Slashdot Mirror
UK Group Wants Mandatory Flash For Phone Cams
meganthom writes "The BBC is carrying a story about some privacy groups' concerns about the new camera phones. Privacy International, a London-based group, is asking that all phones flash when they are being used to take a photograph. In Korea, the government would like phones to make a loud sound when taking a picture. Also mentioned, several companies/labs do not allow employees to have photo phones on site. Anyone remember that Dilbert?"
Tape would neutralize both "fixes" pretty easily.
Sigs cause cancer.
Paranoid idiots.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Im sure no-one will figure out putting their finger over the flash, or taping something over it, or opening up the phone, and cutting wires.
Get your own free personal location tracker
So you pass a law that makes all phones more anoying by having a manditory flash. Then do you outlaw the tape people will put over the flash?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This seems pretty pointless. I guess for the average cell phone "photographer" this would just annoy them. For the criminal that is using the cell phone to take pictures of your credit card or up your skirt I'm sure they will just find an easy work around.
photographic memories will be required to have a flash attachment installed with their RFID implant?
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Exactly how are people taking "illicit" pictures with cell phones, that they couldn't take with ordinary digital cameras?
They should make it shout, "Hey, I'm taking your picture."
Dilbert is too real to be funny anymore.
Silent camera phones don't take steamy uncensored barely legal gym shower room photos, people take steamy uncensored barely legal gym shower room photos.
Given that I've seen digital cameras that are far smaller than even the tiniest camera phones, it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to condemn camera phones. I can understand the banning of camera phones from a workplace, but only if cameras in general are banned. Otherwise, it's an arbitrary knee-jerk reaction.
Besides, the image quality is quite poor on camera phones as opposed to an equal-sized (and equally small) digital camera.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
First, they came for our shift keys, now our electrical tape. What's next?
Think of the children!
...they've had mandatory clicky-clicky noises for ages.
:)
But it's quite a famous problem there - women being felt up on busy trains, the upskirt photos and so on. Here in the UK, if a bloke did that, it'd be prison, pure and simple. People just don't really do that kind of thing.
Groups calling for this are the same kind of idiots who, when all else fails, will simply wail "Won't somebody please think of the children!"
iqu
You didn't read the fine print. Electrical tape will be outlawed also.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
If security is that tight, why do you allow visitors in the first place?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
...then outlaws will just buy cameras.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Just appeared on Suprnova. Damm hackers...
Flash "protection"
Search for place_your_thumb_over_the_light_DEViANCE.torrent
Sound "protection"
Search for cut_a_wire_on_the_speaker_(RELOADED).torrent
for a moment I thought this had to to with Macromedia.
Tape would neutralize both "fixes" pretty easily.
Easy problem to solve there, friend. All you need to do next is make a law banning tape as a circumvention device.
After all - look at what banning felt pens did for the music industry!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Think about no-camera-phone policies in the R&D department of Nokia...
:-)
I once was an intern at a Nokia R&D center and that was a policy. At the time I was there, the "hot new" project was a camera-phone.
I'm not sure how the /. article could vary so far from the content of the bbc article, but the part about flashing is practically an afterthought, one sentence about it at the very end. "The government also considered the use of a default flash, but plans were abandoned after concerns from manufacturers."
When are lawmakers going to learn that it's the action that should be legislated, not the capability? You don't fine people who own sports cars because the are capable of speeding.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
The real point of these laws isn't to stop people from abusing camera phones. The real purpose is to give the lawmakers the appearance of "doing something" about the problem. Next time they're up for reelection, watch for ads saying "I protected families and children by making it harder for pedophiles and perverts to use camera phones to hurt children. Vote for me." They're hoping most people don't stop to think about whether what they did had any real effect (and they're probably right).
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
"Fears grow amid the ever improving resolution of picture phone" replace with: "Fears grow amid the never ending march of technological improvement"
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
Funny how everyone has the same idea to defeat the ideas these folks have.
Funnier still is that they're all getting modded up.
Anyway, I had a slightly different idea. How about making the cameras broadcast an RF signal to make nearby tornado warning sirens go off or something.
Do we have an expectation of privacy in public? Somebody with a telescopic lens can snap photos of you from hundreds of yards away, and shotgun microphones can record your conversations.
And (in the USA at least) the police can record what you do in public without any warrant. I'm as big of a civil liberties backer as any slashdotter, but I really don't think you have much of a right to privacy in public. And common sense says if you don't want it to be public knowledge, don't do it in public.
Also, with those tiny button-sized spy cameras and so forth, which are designed to be even less noticeable than somebody pointing a phone at you, is a cell phone a covert enough form of photography to even worry about it?
How about 5 years in jail for using one in a cinema to type a text message :)
They looked at me like I was on crack. I was shown the prepaid phones with an insinuation that I must be too cheap to afford the camera phones. I then had to explain that I was already a customer and had no interest in prepaid.
They could not get past this point. After 20 minutes I finally got them to show me the phones they had that met my requirements. Tri-mode and no camera. They had 3 in the entire store left (large store btw) that met these requirements. One of these was a close out model that wasn't being made anymore.
I tried explaining to them that I work in areas that a camera is NOT allowed in. I explained that turning the camera off wasn't going to cut it on a government or banking contract. They just didn't get it.
I have to have a phone for my work. I can't have a camera, and I know I am far from alone.
Verizon, Can you hear me now?
Look out, look out! It's a paediatrician!
