Manual Lifelogging: From Societal to Personal Implications

Alberto Frigo MKV, Södertörn University141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

alberto.frigo@sh.se

ABSTRACTThis paper reexamines the surveillance and privacy implications that has been highlighted in recent years in response to the emerging lifelogging industry. Researchers from various fields have addressed the “pernicious” elements of these “total memory” and “total recall” commercial gadgets. Whether head mounted or neck worn, these gadgets make use of embedded systems which have been claimed to complement surveillance rather than enforce sousveillance. Additionally, the generated lifelogs of the wearers put his or her privacy status at risk. While relating to the various solutions which both developers and scholars have by now addressed, this paper also reconsiders the point of departure of this critic by examining non-automated and non-worn forms of lifelogging practices. While such “effortful” approaches has been discarded from what is now commonly referred as lifelogging, this paper will argue that these practices are in fact partially resolving the societal implications brought forth by automated forms of lifelogging. In addition, this paper will argue that manual lifelogging practices constitute forms of autonomy from both the industry and the surveillance apparatus but might in fact still bring forth other implications of less societal dimensions and of a more psychological nature.

Author KeywordsPrivacy, surveillance, sousveillance, automatic lifelogging, manual lifelogging, pernicious, discrimination, psychological implications

INTRODUCTIONInspired by Vannevar Bush’s Memex [1], recent lifelogging visionaries have been fantasizing with the idea of a “personal black box” recording everything and all the time

[2]. After a long period of incubation, their vision has now come true in the form of gadgets. While not widespread, wearable gadgets like Google Glass and Microsoft originated Autographer [3], are now about to be available or already available to the general public (see Figure 1). In other words, we are no longer confronted with the cutting edge experiments of cyborgs like Steve Mann or HCI research enthusiasts like Gordon Bell, respectively facilitating the development of the aforementioned gadgets [4,2]; we are now confronted with the idea of a society of individuals monitoring not only their lives but indirectly that of others. In this respect, not only the privacy of the wearer but also the privacy of individuals around him or her are at risk [5].

Figure 1. The image above shows the evolution of wearable computers from obtrusive prototypes to miniaturized and commercial devices either worn like glasses or like a necklace.

Prior to examine more carefully the implications, it is important to briefly summarize the benefits that these lifelogging technologies promise to offer. In this respect, we can understand the motivation why a person would want to buy and wear these gadgets in the first place. The most recurrent benefit promised by these technologies is to serve

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as memory aid and in the long run immortality [2]. Another recurrent benefit enumerated by the lifelogging developers is health monitoring. In this paper we will focus more closely to the gadgets pertaining to the former benefit of mnemonic augmentation as they primarily make use of cameras. These cameras are generally set to photograph automatically based on in-built sensors which ”predicts” when the wearer would likely want to photograph [2]. By means of example, a change of the luminescence in an environment and/or the detection of a warm body might work as indicators to when it is time to capture a picture. In this respect, lifelogging technology have been classified as “indiscriminatory” [6] as anyone can be recorded without his or her consent.

Moreover, since GPS devices are commonly built in the matrix of sensors which turns the lifelogging devices intelligent, there is an implicit risk that these technologies would come to ”compensate” rather than ”confront” the surveillance infrastructures already operating in public spaces [7]. While this compensation is already occurring with the use of for instance smart phones detecting the position of the users, a further issue might also come to compromise the integrity of lifelogging users. If on one hand it is true that much personal information is shared already via Social Media platforms, the sharing of more cohesive personal data might not only be utilized for better commercial marketing but also in legal matters which might turn against the lifelogging user [5].

Figure 2. The photograph shows a stencil photographed by the author representing the fear for Internet surveillance.

BACKGROUNDA first reaction to the launching of these lifelogging technology has shown a stark resentment dividing the public opinion among those who claims that society has to get use to “hyper sharing” [8] and those who claims that “privacy matters” [9] to extreme examples which proposes the banning of lifelogging technologies [10]. Scholars, on their turn, have suggested different approaches. On one hand these approaches aim to regulate with the making of new laws, the usability of these technologies [5]. Other

scholars have proposed to directly build in the design of the lifelogging technologies, a feature to forget organically like the human brain and delete compromising data [7]. In recent years, developers have also seriously endorsed the privacy and surveillance related implications and have developed different strategies to resolve them [2, 8].

