150 Filmmakers and Photojournalists Call On Nikon, Sony, and Canon To Build in Encryption (zdnet.com)

Some of the world's leading photojournalists and filmmakers are calling on the manufacturers of the cameras they use to add encryption to their products, as the number of threats they face from having their devices seized is "literally too high to count." From a ZDNet report: Over 150 documentary makers and reporters signed an open letter by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, asking for camera makers -- including Nikon, Sony, and Canon -- to ensure that their work is protected while often "attempting to uncover wrongdoing in the interests of justice." "Documentary filmmakers and photojournalists work in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, often risking their lives to get footage of newsworthy events to the public," said Trevor Timm, the foundation's executive director. But, he said, "they face a variety of threats from border security guards, local police, intelligence agents, terrorists, and criminals when attempting to safely return their footage so that it can be edited and published." The filmmakers say that camera security has lagged behind the rest of the industry, leaving their work "dangerously vulnerable."

Comments

Many of you are missing something

[Orgasmatron]

For all of you quoting XKCD or talking about rubber hose cryptography, I have three words: Public Key Cryptography

There is no reason why a keypair can't be generated on a safe computer in a safe country and only the public key gets loaded into the camera, while the private key remains safe. The border people could still eat the memory card, and they could add new encrypted photos/videos to it using the public key, but they couldn't view old stuff.

You could even set the system up so that the encryption key gets encrypted twice, once with the NV public key, and once with a volatile key that gets erased after a few minutes, or at the press of a button. That way the photographer would have time to make sure they got the shot they wanted.

Delete is not secure erase

[bussdriver]

Cameras lack a secure erase.
Cameras lack a decent secure upload if they have wifi at all. Secure wifi drivers are probably a problem.
Cameras lack encrypted storage (which should be done in a way that does not indicate the user trashed the key.)
Cameras give off forensic information identifying the brand and possibly the model camera (I'm not talking about metadata but analysis of the CCD noise at full resolution, which I read exists even after jpeg compression; plus dead pixels could be a fingerprint.)
Cameras lack the option to strip out metadata.

Cameras will 1st probably get a censorship recognition feature: using special visual codes during a movie or a government location disabling the camera or notifications sent.... features which will be abused.