Australia has recently banned all mobile phones from public swimming pools amid fears that mobile phones with cameras could potentially be used to take illicit photographs of adults and children. I can understand wanting to protect children, but banning all mobile phones because some disturbed person might take illicit photographs using a camera phone does seem a little extreme. What also seems a little silly is that while camera phones are banned, other cameras are still allowed. With today’s technology other tiny cameras could easily be used to take inappropriate pictures. As a spokesman for Nokia put it:
it’s not a law tomndebb, it’s a policy that individual pool operators (or organisations that run many schools) enact themselves. At worst, it’s a council regulation.
I think it’s a pretty good one, personally. There is also a BIG difference between a normal camera and a phone camera. If you see someone pull out a camera in a change room and start taking pictures, you’ll grab a towel to cover yourself and call security. If you see someone sitting in a courner playing with his phone, you’ll assume that he’s just typing a message off to a friend and won’t think twice. Of course, all disguised cameras should be banned from such places. With phones, however, it’s harder to police what’s a camera and what isn’t. If you see someone acting funny and discover a mini camera in a match box (or whatever), you know it’s a camera and you know that it’s used only for one thing - taking discrete pictures. Security can then reasonably call the cops, or confiscate it or whatever they’re legally entitled to do in these situations under privacy laws. You can’t make such a distinction with a camera-phone because the person using it can claim that they’re doing nothing wrong - just using their phone. Best thing is to make it known that if you have such a phone, don’t use it at the pool, or keep it in a cover so that the lens can’t be seen. Common sense, really.
Here in Japan most of the phone cameras I’ve seen make a shutter noise when a picture is taken. The shutter noise’s volume can not be altered, new noises cannot be downloaded, and it will make the noise even when in manner mode. Are foreign phones different?
I could never understand what the point of a phone taking pictures was, but I think somebody discovered the only real use for one : taking photos in a way so that others cannot tell you are taking them.
In my opinion, a cellphone taking pictures, or even just having color displays, is a pointless advancement in technology. I would never spend an extra penny to get one of them.
cckerberos - how loud are those shutters? Swimming pools can be very noisy.
Even though big_yellow_kingswood made a good argument for why there should be stricter regs for camera phones than for ordinary cameras, I still don’t think any cameras should be allowed at public swimming pools. They’re banned at my swimming pool in the UK. Children are running around with virtually nothing on and here are fears that a paedophile would take pictures of them. You can take photos if you have the permission of all the parents in the pool - not as impossible as it sounds if your child is having lessons in the teaching pool. I think it’s a shame that the cameras are banned, but it is sensible.
Pinhole cameras and pen cameras could still get through, of course. AFAIK, however, they’re not very good at taking long-distance shots. Are they?
So, what about beaches? No cameras or video recorders at public beaches. You should get everyone at these places to sign in and show proof of Id. Maybe a metal detector or a wand to check out the perps. :rolleyes:
Sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect. It just seems a bit useless. You’re not going to stop photos from being taken by those who will do anything to get them.
I saw a camera recently that looks like a pen. It would even take video clips. I mean, what are ya gonna do?
P.S. According to a recent case IIRC it’s not illegal to take photos underneath womens skirts. WTF?
BTW I have photos of my own kids when they had swimming lessons. I’d be very upset if I was told I couldn’t bring a camera to the pool. They are some of the best pictures we have of them growing up.
The rule isn’t to prevent people from taking pictures of people in bathing suits. It’s to prevent people from taking pictures in locker rooms and such. I’d hate to find naked pictures of my daughter floating around the internet because some porn operator hired a woman to go around taking pictures of naked kids with her camera-phone.
So I can see the problem. Disguised cameras do prevent real privacy challenges. Casio even makes a camera watch that can be used to take pictures while it appears that you are checking the time. I can see the problems with this.
But I have to argue with the person who said they can see no use for a cellphone camera. I sure can. I can think of zillions. How about a contractor on a job site who needs a second opinion on an installation? He can take out the phone, call his supervisor, snap a shot of the installation, and send it over to the other person. Very handy. I understand they are also heavily used by young people, who call up friends and share photos of what they happen to be doing at the time. Looking at a new car, hanging out at a party, etc. Or something as silly as seeing someone in a really ugly hat and phoning your friend to say, “Check out this monstrosity!”. Young people love this stuff.
Sorry for the hijack, but here the lockers in all pools are individuals. You get your own little “cubicle”. You undress and leave your clothes there and come back when you leave the pool to put your clothes back on, etc…If I understand correctly what I’m reading, in the UK and the US, people essentially all undress/dress in the same common room?
Am I correct? Aren’t these lockers at least segregated by age? (or even by sex, since ** Sam Stone ** refers to naked pictures which of his daughter which could be taken by a perv, who, most likely would be male)
Most changing rooms at pools here have a wall of small lockers in front of benches. Meaning you can simply turn your hear and see people of the same sex as you changing their clothes. Of any age. There’s a room for the males and one for the females.
And it’s not about people gathing pictures and video (surely close down the line) for their own pleasure but gathering to distribute over the internet. Any you wont be hard pressed to find men to go film in the men’s changing room and women for the women’s room. And how much longer before you can hook up to somebody’s streaming video of a changing room?
Well, I suppose it had to be coming. They can make all the laws they want but I can’t see this technology getting reigned in anytime soon. I am a prude but I guess I’ll have to give that up. I wonder how long till I find myself nude on the internet? I give me 5 years.
My question is, is the quality if the pictures off of a cell phone that good? If the lens is very near then, sure you’ll get a decent photo. But if it’s 10 or 15 feet away (call it 3-4 meters) what type of picture quality are we talking about? Could you identify a person at that range?
I agree, there’s in issue here, especially one of privacy. But would the image quality be worth the risk that someone would do it?
In the U.S. you can take pictures of anyone - including children - in any public place without permission from anyone. This doesn’t mean a pool couldn’t ban cameras, but most public pools are simply surrounded by a chain-link fence. Anyone who wanted to could stroll right up and snap as many pics as they wanted to. Or even use a telephoto lense from their car. As long as it is a public pool, what they are doing is legal under U.S. media law. (NOTE: my knowlege of this subject comes my studies of media law in college for my degree, several years ago. That anyone in a public place can be photographed is a very basic tenet of our law here.)
Although I wouldn’t call it necessarily normal, or sane. But hell, if a pedophile wants to be around half-naked kids, they could just go sit by the pool themselves. The whole concept of the “public pool” is that it is public. If protecting kids from getting photographed without their knowlege at a pool (which, I might point out, by itself does not inherently harm them even if done by pedophiles) is so important, then the pools should not be visible from the outside. In the U.S., at least, this is the only way to prevent anyone from photographing the kiddies.
From what i know about attitudes outside the U.S., which is not a lot, the situation seems to be the reverse. Especially in Europe, people seem very comfortable with public nudity, but get very offended if someone tried to photograph or videotape them. This seems rather ridiculous to me.
You can only hear the sound if you’re within a few feet. Picture quality of the camera’s drop off very quickly outside that distance, however, so I don’t think that’s a real problem.
Wouldn’t a more reasonable solution be to ban the use of phones inside the changing rooms?
