Reiter's Camera Phone Report

Camera phone photo captures secretive artist, prankster at work in U.K.

An artist and prankster in the U.K. whose artwork can fetch tens of thousands of pounds — but who is careful not to reveal his identity — appears to have been photographed in the act of painting by a camera phone user, a detailed article in The Times reports.

The artist, known as “Banksy” (whose real name might be Robin or Robert Banks), is photographed extending double yellow lines from a road in East London to a wall of a house to create a large yellow flower.

This latest work could be a dig at the local borough council that has publicized its intention to clean his graffiti from the area, the article says.

Although some images have been published that purport to be the artist, the camera phone photo is believed to be the first image showing him at work.

Artistic pranks

The Times says, Banksy is well known for his pranks, “which have included releasing an inflatable Guantanamo prisoner doll in Disneyland.  The British Museum took eight days to realise that Banksyus Maximus, a rock depicting a Stone Age hunter with a shopping trolley, was not a genuine artefact.

“This summer he made a Stonehenge-style circle at the Glastonbury Festival out of portable toilets, and he once painted a hole with blue sky poking through the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall.”

Sri Lankan newspaper discusses camera phone pros/cons, silly Nokia statement

An article about the pros and cons camera phones in the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror caught my eye because of a comment attributed to Nokia and wrong information about Saudi Arabia.

The article doesn’t say anything that’s new.  It’s based in part on comments by a Sri Lankan police officer who says camera phones can be used for bad things (violating privacy) and good things (taking photos of criminals).

But the item about Nokia struck me:  “When contacted by the Daily Mirror, a Singaporean-based official of the leading mobile phone manufacturer Nokia said how the mobile device is used and for what purposes lies in the hands of the customer and cannot be controlled by the manufacturer.”

Sorry, we just build the bombs.  We have no responsibility for their use after they leave our factory!

Doing a better job

Okay, okay, I’m being facetious.  But either the Nokia official said much more but the newspaper only used that bit of information or that was indeed the jist of the interview.  Regardless, it’s a cover-your-ass statement that’s pretty ridiculous….assuming that is indeed what he said.

Nokia has done more to publicize the value of camera phones — and multimedia phones in general — than any handset manufacturer.  It’s too bad the Nokia official didn’t do a better job (I’m assuming he didn’t) of discussing the issues so the reporter wouldn’t have printed that silly statement.

One mistake:  The Daily Mirror says some governments have banned camera phones in specific public places, such as gyms and swimming pools (true), but to avoid any problems Saudi Arabia has totally banned camera phones.  Wrong!  Saudi Arabia had banned camera phones but lifted the ban almost two years ago, as I wrote.

Australian Catholic priest resigns after camera phone video records curses, epithets

A Catholic priest in Melbourne, Australia has resigned as Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral after a camera phone video — available on YouTube (see below) — shows him cursing and hurling racial epithets at kids who are skateboarding on church grounds, according to an article in The West Australian.  (Warning:  Very graphic language in the video and in the YouTube comments.)

This isn’t pleasant to watch.  The priest, Monsignor Geoff Baron, and the skateboarders are cursing each other and the priest uses some racist language.  Also, it looks as if Monsignor Baron and some skateboarders pushed each other.

Monsignor Baron “will now take a period of rest and refreshment for the remainder of 2007,” according to a Church spokesman.  Although he resigned on his own accord, the article reports that after this video was posted on YouTube he was ordered to take an indefinite leave.

More difficult to be abusive in public

The point is camera phones are making it more difficult to be abusive in public, whether you’re a public figure or not.  You never know when someone will have a camera phone recording your behavior.

Overall, this is a good thing.  But we sacrifice privacy.  And photos and videos certainly could be taken out of context.

ZDNet blogger discusses legal implications of camera phone videos, voice recording

ZDNet blogger Ed Gottsman in “Between the Lines” takes a look at how the law deals (or doesn’t deal) with portable technology, such as surreptiously recording voice conversations and taking camera phone videos.

Gottsman leads with a case in Wisconsin where the parents of a student suspected he was being harassed by the school bus driver and hid a voice-activated recorder in his backpack.  (Smart move!)  The recorder apparently caught harassment and it was given to the police.

Although the bus driver was arrested, the recording can’t be used in evidence in a trial because the state’s law prohibits secret recordings of conversations unless they were conducted or sanctioned by the police.

