The Hindu Business Line : Ensuring privacy

WITH Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)-enabled mobile, phones and video phones that can transmit data via 3G becoming popular by the day, laws at federal, State and local levels are in place in most countries — India being one of the notable exceptions — to prevent the illicit photography of people.

For instance, on December 10, in one of its last moves of the year, the US Congress passed a Bill providing for the levy of heavy fines and prison sentence for anyone who sneaks photos or videos of people in various stages of undress, a problem lawmakers and activists called the new frontier of stalking, according to Associated Press.

The Bill, which the US President, Mr George W. Bush is expected to sign, will make it a crime to videotape or photograph the naked or underwear-covered private parts of a person without consent when the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Conviction could lead to a fine of not more than $100,000 or imprisonment for up to one year, or both.

The Italian Data Protection Commission has issued rules governing the use of such devices. Users may take pictures of people only for personal use, and provided they are kept in a safe place. People must be informed if their pictures are published on the Internet. (Journalists, however, do not have to ask for permission — but they must follow the limits imposed by Privacy Act No. 675/96 as well as their professional codes of conduct.) Finally, the transmission of pornographic pictures is forbidden, as well as any pictures of children, private life scenes, and so on.

To combat the illicit use of camera-phone, the South Korean Government has made it obligatory for manufacturers to fit their handsets with devices that emit an audible warning whenever a photo is taken.

The Ministry of Information and Communication of South Korea has mandated the installation on camera phones of an alarm of 65 decibels, which should be clearly audible to any potential subject of a photograph.