PROTECTING THE NON-USERSThe wide lens cameras worn by lifelogging users will inevitably capture persons around them. Likely, a percentage of these persons are not willing to belong to someone’s lifelog. Additionally, lifelogging generated pictures have been already used to convict a person for a crime in public and semi-public spaces like for instance a pub [11]. As the resolution of the camera may also increase along with the provided software and as the generated pictures will be uploaded on-line to run dedicated softwares for automatic sorting, other risks come to play. Detailed face recognition features can not only simply reveal the privacy of a non-user passerby unnoticeable, but it can compromise his or her status when recording his or her behaviour which a machine can misinterpret. For example, a machine could scan a scene recorded on the periphery of a lifelog view and exchange the caress a man gives to a child for a sexual harassment.

Less concrete “pernicious” circumstances have already being addressed in response to the visions of total memory and total recall made public. Possibly due to this stark resentment, more or less concrete proposals have been thought of in order to protect the privacy of the users and those around them. On one hand, the developers themselves have claimed that their lifelogging gadgets are not “spy cameras” as they still retain a discernible physical appearance [8] and people around the users can ask him or her to remove their device if they do not wish to be recorded. In other instances the device is simply put in the pocket of the user to obscure the light sensor and thus stop the automatic picture capturing [12].

The above remedies are the few concrete options proposed by lifelogging developers in order to protect the privacy of people around users, which seems to be the cause of most public indignation and peer discrimination [13]. Other remedies have been only discussed but there are so far no sign of actual implementations. One remedy for instance, deals with automatic obfuscation of non-users [2] when for instance the wearer is walking on a busy street and his or her lifelogging device is constantly photographing due to the many changes in the visual field. Art projects in this respects have envisioned tactics for the non-users to become invisible [14]. Stickers are now also circulating to alert cyborgs to remove their Google glass, head mounted devices [15] or simply not enter a premise.

Legally, no steps have been yet taken to clarify whether an automatic camera recording device that is not hand held can be operating as an hand held device. Some developers claim

that head mounted devices are no difference to the smart phones’ cameras shoppers, for instance, use in a supermarket to retrieve the information of a product by scanning its QR code [16]. The difference seems however relevant in that a camera phone is pointed discreetly at the QR code while a wearable camera is likely to have a fish eye view of 136 degrees and records from the point of view of the eyes or of the neck of the user. Developers who effectively have been wearing cameras on their head or eyes, have been repetitively assaulted when for instance entering “sensitive” retailers, like jewelry shops and multinational companies. “Mimetization” and “inclusion” of the camera apparatus have been proved to lower the level of discrimination (e.g. entering a jewelry shop with a jewelry looking neck worn camera) [13]. However, these strategies foment a vicious circle of perfecting technology to spy onto one another.

Considering the public resentment for these technologies, we can tentatively conclude that there are two feasible options to protect the privacy of the non-users. Provided that miniaturization and mimetization are no options as they would be more resembling a “spying” scenario, the first option is to instead make the automatically recording camera more “noticeable”. Now, as the recording range of a camera far exceeds the detecting range of a human eye, non-user should be able to recognize a user before the former enters in the camera field of the latter. A bright visual and/or acoustic signal should be provided to warn the non-user, creating a rather clumsy scenario. In this respect, the old fashion wearable technologies resembling the appearance of an actual cyborg, might be more appropriate in that they can recognized from afar and avoided [13].

Figure 3. The image shows an early prototyped of a motorcycle helmet built by the author in 2000 and promptly dismissed for a more manual and less brutal approach. The appearance of such head-mounted camera can warn non-users of the proximity of a “cyborg”.

The second feasible option to protect the privacy of non-

users is that of automatically obfuscate non-familiar faces [2]. This option however implies that a face recognition software is always to run in the background of the storing interface. As already mentioned above, the development of such an intelligent feature can be pernicious in that it can be in fact used to recognize faces. Additionally, even if the facial recognition is maintained to blur out non-users, the actual result can be quite unappealing, resembling the scratched out faces of a protestant church after undergoing an iconoclastic raid (see Figure 3). Other results of this automatic facial obfuscation might also be unwanted and at times cynical, providing alternative usage to emphasize certain bugs such as obfuscating all the faces of monkeys while lifelogging users explores a Southeast Asian jungle.

Figure 4. Result of a iconoclastic raid in the Utrecht main church. The faces of the religious bassorilievo have been removed adding a different aesthetic connotation to the work.

PROTECTING THE USERS

As described by developers, the ultimate vision for lifelogging technologies is not only to provide cohesive records of a person's life in order to monitor his or her memory and health; ultimately the goal is to allow the interlinking of the generated lifelogs among its users [2]. In this respect, wearable cameras automatically tracking the life of a user, are meant to directly upload on the cloud the collected data. As companies like Google have been recently regulating the ownership of their lifelogging technology and data, scholars have addressed relevant questions such as who will own the profit that this data can generate through, for example, marketing? [17] However, still, presently, the main issue seems to be the risk for governmental surveillance that a lifelog can facilitate [5]. If the lifelog is shared and made public, or semi-public, to what extend can a governmental entity have access to it, in order to, for instance, resolve a legal matter more or less implicating the user?

