No Pictures, Thanks

An anonymous reader writes "HP has received a patent on technology that would allow anyone who didn't want their picture taken to remotely instruct cameras to blur their face. While this is being promoted as a privacy measure, does anyone else see the serious rights issues here? What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people? If this tech can be used to blur faces, it can be quite easily adapted to turn cameras off altogether, with deeply troubling implications. And even without these 'what if' scenarios, isn't there an expectation that, if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?"

Comments

Question and answer

[ultranova]

What's to prevent this being used by police to block their images when they're beating or otherwise mistreating people?

Jammers. Or a Faraday's cage.

"As you can see, Your Honor, this camera does respond to the blur flag as the law mandates, so obviously the police must not have used it."

What I'm worried about is that such "do not photograph" transmitters will be installed everywhere, and the law will require that cameras will obey them. That will be the end of amateur photography.

It's frustrating. With exploding technology, we could have exploding possibilities. Instead every act of creation is slowly becoming a risk of copyright, patent or trademark violation and resulting lawsuit for the creator. Instead of using technology to empower people, we are using it to try to impose limitations. That is a sign of a sick, perhaps fatally ill, culture.

It would be a pity if the Age of Information slowly faded into a second Dark Age. But it is starting to seem more and more inevitable. Goodbye, printing press - you brought with you knowledge and freedom, but in the end you were no match for greed.