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?"

A little mixed already

[bushidocoder]

... if you're in a public area, you're fair game for being photographed?

Not really - If you're distinct enough to recognize, you can be photographed by anyone, but those photos can't be distributed for profit without your consent for the most part. For instance, no one can snap a picture of you and use that in an ad or commercial without your consent, but a journalist can publish photos of you in a newspaper. I'm not sure about how the law works around it, but I know that it can get pretty complicated if you sell digital photos because you need stacks of waiver forms.

Re:but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most obscure movie reference ever: The Ring [imdb.com]

Re:What a stupid question....

[MightyMartian]

Because history shows that the police are not always our friends.

Re:What a stupid question....

[BACbKA]

An HP representative said the company had no current plans to commercialize the technology, which would require widespread adoption by camera makers and possibly government mandates to be financially practical. Nobody would prevent you to carry your older digital camera, or an an analog one, which can then completely ignore the request for cooperation in the other person's face blurring.

Re:Laughing Man

[latent_biologist]

For those who don't watch late-night anime - Here [adultswim.com] ...and a pictiure [google.com] It's funny; that's the 1st thing I thought of; though I imagine cyberbrains are still a ways off.

Re:Evidence

[sql*kitten]

I've heard digital photos are often inadmissible as evidence in court because of how easy they are to modify.

Canon and Nikon now have DVKs, data verification kits, which tag photos with checksums and signatures. You can prove that this image was taken by that camera and wasn't modified between the camera and the file you now have.

These days tho', digital images are really no easier to modify than film. You can do a high quality negscan, do what you want in Photoshop, then write the image back out onto film. The hard part in both cases is the Photoshopping, it needs a lot of skill to fake an image and fool an expert, especially one who can visit the location the photo was taken, get a photo of his own with the same camera and minutely compare shadows, lighting, colours, etc.

Re:What a stupid question....

[A beautiful mind]

Actually, no. I'm not a paranoid anti-goverment lunatic, if that's what you mean. I'm not using pot either. What i did though, was to read 1984, and i have to tell that it makes you recognize some patterns you know? I don't like selective privacy.

anti-pigeon-shitting device

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called an umbrella

Re:Simple..

[EtherMonkey]

Exactly, I am still waiting until digital can allow me do to what a 4x5 view camera does.

Why wait? There's several choices in digital backs for large-format cameras, and Sinar even sells a complete, turn-key setup.

• http://www.betterlight.com [betterlight.com]
• http://www.phaseone.com/ [phaseone.com]
• http://www.sinarbron.com/sinar/digital/p3p1.php [sinarbron.com]

Re:What a stupid question....

[secolactico]

They couldn't switch it off, they could only turn it down.

Yes they could, but only the members of the "Inner Party" (I read the spanish version so in english it might be called differently).

The rest of the members (and I guess the proletariat) could only turn it down.

glad you liked it

[zogger]

Glad you are so easily amused. A long time ago, in the 60's, I saw half a dozen cops beat a man to death. To *death* as in caved in body, blood everywhere, etc. They were laughing and shrieking obscentities at the crowd and asking who wanted it next, etc. Right up there in the top 10 gross things I have ever seen. Their "brothers" holding shotguns and assault rifles also surrounded the crowd (at a small to medium sized anti war demo) who were watching this, and systemtaically went through and seized any cameras (not many I saw, a few though), and also beat a few more people for sport. The guy they wasted was just someone in the front lines they picked at random, I watched the whole thing go down. And no, he wasn't throwing rocks or anything like that, no one was, at least up front where I was, it was just your typical yelling and slogan chanting action before they decided to have a little police mini riot. They never got charged with a thing as far as I could find out later. I personally took the story as far as I could, with a couple other witnesses, which was to the lieutenant governor at the time. Still no action, and it NEVER even made the news anyplace either. Couldn't find out the kids name even, cops wouldn't say and later denied that anything had happened. I'd classify it as a perfect crime they committed and the blue code of silence was part of it. Dozens of cops watched it, too, yet not a single whistleblower.

So ya, a slashdotter might be concerned over that possiblity. So..have another ghoulish chuckle, it's a freebie.

Re:What a stupid question....

[rednip]

Someone in your apartment block deals drugs? Guess it's time for a drug forfeiture sweep. Doesn't matter if you're found innocent, you can kiss your worldly possessions goodbye.

Cite one example from a reputable news source. I believe that they have gone a bit too far on some the accussed, but I don't know of one case where they seize assets just because your a neihibor of a drug dealer.

A quick read of the 'pair of boots story' shows that it's a British tale, and ain't just about boots. Quoted from your story:

Of course, it is not just a matter of supplying boots. The men held without trial are also accused of funding terrorism through credit card fraud, membership of terrorist groups and association with other known terrorists.

Of course being 'held with out trial' says alot in itself and the Patriot Act scares me, but you wild accusations need to be countered, Strongly. Sure there are bad Cops, but most are decent hard working people trying to make a living knee deep in shit (your comments for example).