Aware of this issue, scholars have suggested that lifelogging technologies should not be always on but could have a turn off button and a delete button to occlude the recording of unwanted digital memories. As they further

discussed, however, the deletion of a part of a lifelog can also be imputed as a sign of guilt [7]. Developers have also proposed solutions to the problem. They have envisioned that lifelogs should be sharable only among circles of close relatives and friends. Further, the cloud of information should be kept outside of the governmental authority, for instance in a Swiss like bank [2]. In this respect, users would simply wear a device, but the actual storage would occur “offshore”. Security measures such as biometric based login would, in this respect, be taken to prevent any unwanted intruder but also to prevent users to easily share compromising parts of their lifelog, this by creating warnings to remind them of the danger that such action might bring and to avoid to be only one click away to share with the world entire portions of their digitally represented lives [8].

INNOCENT BUT ABSTRACT LIFELOGGING

The initial enthusiasm followed by the visionary research on lifelogging technology has been followed by a stark criticism based on the ethical, societal and political implications that such a technology arises. Both scholars attempting to constructively criticize the technology [7, 18] and developers [2, 8], have brought forward solutions to effectively address these implications. These solutions, however, gives a clear picture of a future scenario in which the milieu for lifelogging is drastically undermined. A question here come spontaneous: whether it is the activity of the lifeloggers to be restricted or the lifelog to be “censored”, would lifelogging still be worth undertaking?

As mentioned in the introduction of this paper, we are now considering lifelogging technology that is based on audio visual material and aimed to support the memory of the user. Lifelogging technologies as those propose by the Quantified Self movement [19] aiming to monitor the health status of a user, gives space to broader interpretation and, if not undermining directly the privacy of the non-users around a user, they might be insufficient to compromise the privacy of the latter. For example, while a commercial entity might benefit to get access to an entire record of the heart beats of a user collected over the years, and suggest to this user a particular medicine or gym to improve his health, governmental entities might have little to gather from BPM data in comparison to for instance a stream of pictures.

Commercial Gadgets like Sony's Core and Nike's Fuelband wrist health bands and the Quantified Self movement in general, can be seen as more concrete and less problematic realities. The downside is that the companies behind the health monitoring gadgets have the concrete opportunity to resell the personal lifelog data to boast specific pharmaceutical industries which could in turn suggest a user a particular medicine. Further, these devices can be seen as strategical gadgets which could be boasting directly the business of the very company (e.g. Nike, having monitor a foot pronation in the sneakers of a user, could

propose a better product among its own to resolve such an health related issue, or could simply modify the design of its upcoming collection based on quantitative analyses).

We have now come to a tentative conclusion: While the lifelogging technology based on sensory data is more “innocent” and can facilitate marketing without compromising the user's privacy, visual based lifelogging technology would require heavy computation to provide interesting marketable data but can be easily scrutinized by an external human eye to directly implicate a user. In other words, data gathered from the physical state of the user is generically numerical and is threatened by marketing while data relating to memory augmentation, which is likely visual [18] is under governmental surveillance threat.

The latter formula, however, is further complicated with devices like Google Glasses in which the camera is accompanied by a screen and possibly linked to other textual informations like the user's e-mails or comments. This information can in fact provide easily computable data that can in turn be utilized for marketing. There is a risk that the screen could be utilized to introduce commercials that, given the proximity to the eye, are more obtrusive, pervasive and unavoidable than present commercials. In this respect, a device meant for capturing the life of an individual retains the potential to control the life of individuals by affecting his or her choices not only intelligently predicting what the best one would be, but also based on the commercial interest of paying companies.

As camera based lifelogging technology is currently commercially available at a more than affordable price [3], the scenario for the actual popularization of these memory prosthetics is problematic. The problems are further escalated by the feature of “sharing with the cloud” and of letting a dedicated application to analyze the collected content. In this respect, a third party is three times involved: the user uses a third party camera, the user uses a third party storage and the user uses a third party software, all to handle his or her lifelogging generated data.

PROTECTING ENVIRONMENTS

We are used to think of people having to protect themselves from environments. Much of the sousvelliance rhetoric is based on this concept [13]. However, being a user equipped of an automated camera apparatus to which he or she has little or no control, other implications might arise. In the first place, if extravagant individuals could go for such a fully monitored and transparent identity, common individuals, while being open to their close friends and or the general public, might not wish to share their lives with their clients, colleagues and bosses. Constant streaming of personal content that cannot be selected and can be misinterpreted, could irremediably compromise their professional status as recent non-professional utilization of social media has demonstrated [20].

