation (via gyroscopic devices). The Flickr of the future will be able to stitch together virtual representations of the real world. The most popular tourist attractions will be viewable from all angles, at all times of day or night, at all times of the year, over many years.
Many of us are willing contributors to Flickr's public record of the world, with little regard for privacy. For example, let's say I capture a street scene with my cameraphone. Later my photo is found to contain something of significance. People pay good money for that sort of thing. What would happen if governments started incentivising us to submit and collectively identify images and their contents (volksonomy!). A small tax break later and there you have it: the democratisation of surveillance!
Update: I suppose a scheme like this is a step in that direction (thanks for the link Stuart!).
Surely there is a big
Surely there is a big difference between servellance (eg. londons CCTV) and a synthesised 3D time flythru composited (Basically a high-def gogle satellite maps etc..). I respect that there is value in being able to look backwards in time, sut servellance is also supposed to be preventative, not just incrimintating ;)
I guess if everyone had realtime feeds of their POV we might be able to get a reasonable survellance in public places...