∞ Apple patent to turn off cameras with infrared strikes a nerve

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Last weekend we brought you news of a newly discovered patent that could render your camera useless in some situations, like at a concert venue. With infrared sensors installed at the venue, concert goers could find their cameras disabled as the sensors talk to software installed on the iPhone. TUAW’s Mike Rose posted his thoughts on the subject this morning.

None of this, however, means that it’s prudent to stand atop the slippery slope of external device controls and say “Looks like a nice ride down.” It’s easy to think, as I did when first reading the admittedly hyperbolic language of the petition, “Look, the iPhone is not the only camera in the world; professional bootleg videographers don’t use crappy cameraphones at all, protesters have many different kinds of phones and cameras at their disposal, and as soon as this capability gets rolled out people will simply jump to another platform to work around it.”

Apple’s infrared ‘camera kill switch’ patent application hits a nerve | TUAW


  • http://mangochut.net/ mangochutney

    Two things about this story rub me the wrong way:

    Firstly, it’s just another patent that Apple has filed that may never come to fruition.

    Secondly, in order for this to work, Apple would have to equip iPhones with some sort of NFC technology. Furthermore this would have to be done in a way so it can’t be deactivated by the user which, given Apple’s stance on consumer privacy in the past, seems unlikely.

    I see a use case for this, in corporations and the government. Company supplied iPhones or iPad would have this tech embedded so areas with sensitive information — say prototypes — can’t be photographed.

  • http://twitter.com/feralchimp feralchimp

    The danger of this technology is that governments will use it in public places to prevent the legal recording of their agents’ behavior.  I’d love to see this adopted at concert venues, though.  I didn’t pay $xxx to
    watch a thousand people take phone pics all night.

    Sensitive corporate and government installations have a simple solution to the “no cameras allowed” problem: they don’t let cameras in the building.

  • Anonymous

    good points, mangochutney… still bothers me, though.