Moreover, another implication highlighted by scholars is the utilization of such lifelogging technology in working environments. Lifelogging technology could in fact capture copyrighted material which the user might be viewing in his or other working environments. Also, in this respect, lifelogging developers have proposed the possibility of again censuring through the material accumulated by the user during a day work, prior leaving a premises [2]. In this sense, the entrance of an institution might turn either into a security check point where security apparatuses will need to “detect” and “erase” possible stolen sensitive material, or in changing rooms in which the wearable devices will have to be undressed. Developers have also discussed the possibility of signing contracts between employers and employees to regulate the lifelogging activity of the latter [2].

The same issue, however will need to be addressed not only when exiting physical environments but also when exiting the virtual environments a user of lifelogging technology has visited. In this respect also here a possible leakage of copyrighted material can occur. This will be, for example, the case of a user navigating an on-demand Internet streaming site. Whether head-mounted or neck worn, the lifelogging technology is likely, in this case, to capture stills from copyrighted visual material. If these technologies will be widespread in the future, the on-demand streaming site might “demand” the users to be able to scrutinize and censor the material they have gathered while navigating in the environment.

As already mentioned in this paper, similar “discriminations” might still occur within the commercial premise where the recording can be extremely sensitive [13]. In a casino context, for instance, lifelogging technology could be utilized to attempt a fraud. The same is likely to be implied when entering a bank with a recording apparatus such as a worn lifelogging gadget activated. Access to other non commercial premises might be denied such as to airports security check-ins and generally to governmental buildings where the risk for terror attack prohibits the documenting of a facility. This is also the case for less sensitivity environments like museums and in particular the changing room of swimming pool where other people nudity can be revealed and the actual swimming pool where the wearable technology could either be too sensitive for water immersion or just too unpractical to wear.

In this respect, the commercial success of lifelogging technology with visual recording features, could imply the enforcement of tedious security check ups as suggested by the very developers [2]. In addition, these check ups might not only affect the lifelogger enthusiasts but could as well be enforced on the traditional photography amateurs or anyone simply carrying a device with a camera sensor, thus, most likely, everyone.

FUTURE SCENARIO

We have so far envisioned a future scenario in which institutions, citizens and the very lifelogging users will have to take measures in order to protect their privacy. Given this scenario going beyond George Orwell's imagination [21], no matter if regulation will be enforced on lifelogging users, or citizens and institutions will have to take their own measures, a question still arises: Would lifelogging be worth undertaking under such threatening circumstances?

As the public opinion has been already alerted in regards of the implications which the utilization of such camera equipped lifelogging devices carry, rather than pursuing to envision better solutions, we could try, at this point, stepping back and perhaps look at alternatives of slightly different nature. One alternative, as already mentioned, is the utilization of cameraless lifelogging devices. These devices are implemented to monitor the health of a user but could also be utilized for self monitoring as envisioned in research and development contexts [22]. They are not however referred to as memory aid, as images are generally regarded as the primary trigger [18]. Visualization of imageless sensory data from lifelogging devices is amply being investigated by individuals belonging or relating to the Quantified Self Movement [19]. Such visualization is generally abstract and conveys a general understanding of what an individual has been up to [23]. Taking the resemblance of statistic visualizations of mass demographies, these statistics of single individuals better communicate to outsiders but, for their numerical nature, might not help the very individual to recollect his or her own life as camera based lifelogging device would.

Figure 5. Example of graph generated with heart beats data (y axis) gathered over 12 days of running around a baseball field. Each day (x-axis), 6 laps were accomplished by the author. While in the 4th day his performance was low, in the 9th day it was high. This monitoring can also be applied with data belonging to longer periods of time and in relation to other data in order to analyze larger health related issues.

What would then be an alternative form of lifelogging aimed to create, if not “total remembering” and “total recall” a “selective” representation of a person's life.

Scholars have already been addressing the “partial” and “manual” lifelogging approaches of, for instance, digital artists belonging to the Web 1.0 generation [7]. What are these practices implying? Are the same privacy implications present in such approaches? In the following sections a first attempt to articulate the definition of lifelogging will be made. Secondly, examples of manual lifelogging approaches will be presented along with a examination of their possible societal implications.

REINTRODUCING MANUAL LIFELOGGING

When examining the implications pertaining to lifelogging technology, some scholars have made a distinction between “effortful” and “effortless” lifelogging approaches [13, 18]. Recently, scholars are giving for granted that with term lifelogging we imply technologies that are both “wearable” and “automated” [17]. In other words, if an individual is to put effort in his or her logging of his or her life by manually depicting certain aspects of it, this is, according to recent academic definitions, not to be considered a form of lifelogging. We can agree that, occasional form of logging once own life might resemble more blogging practices [18], but we can also argue that logging can as well occur continuously when, for instance, systematically adopting certain documenting procedures over time. If in automatic forms of lifelogging is a particular sensor, or a combination of sensors to trigger a particular documentation, we can as well advocate that the behaviour of a person can be adjusted to respond in the same fashion.

