UK Group Wants Mandatory Flash For Phone Cams 438
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?"
Electrical Tape (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:2)
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:5, Insightful)
They could even market it as a feature. Red Eye reduction... although I am not sure you have to worry about red eye when theres no flash, but you get the point.
For a recording video, you could just have this light stay blinking (or on constant) much like many existing camcorders already do. Wouldnt drain battery life too much and 90% of those buying the phone wouldnt mind, unless you are explicitly using the phone for things that you shouldnt be.
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want your picture taken, don't go out in public. Easy
Simple problem, simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
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!
True, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:True, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Why don't we just kill all the politicians and allow the courts to decide how the existing laws should be interpreted, instead of buggering around with making new laws?
Symbolic legislation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:5, Interesting)
The cell phone LED market is really interesting. You basically have the problem of producing a lot of light very quickly with a very limited amount of power available and an even more limited volume of space to fit your electronics (no room for that big capacitor seen in conventional camera flash drive circuits) to drive the flash since cameras these days are tending ever more toward the positively lilliputian. Many cameras include a simple and cheap Cerium:YAG [wikipedia.org] coated 5mm blue led which can be safely overdriven for a very short amount of time, producing a moderate burst of light. Luxeon [lumileds.com], the maker of the current most powerful white LEDs recently entered the market with their much improved version of this method. Certain other companies are trying to miniaturize [pennnet.com] conventional xenon flash units for use in cell phones. Still other companies are eyeing different methods. The story is, interestingly, somewhat analogous to the development of cell phone electronics themselves, a maximization of efficiency in terms of converting power from the battery to the display, processor and transmitter. Except now it's a game of getting the most photons out of a flash using the fewest electrons to do it.
Re:Electrical Tape (Score:3, Funny)
Manufacturers already follow rules (Score:3, Informative)
Silly initiative? (Score:5, Funny)
Luddites (Score:3, Insightful)
"Fears grow amid the ever improving resolution of picture phone" replace with: "Fears grow amid the never ending march of technological improvement"
Re:Silly initiative? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Silly initiative? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Silly initiative? (Score:5, Funny)
BOOYAH, what you got to say NOW, mr. big brain?! You and your prohibited adhesives are gonna land in the slammer.
I think the UK should ban... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think the UK should ban... (Score:2, Funny)
KFG
Re:I think the UK should ban... (Score:3, Funny)
Any takers?
Re:I think the UK should ban... (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks. You've just given me my new signature. My previous one was election based.
Re:I think the UK should ban... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think the UK should ban... (Score:3, Funny)
Agreed. (Score:4, Funny)
A paedwhat?
Who cares? Burn its house!
Ummmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't this the same country... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a silly solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a silly solution. (Score:3, Funny)
There goes my sex life.
And this solves what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And this solves what? (Score:2)
What, you think I am kidding? Guns are legal in america and the problem of people shooting one another was 'solved' by making this practise illegal.
Re:And this solves what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Boy, thank God no one ever got shot in the US since they passed that law.
In truth what your talking about would be leaving the phones alone and passign a law saying that you cant take peoples pictures without their permission. Which in fact we allready have.
Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this mean doodz with (Score:3, Funny)
Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly how are people taking "illicit" pictures with cell phones, that they couldn't take with ordinary digital cameras?
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention key chain cameras. Those things are small and blend in quite nicely with a set of keys.
Re:Shrug (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, if you could just get it to take pictures when it hears a sound ...
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, the installation of CCTV surveillance cameras every 50 f*ing metres has made it easier to take illicit photos without permission.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's just sprinkle in some facts:
1. There aren't CCTV surveillance cameras every 50 metres in Britain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying through their teeth or delusional.
2. The majority of the cameras that are installed are privately owned, in shops, etc to deter shoplifters, etc.
3. A great deal of the "publicly operated" cameras are in
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Informative)
(Note: I think the initiative is stupid and I disagree with the privacy advocates in this case. I'm just trying to help explain the situation.)
Re:Shrug (Score:2, Informative)
doesn't work nearly as well for cameras.
trust me.
Re:Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)
I think instead of "permission", the original post meant "attracting attention. Come on, even though requiring flashes might be overreacting, since this is pretty obvious. Say you're on the subway, and you see some guy sitting on a seat, and next to him is a woman standing with a skirt on. The guy has his cell phone in his hand - it's pointing with the cover facing down, but so what, lots of people hang on to their cell phones. That's not real suspicious. Picture the same scene with a guy holding a camera in his hand. You can clearly see it's pointed up the woman's skirt. That's pretty obvious.
Also, plenty of workplaces do in fact ban cameras (or would at least start asking questions if you walked around with a camera) - the Dilbert comic strip is the exception, not the rule.
Personally, I'd like to see camera phones banned not because of the legal issues, but because I want to be able to buy a damn cell phone that isn't loaded with useless features.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Funny)
That is exactly why we need undetectable cameras dude, didn't you notice the spy sex cams quality is not what it used to be ? Free the skirts !
Re:Shrug (Score:2)
Ordinary digital cameras, even the relatively small ones, are more conspicuous than cell phones, and what they are actually being used for is obvious from the fact that they look like cameras. Cell phones, on the other hand, are useful for illicit pictures because the photographers can pretend to be talking on them. Most people wouldn't object to your making a cell phone call while
Re:Shrug (Score:2)
Re:Shrug (Score:2)
I'd be curious to see what people from Asia think who have adopted camera phones long before they ever reached our shores. Over there do you just assume someone has a camera in their phone?
