[ technology Category ]
January 18, 2004

Privacy Schmivacy

This morning, the Advertiser ran a storyabout privacy issues and picture cell phones. The headline reads, "Privacy issues plague picture phones". The privacy issues outlined in the article made me wonder...

Wouldn't these same privacy issues plague film cameras, digital cameras, video cameras? I'm not sure I understand why picture phones are being singled out here as a privacy issue. With photographic and video devices getting smaller by the minute, it's pretty easy to pull out a camera wherever you are and snap a picture without somebody knowing.

What makes "moblogging" different from going home and scanning pictures and loading them to your weblog? What makes snapping a picture from your camera phone different than shooting some digital video footage of a stranger eating a shave ice on a beach in Waikiki?

If all of these devices create privacy issues, what on Earth could possibly be done about it?? Talk amongst yourselves....

Posted by Beth at January 18, 2004 07:26 AM

Comments

 
Posted by Mitchell on January 18, 2004 9:31 AM:

I'm with you, Beth. I understand that women don't want camera-shot digital photos of them posted to some lecherous loser's website, but it baffles me that people think this should be illegal.

I understand, too, that there are people who've taken advantage of the new technology in legally questionable ways, such as taking pictures from beneath bathroom stalls or escalators, but if this is going on at, say, Ala Moana Shopping Center, it should be up to the mall management to regulate or prevent this kind of behavior. Should the behavior itself be illegal? I am not so sure.

A woman wearing a skirt knows there are certain risks, but if the wind blows her skirt up and everyone in the vicinity doesn't turn his or her head, the non-head-turners don't go to jail. If the same woman is on the UP escalator and someone else is standing beneath her with a camera phone, I don't know that the LAW should be any different here. I do know that mall management should do what it can to keep people like that off its property.

In the same way, if I don't want someone looking at me while I'm using the urinal, I DON'T USE THE URINAL. I don't ask for new laws to be created that will prevent guys with curious eyes from taking peeks. If there's any chance that someone with a CAMERA is around, I'm not even USING a public restroom.

Which is all to say that when something new comes along, the knee-jerk reaction is to make a law against it, and then in a few years the law doesn't make any sense. Instead, if certain behaviors are not already illegal, it makes more sense for people just to be careful.


 
Posted by helen on January 18, 2004 10:04 AM:

I don't have or use a camera phone but I am thinking the two reasons why camera phones might be a problem from the unwilling subject's point of view:


  1. Since they look like phones as opposed to cameras you don't know if they are taking your picture or not.
  2. Once the picture is taken more than likey it's somewhere else.

 
Posted by Ryan on January 18, 2004 7:54 PM:

There was at least the one case of one Tyler Takehara, using a video camera and an escalator at Ala Moana to get some upskirt images. (Just watch the search engines bring folks flying to this thread in a few weeks.) His attorney, correctly IMHO, argued that there was nothing illegal about what he was doing. Rather than think about the big picture, Linda Lingle and the Legislature just made it illegal... and in closing one loophole, no doubt made that much more room for legal shenanigans.

In Takehara's case, it was a pretty elaborate setup. Phone cams are being targeted now simply because the're the next big threat, and because they're small. But with cameras that can fit in the frames of glasses or in a pen already widely available, they're only the tip of the iceberg.

Photos in locker rooms? Bathroom stalls? Other places where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy? That's a problem... but in addition to the policies and rights of the owners of the property (if it's private property), I'm pretty sure there are existing laws that can be applied to those activities. If not, civil law is so wide open, someone, somewhere can be sued. Sure, you'll be embarrassed, but you'll be rich!

But a government ban on a specific kind of photography in a public place? Talk about a slippery slope. Especially when unannounced photographic surveillance by the government is, at the same time, also a growing civil liberties issue.

Whether by the government or by others, you're going to be photographed more and more. Today, with traffic cameras and ATMs and store security, there've been studies that show the average American is photographed several dozen times a day. In the U.K., it's three hundred times a day. These are different times, to be sure. (Though, honestly, I'd be more worried about that TSA agent than some perverted neighbor.)

I'm all for forward-thinking businesses and property owners to incorporate strong and public policies against unauthorized photography (as those that already exist at many major businesses when it comes to traditional cameras). And for there to be room for relief when someone's expectation of privacy is violated.

But legislation that could stop a photographer from taking pictures at a busy beach? That's bad law.

 
Posted by A passer by on December 18, 2004 7:22 PM:

Hey here's how I see it. If you leave an area open for possible viewing in public, you welcome it.

That's almost as bad as men and women who walk around in skimpy clothing with body parts practically hanging out left and right and they look at you like your a disgusting pig because you happen to see it and take notice.

It's wrong to photograph people in areas that they do not feel comfortable. It's wrong to assume that just because you don't intend to show something, people will not look if given the chance.

The law should stand in the selling of photo's. This is the reason the law even exists. How can they say that it's legal for you to look, but not take a picture?

If this is the case, what's to stop me from walking around in a short mesh miniskirt escorted by 12 lawyers while at a public performance sueing the entire audience simply because a shot of my tush was in everyones photo's/video's...seriously your honor, I did not welcome it. It was covered partially.


I believe it's just a desperate attempt to prevent someone's personal areas from appearing on websites and to scare off those who want to take such pictures by linching someone for having gotten caught for such tasks.

It doesn't matter what constitutional ammendmants we are stepping on/breaking simply because even though the supreme court has backed up such voyeurs in saying that you cannot expect the right to privacy when in the face of public it memans you still do time and pay fines and go through the headache despite the fact that the highest court in the nation would back you up.

So to simplty put it.

Don't welcome it, don't picture it.

I'd feel violated if I saw a guy holding a camera beneath my skirt while I was on a escalator and for that simple fact, I don't wear a skirt.

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