Dwelling further with this premature concept, we can claim that the need for security already trains a person to trigger a set of procedures prior accomplishing an event in his or her life. A person needs to slide a security card on a reader prior, for instance, using the handle to open the door to his or her office. The increasingly procedural environment surrounding a person, already offers clear moments in which he or she could trigger an additional procedure to log his or her life. If the right hand is busy sweeping the card, the left hand could promptly capture an image of such an activity without the aid of advanced, intelligent, high resolution and pervasive technologies. In this respect, the manual lifelogger would only but discreetly enact what has been already defined “sousvelliance” [13] or surveillance from below.

Figure 6-7. Photo of an early prototype for manual lifelogging to actively document the life of an individual followed by a photo of a lifelogger manually photographing a card logging his activity and only discreetly making use of such a surveyed activity to survey himself as shown in the strip below. The strip represents part of his daily sequence of activities based on the objects his right hand uses. Notice how the camera that on the first photo was on the right hand index has been now adopted by the left hand and how what was wearable became portable and more discreet and ready-made.

The above described enactment differs from the usual sousveillance practices of confronting the surveillance in the environment with explicit surveillance mounted on the head, always on and automatic [13]. The example provided above presents an act of “natural sousvelliance” [24] that occurs from a much lower perspective (that of the left hand), from a device that is only turned on when needed, and that seeks to capture only the most essential memory clue in order to log the transience of life (see Figure 6). Discussion on “selectivity” has already being address in more in depth critic on lifelogging [18] and will be addressed by the author in future publications relating specifically to the mnemonic implications that lifelogging rises.

If then, on one hand, automated lifelogging technology relays on a program which, based on sensory inputs determines an output (in this case the capturing of a photograph), we can assume that individuals following systematically and continuously a documenting procedure emulates the very work of the software running within the lifelogging technology. These individuals do not make use of lifelogging technology nor any automatism; their brains function as the required intelligence processing an input which determines an output. In the upcoming sections, this paper will argue through concrete examples that, not only this apparently obstructive practices can be handled by individuals and can drastically diminish the privacy concerned related to lifelogging usage, but can, in the long

run, create a game, motivating individuals to playfully engage with their presumably uninspiring environments.

Prior moving on to the aforementioned sections, it is important here to more clearly distinguish the automated lifelogging approach from the manual lifelogging approach. If then the former makes use of a wearable technology to capture automatically and all the time what it is thought that a wearer might want to remember, the latter implies that an individual will commit him or herself to design and consequently perform procedures to personally log his or life making use of ordinary off-the-shelf technologies. As it is often the case, these lifelogging procedures might, after an initial experimentation, be adjusted to become less obtrusive, more meaningful and more easily integrated in his or her behavior.

Moreover, a further but important distinction is that manual lifelogs are not necessarily shared in the cloud and the generated data is likely to be implicit and unlinked to any metadata. As it will be exemplified in the coming section, manual lifelogs need active human interpretation to be used by the conceiver as possible memory systems and by others as systems which pertain the potential to generate fictional narrations differing from the actual truth. In this sense, algorithmic analysis of the implicit lifelog generated via manual approaches, by for instance, governmental entities, might not provide any clear and privacy compromising picture.

As it has already being adopted in early debates on lifelogging [7], the paper will continue to adopt the terminologies of automated lifelogging and manual lifelogging even though a distinction is already implied by stressing that the latter terminology refers to a human practice of performing a technical procedure while the former only relates to a performative technology excluding the participation of the wearer in the capturing of the content. As retrieving features are also partially to fully automated in the applications accompanying commercial lifelogging gadgets, the inclusion of the wearer might only restrict to the mere consumption of the presented content. The meaning of such a content for both automated and manual will be also addressed in future and more mnemonic focus publications.

PRACTICES OF DISAPPERANCEIf Vannever Bush with his Memex and Backminster Fuller with his Dymaxion Chronofiles are respectively referred to as the visionary and the pioneer of automatic lifelogging [25] and Steve Mann and Gordon Bell are referred to as those who have respectively prototyped and commercialized the vision [17], we might as well commence to address the precursors of manual lifelogging for the sake of understanding the implications of their practices.

