Camera phones cross moral, legal lines

The world has yet to figure out whether camera phones are friends or foes. Mobile telephones that take and transmit digital photos are lauded by fans in love with their novelty and immediacy. Global sales are up by 65 percent this year; about 42 million of us will gab and click on the same device by year’s end.

But the intriguing phones also have become a kind of technology non grata.

Some people in Japan are taking secret photos up women’s skirts and down into bathroom stalls. Some companies are worried about industrial espionage. Others are using the devices as the source of the latest petty crime: digital shoplifting.

Some canny customers have discovered they can snap quick images from new books, magazines and other materials for review later — no need to buy. The high-tech pirating has become so vexing in Japan that typical book shops lose an estimated $26,000 a year in sales because of the practice.

The publishers call it “information theft.”

Last week, the Japan Magazine Publishers Association went after the phone pirates, distributing 30,000 sternly worded posters to the nation’s booksellers to warn browsers to “refrain from recording information with camera-mounted cell phones and other devices.” The group has the full support of Japan’s Telecommunications Carriers Association.

Meanwhile, camera phones have become unwelcome in gyms, dressing rooms, subways, swimming pools, voting booths and other public spots in the United States and elsewhere after images of unwitting subjects surfaced on the Internet and in the press.

The British Broadcasting Corp., in fact, openly solicits camera-phone photos from those “in the right place at the right time” and publishes an online gallery of the images each Friday. London-based Celebsnappers also solicits phone shots of celebrities, calling the keen-eyed phoners the “snaparazzi.”

On a darker note, Scottish police recently broke up a child pornography ring using camera phones to transmit their material.

There’s intrigue, as well.

Fearful of industrial espionage, Samsung, the world’s leading manufacturer of camera phones, has banned them from their factories as of yesterday. Visitors and employees alike are prohibited from toting the devices.

Industry analysts say the problem can be curtailed if consumers use camera phones responsibly.

“The same responsibility that goes with using a disposable camera will apply to a camera phone,” said Kimberly Kuo, spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. “The [cell phone] technology evolves, but the responsibility to respect the law and people’s privacy remains the same.”

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and the Montgomery County Police Department so far have not handled complaints about camera phones, spokesmen said.

Story Continues →