Title : Using Mobile Communications to Assert Privacy from 
Video Surveillance

We propose a novel use of mobile communications to permit 
individuals to assert a preference for privacy from video 
surveillance. Our system, called Cloak, grants an individual 
the right to prohibit others from distributing video 
containing their image. We present our system architecture 
and operation, and demonstrate how the system enhances 
privacy while requiring no change to existing surveillance 
technology. We use analysis and simulation to show that an 
individual's video privacy can be protected  even in the 
presence of the many sources of error (e.g., unsynchronized 
clocks, unreliable communications, location error) we 
anticipate in a deployed system. We describe our initial 
prototyping efforts, and argue that there are no significant 
technical barriers to Cloak's large-scale deployment. Given 
the threat to privacy posed by the rapid and widespread 
deployment of camera-phones, we maintain that today's 
surveillance systems must be urgently augmented with privacy 
enhancing technology.