Ethics and the Use of Sensor Network Monitoring in an Art Setting

This paper deals with the use of sensors at a museum or art exhibition. Privacy issues are considered by surveying the public about their opinion and by using previous conclusions from related work. Using previous works in this field and the state of the art, three possible uses for sensor networks in museums are proposed: analyzing visitor movements, an advanced security system and an interactive installation. The privacy implications for these examples are analyzed, using general properties of such a system: Resolution, personal identifiability, utility, relevance, pervasiveness, property and retention time. Visitors considered being personally identifiable the biggest breach of their privacy. There’s a lot of potential for interative installations in museums. Museums, artists and visitors all consider these interesting. These installations can be designed to not store any captured images, so privacy isn’t breached.