Times are a-changin’

Gottsman writes, “This type of law isn’t going to hold up for long; the technology (mostly cell phones) necessary to record wrongdoing surreptitiously is becoming convenient and ubiquitous, and this sort of situation will increasingly crop up.  Citizens won’t understand the legal prohibitions — they’ll consider them perverse.”

He posits are few hypothetical situations:  During a traffic accident, for example, he could turn on his cellular phone to audio record any incriminating statements or video record harassment.  He says the phone’s camera could record “anti-social behavior” such as a vehicle illegally parked in a handicapped parking space (I don’t know why I hate that behavior so much, but I do!).

“Any of these might be the locus of a lawsuit or a police report, and the notion that they’d be inadmissible (for one reason or another) simply won’t make sense to the public,” Gottsman says.

E911, E311 + camera phones

Gottsman notes that New York City plans to allow consumers to send camera phone photos and videos to E911 to report criminal activities and to E311 to report city-related problems (potholes, graffiti, garbage, etc.).  He says, “New York City is a bright spot, but it would be good to see more.”

This is a little bit more, Ed.  Los Angeles also is looking at integrating camera phones with its E911 system and a few other municipalities are considering it as well.  I’ve been interviewed about this issue by radio and newspaper reporters and it seems like an inevitable development.

Gottsman concludes:  “Ubiquitous personal monitoring has its disadvantages, but it will tend to encourage people — even sadistic bus drivers — to behave themselves.”

An ongoing issue

Surreptitious photos and videos taken by consumers is a controversial issue issue and the controversy is only going to increase.  With some one billion people around the world with camera phones, the possibility of taking photos and videos of criminal activities increases dramatically.  That’s the good news.

However, the possibility of taking photos and videos of people doing nothing wrong also increases.  That’s the bad news, obviously.

As a wireless data consultant I spend a fair amount of time pondering and discussing the social, political and business ramifications of the wireless imaging revolution (and it is a revolution), and secret photography one of those major ramifications.

Los Angeles Times examines camera phone videos taken in California schools

Thanks to Edward Goto for sending me the link to this Los Angeles Times article about the ramifications of California high school students using camera phones to record their teachers and posting the videos on YouTube and elsewhere.

As an example, the article points to a camera phone video of Vincent Bernota, a substitute teacher at Malibu High School who "loses control of the class and raises his voice while students laugh at him" (see below).

The article examines the debate among students, administrators and parents about the problem, trying to balance the value of cellular and students' rights versus the negative aspects of secretly video recording students and teachers as well as the potential for cheating.

Free speech versus disruptions

Mark Kelly, the principal of Malibu High School says, "We want to recognize our students' free speech rights, but on the other hand we have to assess the educational impact to the students and our school.  Is this going to disrupt the education process of the school day?"

Kelly's statement is much more "liberal" than most of what I've read in the press from school administrators.  Basically, a principal will say, "We ban cellular phones" -- and that's the end of the discussion.

To be fair, safety and parental concerns do figure into a school's and school board's discussions about the use (or non use) of cellular phones on the premises.

Video recording for educational purposes

Although students aren't supposed to use cellular phones during class, as one student says in the article, it's easy to hide a handset on your lap, between books and covered with a sweater.

Interestingly, a Malibu High School English teacher and journalism advisor says students might have legitimate reasons for using phones in class.  Nancy Martinez says students might be video recording a lesson in order to review it later.

As a result, some teachers might be reluctant to tell students to turn off their camera phones during class, the Los Angeles Times says.  Hmm, that's an interesting point.

I went to school so many millennia ago that cellular phones, let alone camera phones or anything "digital" weren't even much considered.  (Although I did take a computer course in high school where I did fascinating things like enter the Pythagorean theorem on punch cards -- that completely turned me off of computers until I bought an Apple II.)

Contacting Web sites, parents

Lisa Soronen, a staff attorney for the National School Boards Association says videos are "another way for teenagers to torture people.  She says YouTube and MySpace generally will remove videos if the school board asks them to.

"And the easiest thing to do is contact the parents and tell them what's going on.  In most cases, they'll put a stop to it," she says.

Another article....

Update (2/13/07):  For another look at kids using camera phones and taking videos in schools and elsewhere, check out The New York Times article, "Teenagers Misbehaving, For All Online to Watch."  Trying to become an online star through videos.

The Age publishes camera phone article about fees, privacy issues

The Age has published an interesting article about the prices paid for some camera phone photos of celebrities and also the privacy issues surrounding such images.

