Flickr Photos, Apple iPhone Invading Our Privacy?

According to that glorious repository of information, Wikipedia, entrepreneur Phillipe Kahn became the first man to demonstrate the practical use of a camera phone when he snapped a picture of his newborn daughter and sent it to 2000 friends and family. That was all the way back in 1997. Now, 12 years later, cellphones with camera functions are the standard. In fact, some ultra fancy phones, like the ever-popular Apple iPhone, boast cameras that can snap pictures with 2 megapixels of quality.

Of course, like with any new technology, there are certain trade offs. With the prevalence of cell phone cameras, it has become much easier for people to take and share pictures instantly. In some cases this has helped lead to justice, such as the recent arrest of an Oakland BART police officer for the killing of an unarmed man. Unfortunately, it has also led to an increase in good-old fashioned virtual voyeurism. One of the main places where this kind of camera phone use occurs is on the subway. Michael Daly discussed the issue in a recent editorial for the New York Daily News.

Quoting from the article:

You do not need to be a celebrity to have embarrassing images of you flashed before the public.

Yawn, doze, pass out, smooch, weep on the subway and you risk one of these pauper-azzis posting your picture on a site such as Flickr.

A woman who sat despondent on a train with her face in her hands appears in a photo captioned “The Saddest Girl.”

“Nice shot,” reads a comment.

Women who fill out their jeans risk appearing along with captions such as “fat bimbo a–” and “big a–.” A pair of youngsters appears with the caption: “Two kids from my neighborhood … I’ve watched them grow into very unhappy fat kids.”

“Killer capture,” applauds a poster.

One sorry soul was snapped while suffering a lapse in personal hygiene.

“Nose Picker,” reads the caption.

Another nose picker appears with a comment reading: “Eeeew!”

[SNIP]

There are also those whose pictures have artistic value. This underground aesthetic dates to the time of the Great Depression, when the renowned photographer Walker Evans rode the subway with a hidden camera poking from between the buttons of his overcoat.

“The guard is down and the mask is off,” he once said. “Even more than in lone bedrooms [where there are mirrors], people’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway.”

The reason for the underground “naked repose” is the psychic privacy we grant each other aboard the subway. We recognize we are trapped together with greatly reduced expectation of private space. We therefore allow another sort of distance, which joins with anonymity to accord a kind of solitude even when people are pressed in all around you.