A paedwhat?
Who cares? Burn its house!
so it's "REEZE!!!"
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
In Soviet Russia, Cameras take pictures of YOU!
Oh! Wait...!
I can find very small, compact, quiet digital cameras in the shape of watches and pens at the local Walmart. Some film cameras are also very small. I'd much rather do this than the ass 320x240 blurromatic I have on my Sanyo 8100.
A chikan who wants an upskirt shot probably has a better chance now than he would have a couple of years ago - partly because people are used to the cameras and partly because they are used to the sound.
In America, if you want an upskirt shot, just ask the next ten women who walk by in in skirts. At least one will say yes.
I called the salesman over and explained that my work location is a military/government location where classified work is done, and cameras are prohibited on the premises. Only two phones did not have a camera. I told him that if all their cell phones had a camera, then it was pointless to subscribe to their services as I would not be able to use it at work.
He happened to be an ex-marine and understood my point, and would pass that on to his superiors.
Cell phones have way too many gadgets that I'll never use (games? text messaging? please), all at the expense of increased consumption of battery power. If I only use it as a phone, the battery only lasts a little over two hours use. This is not an attractive trend.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
... all cell phones make a "shutter" sound, precisely to prevent rouge snappers from taking underskirt shots.
This, of course, can go unnoticed in crowded, noisy areas.
(I should know... I took a DECENT picture of a schoolgirl group one day, they all gave me angry looks... Hey, I was just taking a picutre of a cultural icon!)
Except for member of the Official Monster Raving Looney Party (who are too nuts to be paranoid), that would be most of the population of the UK. Hmmm. Maybe we could tie this in with the Mars landings. But then you'd have to find a way to brew a decent cup of tea at such a low atmospheric pressure.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Then they came for our felt tip markers, but I did not speak up because I did not have a felt tip marker.
Then they came for the electrical tape, and I did not speak up for I did not have electrical tape.
Then they came for me and there was nothing left to crack the DRM they installed in my brain.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
This is symbolic legislation at it's best. It is not designed to actually solve a problem, but to have the appearance of a solution. This way, some group of do-gooders can feel like they have accomplished something. Their opinion of the law would not change even if they were informed of how easy this "solution" would be to defeat. In otherwords, it's to save the children.
that has video cameras everywhere? If it is ok for the government, why not the everyday citizen?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
It's actually one small organisation's attempt at getting pulibicity by re-hashing what's already been suggested in other countries as if they've ever had a novel idea.
I had been thinking lately that people using cell phones in public weren't quite annoying enough, so really this legislation is an answer to my prayers.
Hopefully to follow will be something that will make phones emit garbled conversation loudly while they're being used as phones as well. Loud beeps to tell what numbers are being pressed would also be nice.
Seriously, if you go out in public, you run the risk of being seen. Sometimes you might even be recorded being out and about. There are privacy concerns, then there is silliness. Anything that other people are allowed around does not have an expectation of privacy, so invading my privacy further with noise pollution is not only non-productive, but counterproductive.
adam b.
The same British who have 10 surveillance cameras on every street corner?
creation science book
I think some country in the Far East already requires an audiable sound when you take a picture on a camera phone.
A more reasonable approach is to say that when you are not in a public place, you have an limited expectation of privacy that includes not being photographed without notice. If someone does violate your privacy and takes your photograph, you have a right to enjoin them from distributing it and a right to recover damages if it has already been distributed.
Personally, I like the idea of cameras giving off some kind of warning before they take a picture. It's polite. Everything being equal, I'd buy a phone with that feature before buying one without it. However, this should be "disableable" on a per-picture basis, when the warning itself would ruin the picture. You don't want your camera-phone picture of a cute furry animal ruined because it flashed or beeped before it snapped.
Should this be regulated?
I'd prefer the industry to come to a standard "warning" rather than have it be a government mandate.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think that's fair enough - if you don't like the rule don't use the locker room. That's no reason to extend the rule to general public spaces though.
This is a great example of moral panic, for which UK is notorious. Have you personally witnessed a situation where a camera phone was used for illicit purpose? May be any of your friends or relatives fell fictim to camera-equipped voyeurs, who posted their gym pics on the web? Personally I think this is really blown out of proportions.
There's always been voyeur porn, much of which was "professionally" done with willing models. And there has never been a significant number of incidents with camera phones - may be a few tens, a few hundreds worldwide, hardly a reason to legislate (but of course, who needs reason today...).
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Motorola flip phones sold in the UK don't have the capibility to take a photo while they are closed. There is a shutter button on the outside to enable this but I believe it is disabled by software in the UK following concerns such as those raised in the article.
UK Laptops
phone cams are the least of most companies worries... how about spy cams (actually meant for spying) or photocopiers that double as scanners... i would put usb storage devices way above cell cams on the security threat list
Get your torrents...
This system is alreay in place in Japan.
When your phone snaps a photo it makes a loud "click" which is pretty recognizable. Not all phones use the same sound, but they're similar.
This system was developed to prevent guys from taking pictures up girls skirts on the subway.
This is just the price of the social contract in Japan. Wanna have 25% of the female population wear a mini-skirt each day? Gotta have cameras that click. Doesn't seem like a bad deal to me at all.
The interesting thing is that this isn't a law or government regulated thing at all. The phone manufacturers just decided that it was the right thing to do. There's a monoculture at work for ya.
P.S.: No, tape will not really muffle the sound at all. It's been tried.