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The Washington Times reports on camera phones used for police/security applications

The Washington Times reports how camera phones are used for security applications, such as helping to catch criminals.

I'm quoted a bit in the article and gave the reporter a fair amount of information, some of it already published in this weblog.

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Saudi Arabia preparing tough laws for camera phone crimes

Saudi Arabia is preparing tough new laws for technology-related crimes -- including transmitting inappropriate photos via cellular and Bluetooth -- that carry penalties of up to ten years in prison and/or a fine of SR5 million ($1.3 million), according to a posting on ITP Technology.

The laws will be designed to prevent harm or defamation via the Internet to  Saudi Arabian individuals and organizations.

International Herald Tribune examines German camera phone paparazzi, privacy

Bild, the largest selling newspaper in Germany, seems to be causing a sensation by publishing user-generated camera phone photos, sparked by the World Cup soccer championships but not ending there, according to an article in the International Herald Tribune (IHT).

The article says, "Bild's 'Leser-Reporter' feature (see below), introduced during the World Cup, brought its readership daily shots of celebrities, politicians and soccer stars -- taken from the cellphone cameras of quick-thinking passers-by."

Photos were uploaded directly to the newspaper's Web site or transmitted via e-mail attachments or MMS. 

The IHT says, "The paper paid €500 to €1,000, or $638 to $1,270, for photos printed in the Reader-Reporter pages, and by the end of the World Cup soccer tournament, as many as 1,000 photos were streaming in daily. 

"Bild has decided to extend the venture and join a growing number of European publications that are taking advantage of cellphone technology to reach new levels of reader interactivity and, some say, invasion of privacy."

Legal involvement

Indeed, lawyers are getting involved and the article notes how one prominent German attorney, Christian Schertz, has been taking Bild to court to get camera phone photos removed from the newspaper.

Schertz says, "I'm reminded of George Orwell. The normal citizen is encouraged to watch a fellow citizen.  And he even gets money for it."

Different European countries have different laws regarding privacy.  The article notes the laws range from the "strict, celebrity-friendly laws in France to an anything-goes attitude in Britain that has given us Chancellor Angela Merkel's exposed bottom and Kate Moss's cocaine exploits."

Washington Post examines kids as "publizens" without caring about privacy

The Washington Post writes about young people who are increasingly posting information about themselves on social networking sites and weblogs -- and not necessarily understanding all the implications of their public persona. 

Obviously, camera phones are facilitating the posting of photos and videos by these "publizens" (public citizens), as the article calls them.

Bob Reno, the 46-year-old founder of BadJocks.com, that publishes information about athletes doing stupid things, has an interesting quote.   He says, "People would rather be embarrassed publicly than ignored privately."

People today post photos of themselves they previously never would have wanted strangers to see.

Encouraging publicity 

Reno notes, "You've got a generation that is growing up with digital cameras and camera phones, and they are encouraging each other and being encouraged by popular media and by the technology companies to document everything they do."

Ain't that the truth!

The article discusses how kids like being able to publicize their lives and don't care about their lack of privacy.   But the article also notes how these publizens might not understand all the ramifications of their public information.

Ramifications

Sherry Turkle, a well known researcher of the psychology/sociology of technology who works at the MIT Media Lab, says the younger generation understands much of technology isn't private, such as e-mail and cellular conversations, and they are "not politically mobilizable around the issue of government intrusions on privacy."

[A Web bio says she's the director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self.]

She sees how people don't care about being wiretapped, for example, because they believe they aren't doing anything wrong.   However, Turkle says people don't understand "the importance of the principle of privacy as a protection against authoritarianism."

She notes that people don't have any historical perspective on privacy.

Not all bad

Not everyone is concerned about the lack of privacy and some people feel it has advantages.  Lack of privacy makes it easier to post and store information on the Web and if everyone can see your picture then it's easier to identify you when you want to be recognized -- such as being able to cash a check.

Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired magazine and a well known technology writer, says in the article, "We've always been very public as a species. The very notion of privacy is recent, and probably temporary.

"Big Brother is a type of paranoia and egoism, because in fact most lives are not worth watching.   With technology we are only returning to the global village where everyone knows what everyone else is doing."

Legal implications

The article notes that libel lawyers might have a more difficult time determining who is considered a public person.   That has implications for libel cases.

An interesting point.   If your photos, videos and opinions are posted all over the Web and hundreds of thousands or millions of people know who you are, what are your legal rights and your "expectation of privacy" when you think your privacy has been illegally violated?

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