You’re on shaky ground if you want to take pictures of children. (Though some are still doing it spectacularly.)

Should I have taken this picture?

I didn’t use a flash – no flash photography on the Underground. Just a straight, clear shot of another solitary person.

But I didn’t ask his permission.

And neither did the CCTV camera up high on his shoulder. Nor did it ask my permission on the way down the escalator.

Still, I could feasibly have been swept off on the grounds of “acting suspiciously and taking pictures“, and I wouldn’t be writing this now. They’re would be CCTV footage if it went to court, and a new government policy to back it up.

What does all this say about us? How does it affect the way we see each other?

As they say in Australia. That’s round the other side of the Earth from me right now. Hello from space stilts!

You could send a satellited message like the one above with geoGreeting. It peers down from Google Maps to spell things out with letter-shaped buildings.

Neat, huh?

But there’s a blinking frost about the astro cyclops. We want more freedom to play, less unsolicited surveillance.

Melanie Coles ran free and got drawing on the Earth over in Vancouver. Now we can do find and seek with the satellites instead. Suddenly they seem more friendly.

(via Neil Perkin . Thanks, Neil. I hope you don’t mind this friendly reference.)

The Canadian art student challenges you to Where’s Waldo using a rooftop and Google Maps. Puts a whole different perspective on geotagging. Paint your tag on buildings instead.

But you’re reading this online. I expect you won’t go square-eyed and anti-social working with pixels.

So let me ask you – do you upload pictures to Flickr? Flickr does geotagging. There’s been geotagging for years – and on a lot of photos. Put those photos together and we’re getting something approaching an Earth-sized 3D digital map.

If this is beginning to sound like alienspeak, I refer you to a far brighter earthling.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas gave the world a glimpse of Photosynth last year at TED. I had to rub my eyes.

Hold tight to to your stilts. Then be sure you watch this. We’re gazing into a distant future. But it’s not light years away, my friend.

Are you talking to me? But I don’t even have a car.

I might have been on a speeding bus once, but that can’t have been in London. Frankly, I think your assumptions are questionable.

Furthermore, the images on your poster suggest that if I get caught speeding, it would be as if a kid were taking footage. Does the court of law recognise such amateurish evidence?

When I took pictures as a primary school kid they were normally of my friends or the TV screen to see if the photo came out like it looked on the TV screen. For the record, it didn’t. But I’m digressing.

Can I counter-accuse you of badvertising? It would be a shame to do so. Because M&C Saatchi’s TV spot for this campaign is pretty good and it’s a serious issue we’re talking about.

What do you think? I reckon the earlier poster with the steering wheel worked, but this one’s got a bit confused.