24a. A Concept™:

Opportunity

Customers/Market

When looking at customer demographics, we recognize several groups that all face overlapping issues. Journalists, high-risk targets or workers in identity-sensitive fields, government agents, people of color and other marginalized/targeted communities, the most broad term applicable being privacy-concerned private citizens. The under-met need we have identified for these communities is the overarching levels of surveillance around them that encroach on their rights to privacy.

The market for the issues of surveillance is global, with nations and citizens all around the world facing issues with implementation and ethics behind their surveillance systems. Potential customers will be people who are more likely to be tracked or surveilled for reasons ranging from government dissent, exposure of government information or misdeeds, selected targeting of minority communities that face discrimination, and even those who wish to conduct private and public work in anonymity.

Forces

Some of the forces that attribute to this need are undue burdens brought on as side effects from other industries. In the world of security, there is a massive amount of video surveillance occurring in almost every area of heavy human traffic and human interest. While normal security systems are not initially intrusive, the intersection of Big Tech and Big Data with security is creating startling risks for people. Cameras with facial recognition technology have already been implemented on a near universal scale in China, and attempts by The Economist, BBC and WIRED have reported on the startling level of data and accessory information about citizens can be collected, stored and analyzed. These have extreme implications with other systems converging with them, making real time tracking synonymous with existence. 

Status quo

There is very little that is being done to help keep consumer's privacy intact. There is little regulation-wise that prevents misuse of data that is collected. Some products have gone to market advertising gear that is meant to be protective towards video camera surveillance, but our analysis would argue that those products are still vulnerable and can compromise security.

Window

This opportunity will continue to stay open for as long as there will be surveillance technology being offered by the security industry that overextends its boundaries on human privacy rights, but will get narrower as the market will try to assess the same issues and tackle them.

Innovation

Our innovation comes in the form of a new product and an new products designed to address video surveillance by providing customers with LED technology that would be attached to everyday clothing that provides protection from the majority of surveillance camera Infrared imaging. This technology would come in the form of clothing and accessory attachments, our first design being a clip that attaches across the underside of a normal cap, that has three LED lights mounted onto the frame that emit infrared light, which is the main light system used in security cameras on the market today, all being powered by rechargeable lithium ion batteries. The IR light blinds security cameras to the face of the wearer. The material costs are variable depending on what design, but would give a range of prices estimated from $50 to $150 dollars. The product design currently does not have ways to negate non-infrared surveillance, which can provide difficulty under certain systems. We also recognize that our initial design in the baseball cap is limited in the suspicious connotation already attributed to it.

Venture Concept

The development of this product will help in protecting citizen privacy through the obfuscation of peoples faces from detection in security camera systems and does so in ways that do not immediately alert physical security as IR is invisible to the human eye. Competitors have created a similar product in a baseball cap with built in LED lights to emit IR, but being built in is a risk in operational security and should not be recommended. Packaging will be hyper discrete, to the same standards as those in industries like sex toys or high value items, as to not alert suspicion to shipping supply chains what may be in the package. There wouldn't be much need for organization of full time employees with the ability to relegate orders in a drop shipping manner so that manufacturers can create product co-emergent with demand. We can take inspiration from Chris Anderson's "Makers: The New Industrial Revolution" and allow the product designs to be under creative commons licensing and make designing and feedback open source, allowing for access but production and name brand to still be under our jurisdiction to recoup costs and build up on profit. This minimizes direct need for hiring designers and allows a community of collaborators willing to work on the projects investing significant amounts of time the show of merit to be hired and kept for design and manufacturing purposes.

The ending thoughts

I still believe that ethical, consumer-conscious design will give us the chance to be accessible for all consumers but still provide the edge in supporting the most vulnerable. The intersections of issues facing groups that face discrimination deserve to maintain their privacy and keep themselves safe, and that is what we wish to do.

The next step will be working on alternative designs that can harness infrared LED technology in discreet ways where headgear may not be worn or culturally recognizable to be effective. This includes attachments for formal wear, clips and wiring for casual clothes and thin clothing, and clips for cultures that use scarves in their dress.

Assuming we've launched, I hope that this company can continue to grow incrementally by providing effective and helpful consumer tools to protect people's privacy. I myself don't directly see myself as a future entrepreneur, but this work would be vital in understanding an industry around privacy and technology that as a journalist has intrigued me my whole life.