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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?"
They may hve figured out how to do this, then decided to patent it specifically to prevent its use in the wild.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm a believer in the firmly rooted idea that when you're in a public place, you're willingly presenting yourself to the view of others and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This was a problem for me when I took a photo of a stranger's car because I believed she was abusing the disabled placard system. It was on private property-- a mini-mall-- but still in a public place. Neither of us could understand the other's point of view. While I can understand her not wanting me to take a picture of _her_, it was difficult for me to accept her angry and indignant view that I needed her permission to photograph her car. She retaliated by taking a photo of _me_ (ha!). Needless to say a device in her pocket that could have disabled my digital camera would have bothered me greatly. Which is why if something like this ever comes to market, I'm going to stick with the 1965 Pentax SLR, which is entirely mechanical, instead of the more modern Kodak digital. Seems like DRM is just making us go back to older but DRM-free tech :/
This "techonology" could be used in places where you don't want some goof with a cellphone camera taking snaps of stuff, i.e.: my company's office, the ladies change room at my local gym/pool, government offices, etc. I know I'd love to have something that disables a cellphone camera in specific areas - right now I have to rely on the honesty of my guests in disclosing if their camera has imaging capabilities or not... (hint: I work with secured technologies).
The patent may be broad enough to cover the larger concept of obscuring/degrading/modifying digital data when captured via certain types of devices.
"Content's a bitch."