Cell Phones with Cameras

[JBrainard]

Hey, like all new technology, cell phones can be used for good or ill. There is nothing inherently wrong with the device (I find my camera phone quite usefull, as I always forget my "real" camera), they are just being misused sometimes. Kinda like the internet is sometimes misused...

 

[Cryozombie]

Just take a picture of secret/secure documents!

Hmm, yeah Right? In the early days that probably wasnt much of an issue, because those cameras were like 320x480 at best and hard to focus, nowadays when the cameras are .01 lux, 2 megapixel and autofocus with flash ON A PHONE... well... I could see that as an issue now.

 

[exile]

And I'm probably the only person in the world who has a land line specifically so I can call my cell phone and hunt it down while it rings...

:lol:

 

[MJS]

This has never really bothered me before. My daughter has one, my neice has one. They goof around and take pics of their friends.

Well, yesterday I was sitting in my car outside the kwoon waiting for the instructor to arrive. I saw an attractive woman walking on the other side of the street and a man walking in the opposite direction on the side I was parked on. He discreetly stopped, took his phone out of his pocket, subtley pointed toward the woman and took her pic, he quickly looked at it to make sure he got it, flipped the phone closed and contined on his way with the woman none the wiser.

I know we live in a society of decreasing privacy, and to be honest I'm not bothered by much of it. If I'm shopping I expect to be on surveillence cameras, if I'm driving I know I may be on a traffic camera. Whatever. But I never considered some random stranger could take my picture with a camera phone without my knowledge. It was just really creepy to watch.

What are your opinions of cell phone cameras?

My wife and I both have cameras on our cell phones. It was a feature that seems to come with all phones now, so it was nothing that I specifically requested. It came with the phone we upgraded to.

As for the question...to me, if I'm going to take a pic. I'd rather use my digital camera. Much better quality. We have taken a few pics with the cell camera though. I have heard that some places do not allow them. You see shows all the time on TV about women in stores wearing a dress or skirt and someone comes up behind them, bends down and takes a shot. My phone makes a click when a pic. is taken, so I don't know if other phones do not have this feature. You'd think it would be heard.

You also hear about using them to record police activity. Someone is resisting arrest, and next thing you know, this grainy picture is published in the paper and shown on the news.

They're out there and I really don't think there is anything that can be done to stop someone from snapping a pic, such as what you described above.

Mike

 

[Jade Tigress]

I didn't know any of these phones made a sound when a pic was taken. My daughters doesn't. But it's a great feature and should be on all of them, and also loud enough to be easily heard. Though in this case it wouldn't have mattered because the distance was across the street. Still would be a step in the right direction.

I didn't even think about spycams. That is just downright creepy to me. But, what the hell can be done? It's a monster.

 

[INDYFIGHTER]

I think it interesting that the idea of your picture showing up on the internet or elsewhere causes alarm when the computer and internet has been giving out details on our lives for years before the first camara phone. For example, anyone with my address can Google map seach my house and see a arial view of my house and even what kind of car I drive.

The computer changed privacy in America more than any other new technology. In my fathers day ( the fifties ), he talks of getting paid in cash and never being asked for his Social Security number at jobs. He talks about how a young man in Alabama could make some mistakes in life, maybe do prison time and later relocate to another part of the country where he could make a new start, maybe becoming a valuble citizen. Today a mistake at eighteen can follow you the rest of your life. Get your name in the paper and any Google search will produce that material for years and years to come. A eighteen year old who sleeps with his sixteen year old girlfriend can be labeled a sex offender and his name, address and record will be made public.

I just find it interesting that this hasn't bothered the vast majority of people. But when you see your face or contiplate that possibility of seeing your face on some random site that now it's a concern.

I read recently where teachers are showing up all over youtube doing really stupid things and being caught by students on cell phone. One teacher was shown kicking a desk out from under a student. Others are sleeping in class. When I read it I thought back to my days in high school and thought of all the wonderfully stupid things I could have caught on a camara phone. Not too long ago there was a story where a 13 yr old girl beat up another girl not well liked at her school while two of her friends caught the whole thing on video using a phone and posted it on youtube that night for all the other students to enjoy. I can definatly see camara phones being banned from schools in the near future.

 

[Kacey]

I can definatly see camara phones being banned from schools in the near future.

I wish they would... but my district has refused to do so, and won't let individual buildings take a more restrictive stance on any electronics than the district's stance - which is that no personal electronics (phones, iPods, GameBoys, etc.) can be visible, audible, or on in classroom settings. It tooke the kids at my middle school about 2 days to figure out that that meant they could be on in the cafeteria and the hallways... who they call during a 4 minute passing period is beyond me... but they do...

Also, when the school I teach at tried to ban cell phones, too many parents complained - both because we tried to ban them (what if they needed to reach their child) and because if the parent did call the child on the child's cell, they were then required to call the school anyway - after all, how do we know who's calling some child's cell phone? Having it in the superintendent's policy that they can have them - but not on during class - took care of many of the parents' complaints, because while they all thought their own calls were vital, the don't want other parents' meaningless calls affecting their own kids' education.

The only time we're allowed to ban personal electronics from the classroom is during the annual NCLB test - and that's a state law; the Colorado Dept. of Ed. is afraid students might take pictures of the test, or send text with the questions, and thus destroy the confidentiality of the test... Sad, isn't it?

 

[jks9199]

Hmmmm? In Japan, every cell phone has a loud sound of some sort when pictures are taken to try to prevent this type of thing. I thought it was standard for the entire world. Is that not the case?

And on a related note, just how often do people use these things in the states and elsewhere? I have gotten pretty used to someone using one in sight of me on pretty much a daily basis. But I relalized while back that Japanese have had a very well deserved reputation for taking photos before cell phone cameras came along. (As a matter of fact, the idea to put a camera in a cell phone came from Japan when someone found out that the two most likely things to be found in a purse were a cell phone and a disposable camera.) So, are they used only every so often in America?

On many of them, the sound can be turned off.

As to how often they're used... All the time. As I see others have said -- places are prohibiting them from even entering the facilities because of the problems. Several courts I've been in literally won't allow cell phones into the buildings any more. Picture phones are only part of the reason. (There have been cases of people getting pictures of undercover officers or informants on camera phones, as well.)

What I find troubling is the combination of easy covert photography with available advanced image-management technologies. Imagine, at current rates of technological progress, where cell phone photographic capabilities on the one hand and Photoshop-type digital image manipulation apps on the other will be in five or ten years. How the hell is anyone going to be able to distinguish a genuine photograph from a completely fabricated visual lie?

For court -- it's all coming down to the authentification made by the photographer, whatever the medium. For general use... I foresee a nightmare one of these days.

My opinion on camera phones? They can be great tools; I've used mine to get surreptitious pics of a suspicious person, and as a quick "fax" to share a photo of suspect. It's also been nice to get a quick pic of my niece grinning ear to ear on a swing or playing in the dog bed. But they're not without drawbacks, as this thread has shown. Rumors surfaced a year or two ago about people using them to copy credit card numbers in lines. At the time, the resolution made this questionable. Today? I can see it happening.

And you don't even want to know some of the stuff that's out there, spy-tech wise... If you look at the stuff that's commercially available... Imagine what a federal budget can do.