Firstly, however, it is important to emphasize here that the “fathers” of automate lifelogging have plainly wished to be

completely effortless in the creation of their lifelogs, using, when technology was not available, full time human assistance in, for instance, organizing and inputing their life documents into their logs [26] and particularly when doing so retroactively, meaning when digitization of paper based documents belonging to the past has been required [2].

To articulate the main narration of the origins of lifelogging, we can commence with a non-North America, non-male and non-celebrated example, Janina Turek. When Bush was conceiving his milestone article towards the end of the Second World War [1], the Polish housewife, started to meticulously annotate in more than 700 notebooks 32 aspects of her daily life. By the end of her life in 2000, she had not only annotated the 5.936 dinners she had, as mannerist painter Jacopo Pontormo did in his diaries, but also the 84.523 acquaintances she saw passing her house, the 70.042 TV programs she saw and the 23.397 times she greeted a person [27]. Even though more socially successful individuals like Roman Opalka, On Kawara and Tehching Hsieh have undergone manual depiction of their lives (or parts of their lives), they too, as Janina, have shown a tendency of disappearance rather than appearance via their manual practices. Janina's diaries, for example, were only found by her daughter after her death, all stored in a closet. Similarly, the aforementioned Taiwanese artist Tehching Hsieh, after five consecutive one year long performances demanding “effortful” tracking of different aspects of his life (e.g. manually tracking his movements while living roofless in Manhattan), had voluntary disappeared from the art scene for more than 13 years [28].

Figure 8. The photo shows the apartment window from which Janina had been for half a century tracking, for instance, the passerby.

As cyborg pioneers have attempted to identify themselves with Hsieh [13] and what he has defined as “living art” [28], we can rather see that the main distinction is that individuals like Turek and Hsieh can be seen as outsiders, marginal social figures seeking through their manual lifelogging practice disappearance as addressed by the Latin maxim Cupio Dissolvi [29]. They characterize a tendency of selecting and neatly packaging their lives almost as if in

preparation for a trip to the after life (it is not unusual that a Celtic burial ground lays in the proximity of Turek's former house). Psychologically speaking, in a compulsive fashion, they are driven to prepare for their death [30], as the life work of the France postman, Ferdinand Cheval exemplifies [31]. Rather than “lifeloggers”, manual lifeloggers could be, in this respect defined as “deathloggers”.

Figure 9. The photo shows a Celtic burial mound in the right proximity of Janina's house.

Given the above premises, we can now assume that a same spirit pervades the work of “contemporary outsiders” who have been manually logging their lives using digital devices. If this assumption is correct, we can tentatively conclude that the privacy implications pertaining automated forms of lifelogging are partially resolved in the realm of manual lifelogging. The latter form, in fact, might not imply sharing with the public present, but can be rather seen as a potential time capsule for future generation and, to some degree, a Noah's Ark filled to transmit hieroglyphic like clues to the future. If social media sharing is not intended in manual lifelogging practices, issues of privacy infringement are partially resolved. Also, the fact that the creators of manual lifelogging are usually, based on their biographies, marginal individuals, turns them less attractive to governmental surveillance and marketing. We may now, in the following sections, proceed to verify this conclusion by more closely look into the manual lifelogging practices of contemporary individuals using digital technology.

ARTISTIC OR MANUAL?Prior defining lifelogging as a commercial technology continuously capturing the life of a wearer effortlessly via a system of sensors, scholars concerned with the implications of lifelogging, have been also concerned with manual lifelogging approaches. These approaches have been referred to as “digital artworks” and have been advocated as also addressers of the implications that sousveillance can rise [7]. These “artistic” approaches have been here defined as “manual”, not to confuse them with mainstream art practices which generally tend to have a rather exhibitionist nature contrary to the advocated non-exhibitionist nature of

the former.

Also, by avoiding to see manually compiled lifelogs as artworks, and thus only original and exceptional, we might be able to learn a counter tendency to fulfill the potential that technology has been offering now for over a decade. We can, for instance, enumerates, as scholars have already done, several manual lifelogging attempts that took place prior the Web 2.0 [7]. These lifelogging projects have not only demonstrated to be manually generated but also to relay on manually crafted templates. As the social media template has taken over the Internet, these manual approaches have dissociated themselves from the Internet as a template. The original enthusiasm that these digital artworks have generated in the news as demonstrative of the lifelogging possibility of digital technologies [32], has ceased. Social media has engulfed all media attention soon inheriting negative connotations in respect of generating free digital labour and marketing what social media users share [33].

In this respect, the work in progress of manual lifelogging approaches has sank underground and, as already discussed, it has been excluded by any academic discussion on lifelogging. Now that general discussion on lifelogging technology and possibilities for individuals to record their lives have taken such a negative connotation, it is important to bring back these manual practices as feasible alternatives. Given the circumstance, the following section will present a manual lifelogging experiment conducted by the author in order to continuously track, using a variety of media, different aspects of his life. The experiment has already been utilized as an example in early discussions on the implementation of lifelogging technologies [34] and their implications [7].

