Last week Apple was awarded a troubling patent, originally filed in June of 2008, which would enable a feature many users likely wouldn’t want: the remote disabling of the camera on one of Apple’s many devices via infrared signal.
Allowing for the cameras on cell phones to be remotely disabled could, in my opinion, be quite dangerous since it very well might mean that crimes could go unpunished due to the lack of video evidence which might otherwise be collected.
With reports of police attempting to buy videos from witnesses who captured a quite disturbing incident involving officers, reports of police forcibly seizing the cell phone of a witness and even reports of police allegedly confiscating the cell phone of a witness and destroying evidence of police brutality, one can imagine who would benefit from such a feature.
The patent, number 8,254,902, is entitled, “Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device” and it outlines a broad range of ways this technology could be applied for so-called “policy enforcement.” Full story...
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Allowing for the cameras on cell phones to be remotely disabled could, in my opinion, be quite dangerous since it very well might mean that crimes could go unpunished due to the lack of video evidence which might otherwise be collected.
With reports of police attempting to buy videos from witnesses who captured a quite disturbing incident involving officers, reports of police forcibly seizing the cell phone of a witness and even reports of police allegedly confiscating the cell phone of a witness and destroying evidence of police brutality, one can imagine who would benefit from such a feature.
The patent, number 8,254,902, is entitled, “Apparatus and methods for enforcement of policies upon a wireless device” and it outlines a broad range of ways this technology could be applied for so-called “policy enforcement.” Full story...
Related posts:
- YouTube and News: a new kind of visual news...
- Baton vs camera: arrests of citizen journalists on the rise in US...
- The media is dead ... long live the media!
- The first amendment and the smartphone journalist...
- Student arrested in London for filming buildings wins police payout...
- It's not an offence to film the police...
- Your iPhone may not be your friend, could betray you...
- India's low-caste Dalits become video journalists to highlight their plight...
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