Re:Shrug (Score:2)
in other news (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:in other news (Score:4, Funny)
Think of the children!
Re:in other news (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:in other news (Score:2)
In fact, in the United States there are rules that specifically protect taking pictures in public. It's what allows the media to take pictures of news events.
Or were you just talking-out-your-ass-American-bashing like the other anti-U.S. Slashdot zealots?
Better idea: (Score:3, Funny)
That Dilbert... (Score:5, Insightful)
come on (Score:5, Funny)
Why the arbitrary distinction? (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, the image quality is quite poor on camera phones as opposed to an equal-sized (and equally small) digital camera.
Re:Why the arbitrary distinction? (Score:2)
The reason is simple. Seeing a phone in someone's hand is so commonplace as to be ignored. If you see someone with a camera, you take notice. It is nothing to see someone walking thru the mall with a cellphone dangling in their hand.
Size of digital cameras has nothing to do with it. If a digital camera is noticed, then mental alerts go off. If a cell phone is noticed -- nothing.
-Charles
That Dilbert (Score:2)
Where I work we have equipment that we do not to have pictures taken of. Cameras are banned on the location and cell cameras have been banned as well. Visitors are warned and have to leave their cell phones at the front desk if they have cameras.
Re:That Dilbert (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That Dilbert (Score:2)
The problem is the agents had put black tape over the flash so they wouldn't be noticed...
Re:That Dilbert (Score:2)
That's Interesting (Score:2)
Speaking of which... [thinkgeek.com] (Yes, it is a shameless plug for Thinkgeek.)
In Japan...! (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:In Japan...! (Score:2)
Re:Oblig (Score:3, Funny)
Oh! Wait...!
Re:In Japan...! (Score:2)
Re:In Japan...! (Score:2)
To those confused, my implication was simply that this kind of sexual violation - be it physical or photographic - is common.
iqu
Utter stupidity (Score:2)
-
If you outlaw cameras on phones... (Score:3, Funny)
Cracked already! (Score:3, Funny)
Flash "protection"
Search for place_your_thumb_over_the_light_DEViANCE.torrent
Sound "protection"
Search for cut_a_wire_on_the_speaker_(RELOADED).torrent
Flash (Score:2, Funny)
Nokia (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Not mandatory, default (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Great Minds Think Alike (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Public Privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
I want phones without cameras! (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Re:I want phones without cameras! (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently replaced my handset and went through the exact same problems. Part of my role at work involves audits of physical plant for clients (as part of a larger cost of operation modelling exercise), we frequently enter places where cameras are not permitted, but ideally need to be contactable by the office or even other team members who are auditing other areas of the site.
Ultimately I was given the choice of 2 or 3 handsets to pick from, once I added the requirement of bluetooth for a wireless headset there were none available through our preferred supplier. I ended up wth a Nokia 5100, no bluetooth but no camera.
Re:I want phones without cameras! (Score:3, Interesting)
Her husband works for a company that does lenses. They buy phones, take them apart to verify their lenses are being used. After that, they toss the phones.
Sure it doesn't have a camera, but every other aspect of the phone works.
Re:I want phones without cameras! (Score:3, Interesting)
I cant think of a single contract I have been on in the last decade where a personal cell phone was not allowed. Perhaps ret
They are banned at my work.. (Score:2)
In fact, all recording devices are banned, whether they be audio, video, photo, or a mix. Considering where I work, it makes sense.
I just hope they keep making phones without all that crap.
Public Place (Score:2)
So, why are they pretending to be horrified by private cameras?
Gargoyles (Score:2)
What about government cameras? (Score:2)
So I think a good piggyback for this
Why just camera phones? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
That sound you just heard... (Score:2)
Work Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Short term memory (Score:3, Funny)
In Japan... (Score:2, Interesting)
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!)
Three days, 8 hours (Score:2)
Anyone remember that Dilbert?
Hmm, the link says it was 3 days ago... Don't tell me! I'll get it! Let's see, today's Wednesday, that means yesterday was Tuesday, then Monday, then-- Oh, yeah, that would have been Sunday!
Ok, I know I got the Sunday paper because it's still here on the couch, keeping the pizza grease off the cushions. Dilbert... Dilbert... Let's see, back page of the funnies, right below "Frank & Ernest"...
Nope, it's just not there anymore. I'm a slashdotter. Anything more tha
Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
The British are wanting this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Moral panic (Score:3, Interesting)
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...).
Re:Bad Idea (Score:2)
your idea isn't any better (Score:2)
Actually, it would make a little more sense to ban cameras where you wouldn't want pictures taken. By the way, small digital cameras are even smaller if there isn't a phone attached to them. (And if there is, jaming it won't really impress the camera much.) There are USB memory sticks with cameras integrated, sold for cheap in ordinary electronics stores. You can sneak much larger things into a locker room.
Absurdly idiotic '
Forbidding them should work (Score:2)
You are of course right that jamming them won't work.
Re:Circumvention (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Circumvention (Score:3, Funny)
No - In Korea (Score:3, Funny)
More of a risk than a regular camera (Score:2)
Re:In Japan they make a sound (Score:5, Funny)
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.