Reiter's Camera Phone Report

Barbados bans camera phones, cameras from voting locations to prevent fraud

Barbados has banned citizens from taking camera phones and other cameras into voting locations during election day to prevent fraud, the Daily Nation reports.

Apparently, politicians are willing to pay people for their votes, but voters need to show a photograph of their ballot to obtain their money.  So the Barbados Electoral and Boundaries Commission has ruled that voters must place all cameras in a box before voting, and retrieve the cameras after they vote.

Camera phones are, as I’ve written many times before, an important part of the political process.  Citizen journalists are taking photos and videos of candidates around the world.  The U.S. Presidential campaigns are obviously a testament to that.

In the past, some governments, such as South Korea, have even asked citizens to take photos or videos of potential election fraud.

Man in China beaten to death after using camera phone to record protests

A Chinese man was beaten to death after using his camera phone to record protests of residents in a rural village in China who were upset about the government’s decision to establish a garbage dump near a residential area, according to The Guardian.

Wei Wenhua, the general manager of a company owned by the local water resources bureau, was pulled from his car and beaten by chengguan, enforcers who are paid by local governments to deal with crowds, the article says.

For years I have written in this weblog, been quoted in the press and spoken at conferences about my fears that people taking camera phone photos and videos of government activities would be killed, maimed and/or jailed.  It has begun to happen.

Prediction coming true

Because camera phones are becoming so ubiquitous, consumers are increasingly likely to record newsworthy events, often before professional journalists and photographers.  Some people will knowingly risk their lives to take photos and videos of government abuses, military actions, demonstrations and other potentially dangerous situations.

The bad news is what I predicted years ago is happening.  Camera phone users are being hurt or killed.  The good news is consumers with camera phones are making it much more difficult for miscreants to hide what they’re doing.

This always-connected wireless imaging revolution is still in the early stages.  We are just beginning to see, for example, live streaming broadcasting from cellular phones, that I’ve written about in my mobile television weblog and in one of my weekly mobile communications “Thinkernet” columns (see below) for CMP’s “Internet Evolution.”

Wall Street Journal examines camera photos, videos leading to criminal convictions

The Wall Street Journal today reports how camera phone photos and videos taken by criminals are helping to put them behind bars.  Also, it’s getting easier for law enforcement officials to download camera phone images.

The article says, “At least a half-dozen small software companies are now peddling programs designed to help investigators download data from suspects’ cellphones without compromising the evidence.  Earlier this year, the federal government's National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a paper outlining techniques for doing forensic work on cellphones.”

But the biggest help to capturing criminals is their own stupidity and/or ego that leads them to take photos and videos.  A prosecutor in Nashua, N.H. says cellular phones provide valuable evidence in cases about 40 or 50 times a year.

Self incrimination

The WSJ cites a case of a chop shop owner (who steals cars and sells the parts) who proclaimed he was innocent of charges, but his phone’s screensaver showed him behind the wheel of a stolen yellow Ferrari.  The article notes that because cellular phones typically are taken everywhere, they lend themselves to “spontaneous self-incrimination” by criminals.

Mark Godsey, a professor of criminal law at the University of Cincinnati, says people who have camera phones showing themselves breaking the law give up their rights against self-incrimination.  “They do it voluntarily.  No one is making them," he says in the article.

From what I’ve read, many criminals, including drug dealers, seem to like to take photos of themselves with guns, money and drugs.  The deputy chief of police in Burlington, Vt. says camera phone photos of a juvenile holding a rifle on the roof of a school at night helped get a conviction on weapons possession, the article says. 

“Drug dealers just naturally take pictures of their drugs and their money and their significant others,” says Mike Schirling, the police officer.

Promote your criminal actions!

Also, some miscreants aren’t content with keeping photos on their phones.  They also post them on the Web.  The assistant state attorney in Connecticut says high school students posted photos on MySpace of themselves destroying mailboxes with baseball bats, and she was able to obtain restitution payments for dozens of residents whose mailboxes had been affected.

Another category of criminal activity where camera phone images are used is sexual assault.  Gary Kessler, a teacher of digital forensics at Champlain College in Burlington and a police consultant, says when defense attorneys see such images, “they no longer quibble about the charges.”

Camera phone video used in R&B/hip hop singer Akon's police investigation

A camera phone video showing a Senegalese–American hip hop and R&B singer, Akon (Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam), throwing a concert-goer off the stage is being used as part of a police investigation, according to an article in “The Smoking Gun.”

According to “The Smoking Gun” and Wikipedia, Akon was performing at Dutchess Stadium in the upstate New York town of Fishkill when someone in the audience supposedly threw something at him.  Akon asked the audience to identify the person and security personnel took him up to the stage.

Akon lifted the guy onto his shoulders and threw him into the crowd.  “The Smoking Gun” says police began looking at the incident as a result of a camera phone video on YouTube showing the action (and there are multiple videos on YouTube, see below).

 

The singer is being charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and second-degree harassment, and has plead not guilty.  He says it was a staged publicity stunt.

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.

Camera phone photos used in Washington State bestiality case

I wasn't sure whether to post this but if camera phone photos can help punish this guy, perhaps it's worth mentioning.

The wife of a 26-year-old Washington State man took two camera phone photos of her husband having intercourse with the family's four-year-old female pit bull before the wife called 911, according to an article in The Seattle Times. 

The man is the first person to be charged with animal cruelty under the state's new bestiality law.  It's a felony offense.

Could the wife have used a digital camera to take the photos?  Of course.  But perhaps the camera phone was handy and it was important to take the photo of her husband in the act. 

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Houston health policy director suggests taking camera phone photos for anti-smoking ban

Houston's mayoral health policy director, Elena Marks, suggests that consumers who would see people breaking a proposed anti-smoking measure could take camera phone photos for evidence, according to an article in the Houston Chronicle.

The draft measure would ban smoking from bars in restaurants and in freestanding bars.  The measure would require bar owners to post no-smoking signs and ask customers to stop smoking.

However, the proposed legislation doesn't require owners to ask smokers to leave.

In the article, Marks puts at least some of the onus on camera phone users.   She suggests they could file complaints and provide proof by taking photos of smokers and also trying to obtain their identification.

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Georgia submarine base cracks down on camera phones

The Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia is cracking down on camera phones.  They are considered a threat to national security, according to an article in the Periscope.

Camera phones are banned from the "Waterfront Restricted Area" and other sensitive areas around the submarine base, "Periscope" reports.   If you're a visitor, you'll probably get kicked out.

Anyone found with a camera phone will lose it -- permanently, the article says.  Civilian workers will lose their jobs. 

If you are in the military "you are looking at captain's mast," the article says.  I don't now know what that means, but I assume and you don't want to look at it!

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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."