I don’t actually intend to do this. But I would find it interesting. I already use my computer/phone as an extension of my brain, why not use it as an extension of my memory too.
Would they know? I’m not sure. I suppose I can inform everyone I am in contact long enough to handshake-meet that I am recording them. But i’d probably forget to to do that all the time. Further, I couldn’t possibly tell everyone in my vicinity or that I simply happen to look at.
Legality varies by jurisdiction, however in general you are allowed to record things in places where people have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Interestingly, the biggest issue with recording things is more often a problem with audio recording, which is considered in many places ‘wiretap’ and requires consent, unless the act of recording is obvious (ex: I have a microphone obviously attached to a recorder and I hold the microphone to your face as we speak. By talking you imply consent to record, unless you specifically deny permission.)
That’s what got Monica Lewinsky’s friend in a lot of trouble in Maryland.
Outdoors and in public spaces where people have no expectation of privacy I don’t think would be a problem (it isn’t for photographers). But what about using public bathrooms or entering private buildings? If you come into my house or my business and I ask you not to record me, you have to turn it off or leave.
IIRC, there was a computer nerd who did this a few years ago, and streamed the video thru the Internet. I don’t know if he ran into any legal problems.
There was a movie being filmed in downtown Montreal a week or two ago and someone pointed his phone at the scene and took a photo. A cop came and told him he couldn’t do that and, I think, confiscated the phone. It was a one-day wonder in the paper, but I don’t know how it came out. I wondered, if he had recording goggles how anyone would have known. I think that particular genie will never be put back in the bottle. At every show of the Jazz Festival, you are enjoined from recording or photographing anything, but they can no longer enforce this.
I suspect that there are legal problems with recording in, say, the men’s room; you’ll probably never know for sure, given how many jurisdictions there are in the US - San Francisco is relatively easy (no county, only one city, provided you don’t go to the rest of the Bay Area), but AFAIK, LA doesn’t have such easily defined boundaries between cities. You’d have to find out for every city you go to.
Of course, if it is in fact a very unsurreptitious camera, you might be able to get away with it, even if it is illegal. But as soon as you reveal that you’re recording, and someone is pissed out you, you’re probably going to face a lawsuit at the least, and arrest at the worst.
I’ve wanted a personal “Black Box” that would record constantly, but would constantly dump the older material. It would be very useful for “he said/she said” situations.
For instance, I spent a night in the Kansas City police lockup after I called the cops on the “Church” of Scientology running their scam on the streets of Kansas City. They had an e-meter, copies of Dianetics and ads. When the cops showed up, they lied, claiming I had been screaming and abusive (I had not), and I wound up being thrown to the ground, getting a black eye and hauled off in a paddy wagon and spending the night in a lock-up because of these lying pieces of shit.
If I had a recording of the previous hour, I could have pulled it out and proven that I had done nothing other than call the cops.