Spot the Surveillance: A VR Experience for Keeping an Eye on Big
Spot the Surveillance is a virtual reality (VR) experience that teaches people how to identify the various spying technologies that police may deploy in communities.
The user is placed in a 360-degree scene in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, where a young resident is in the middle of a police encounter. By looking up, down, and all around, you must identify a variety of surveillance technologies in the environment, including a body-worn camera, automated license plate readers, a drone, a mobile biometric device, and pan-tilt-zoom cameras.
How to Play
Spot the Surveillance currently works best with a virtual reality headset and a browser that is capable of displaying WebVR. A less-immersive version will work on standard computer browsers through a click-and-drag interface.
Spot the Surveillance takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Spot the Surveillance uses a gaze-based interface. This means that once you launch the experience, you will not require a handheld selection device. Instead, you will turn your head to position the central cursor—it looks like a white circle—to find items in the game, press buttons and close windows.
To view Spot the Surveillance in a VR headset, you will need a VR-enabled browser. Once you have loaded the browser, please visit the URL https://eff.org/spot-vr[3]. You will then see a start menu. Use your cursor to launch the VR experience by selecting the headset icon at the bottom right of the window.
If you’re interested in using Spot the Surveillance as a tool to teach about law enforcement surveillance, please download our Lesson Plan (PDF)[4].
Oculus Rift or Oculus Go
Spot the Surveillance functions with current Oculus devices using the standard Oculus browser.
HTC Vive
Spot the Surveillance requires a browser such as Firefox or Chromium. For instructions please see the WebVR page. [5]
Windows Mixed-Reality Headset
Spot the Surveillance functions with current Mixed-Reality Headset devices using the Mixed-Reality browser.