A MANUAL LIFELOGGING EXAMPLEA manual lifelogging experiment has been started in 2004 and will continue until 2040 [35]. The experiment consists in capturing streams of fragments representing different aspects of the life of a documenting subject. Thus, rather than continuously video-recording his life, the project has focused to capture only significant clues. In order to track the subject's life activities, for instance, every object the right hand he uses is photographed by the left hand according to a set of rules [34]. This part of the project results in a continuous record of the activities of a person's life symbolized by sequences of small photographs of the hand using the object needed to accomplish an activity [35]. While being a powerful aid to recollect memory, the project can also be utilized by audience to generate fictional interpretation on the documenting subject's life.

Scholars have addressed the obtrusiveness of such effortful approaches [18]. It is however important to point out that the documenting subject manually keeping a photographic track of his activities, has, by now, naturally embedded such a behaviour as much as he has had to embed other

behaviours required by society, for instance, for security reasons (e.g. as already said before, using a card prior using an handle to open a door). In this respect, this documenting behaviour allows the individual not only to survey himself (e.g. to enforce his identity), but also to be in control of what he records by making use of a self crafted template that is only partially shared. In this manner, the surveillance that can occur on the cloud is limited by avoiding to adopt social media website for instance, but by also generating content that cannot be analyzed for the purpose of compensating larger surveillance.

In addition, marginally to Big Data, manual lifelogs tends to be too selective, and low quality to generate any meaningful content for algorithmic machine analyses, but they are also generally unlinked to any metadata necessary for governmental surveillance. For example, the photographs of the objects used have no GPS data, being mostly captured indoor where objects are mostly used and being the camera apparatus most simple for constant utilization (a smartphone would be too complex for the purpose). In other words, manual lifelogs do not capture the broader picture. Such a broader picture has to be in fact “imagined” by a supposed media archaeologist who tries to make sense of such lifelog, also based on other lifelogs generated along and likely generating a fictional interpretation.

In this respect, together with the photographing of every object his right hand uses to track his activities, the documenting subject also conduct more societal exposed projects. For example, in order to track his outdoor exploration, the documenting subject films for four seconds every vanishing point of the public spaces where he seats [35]. In this sense, even in a more socially sensitive environment, the documenting subject film with a low resolution camera as any other tourist, being clearly visible to others, but also focusing on the emptiness of a place rather than on its individuals. The resolution of the camera would not, in any case, allow to recognize anyone entering in the field of view. The recording of the single places might also be stronger autobiographical memory trigger for the documenting subject and provide a broader feel of interpretation and empathy for an outside viewer.

Figure 10. The image shows the documenting subject noticeably filming the vanishing point of a public space where he has just sat. The vanishing point indicates him where to center his video-camera.

As these issues will be taken in consideration in more, memory and data related articles, we can now conclude that manual lifelogging might in fact provide a less socially implicated and potentially rich alternative to automated forms of camera based and memory aiding lifelogging. In addition, we can suggests that manual forms of lifelogging can be rather thought of as tactical games taken place in the social fabric. Thus, as new technologies will arise new social implications and consequently new laws to regulate them, practitioners might provide “hand-made” and “self-crafted” solutions going around them and, most importantly, providing them with a meaning to exist in such a regulated and surveyed environment [35].

PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS

Suggested that manual lifelogging do not rise the societal implications that automated lifelogging rises, we can however attempt, as a last effort, to comprehend possible other implications brought forward by the former. A few societal implications may in fact arise but the adjustable nature of the procedures with which a manual lifelogging practitioners operates allows to avoid them.

In one instance, the documenting subject was in the Swedish capital sliding with his dominant hand his debit card on the cash machine of a cheap supermarket to pay for the grocery. As the left hand rose to photograph the right hand holding the credit card, the cashier held the arm of the documenting subject suspiciously. Speaking with a strong Arabic accent he wanted to know what the device was about as it was pointed at the cash desk and, in his respect, could be interpreted as a robbery attempt. The documenting subject, also with a strong accent, then attempted to explain him the reasons of his project and he was let go. Since that occasion, the documenting subject has avoided to photograph credit cards while in use in front of another party but rather photographing them prior or after.

In this respect, while the wearer of lifelogging technology are not willing to compromise their totalitarian documenting behaviour and rather emphasize it [13],

manual lifelogging can be adjusted and the human executor, contrary to the machine executor, can learn to sense the times in which a certain documenting behaviour might be seen as suspicious. In the worst case, the documenting subject might simply refrain to do an activity which would imply the photographing of an object as while taking off or landing with an airplane. What might be more sensitive however is the documentation of his documenting activity as it was done for this paper (see Figure 10). Then a high definition camera on a tripod has been utilized. This meta documentation is however seldom and also based on the discreetness of the documenting subject.

Following up to the success of social media network platforms, other implications has however arose. Rather than “frending” new acquaintance virtually via, for instance, Facebook, the documenting subject asks permission to photograph their faces, and he is compiling an actual face book of his own as part of his 36 years long lifelog. The background around each face is manually removed and the head shot is inserted in a grid of other head shots. The photographic portrait work of August Sander Face of Our Time has already demonstrated how a premature publication of a societal representation, can have pernicious consequences such as the burning of the collection [36]. Aware of this, the documenting subject keeps his collection only partially public, giving higher priority to the manual lifelogging projects pertaining his personal sphere.

However, provided then that societal implications can be minimized or can be adjusted according to circumstances, manual lifelogging approaches do have other implications and of a rather more personal matter. Given the fact that manual lifelogging is conducted via the very human, it allows a feature that automated lifelogging cannot yet render: the monitoring of the subconscious. In a traditional sense, while technically depicting certain aspects of reality, manual lifelogger can also monitor their own dreams, ideas and thoughts while technology is still unable to do so. These elements can be also systematically recorded in a slightly more effortful fashion. Every morning, for instance, the documenting subject types his remembered dreams and in the evening he draws the ideas he has accumulated during the day [35]. Generally, the logging of the psychological state requires more effort but it can provide a better understanding of a person's state of mind and the way he or she are affected by the surrounding environment.

In this respect, to transparently monitor once own psychological state have implied some personal implications. Having found the dream diary of the documenting subject, for example, his ex wife discovered or was keen to discover many sexual dreams. A big discussion arose to whether the documenting subject should continue such a project and in the long run undermine her reputation. Provided that he would not publish his dreams, his ex wife was anyway dissatisfied since she thought that

the dreams might be anyway made public after his death and ruin her reputation then. By then, the documenting subject had already taken away his all project from the Internet and only sections of it were on view. This decision had been taken since the success of social media which had drastically decreased any interest in his logging activity.

The private implication arose with his ex wife was aggravated by an exhibition of the documenting subject in which one local newspaper had particularly focused on the dreams, making the documenting subject's ex wife shameful and resulting in their separation. On one hand we could see this as a negative implication, however. on another hand we could see it as a positive implication implying that perhaps a record of dreams might suggest the truth: in the documenting subject's case perhaps, that him and his ex wife were no longer in love.

Other issues which might arise when systematically monitoring once own psychological state, may as well be offensive for other religions. In a state of freely associating the societal surrounding, a logger monitoring his or her psychology might end up thinking of a cross as a catapult and so forth. The viewing of such records could in fact irritate particular more religiously fanatic persons if shared. As long as the lifelog is not fully shared, or exhibited, however, these issues can be minimized. Alternatively, a warning sign as that encountered by Dante Alighieri prior entering the Inferno, could be provided.

Whether shared or not shared and to what extend one shares a manually generated lifelog, another implication has been to be able to work for an employer and justify the weird documenting activity. This has been a concern mostly at the beginning of the project, when the use of phones and particularly smart phones was lower. Presently, the behavior of the documenting subject well blends into society, with the distinction however that he is mostly operating devices to produce rather than consume media content and that his devices are rather outdated and often rise curiosity and in a few instances may be seen rather as devices to monitor the documenting subject's health (e.g. while in a buffet photographing the various utensils). On another note, the documenting behaviour of the documenting subject might be seen as a way to boast the profile of a working environment, and or inspire it.

CONCLUSIONIn this paper we have reexamined the most recent debate arose by the launching of automated lifelogging technology. This debate has brought up important implications that ought to be solved in order to safeguard the privacy of non-users, environments and users. A question has been spontaneously arose to whether lifelogging would be still worth doing in such regulated circumstances and whether life in general would be worth living under such threats. Rather than pursuing to formulate new alternatives to suit an hypothetical popularization of automated lifelogging

technologies, the paper has instead looked at manual lifelogging approaches that have been neglected over the last decade. Conclusively, the paper has shown how manual lifelogging diminishes the most important societal implications brought forth by automated lifelogging while bringing forth other implications of more personal matter and more directly pertaining to the monitoring of

psychological states. This paper has however formerly concluded that manual lifelogging can be seen as rather a practice of disappearance than appearance and often it is conducted by Epicurean like individuals living rather hidden and not willing to totally share with the present but rather digitally packaging their lives in the fashion of ancient folks.

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