Ricoh’s G900 II Password Lock Feature Needs to Be Standard on Every Camera

Yesterday, Ricoh announced the G900 II and G900SE II cameras. Designed for use by businesses, they come packed with multiple security enhancements including a password-locking option that should be a standard feature in every camera.

It’s 2024, why is there no protection of any kind on some of the most expensive consumer electronic products available? Ricoh’s latest point-and-shoot G900 II series cameras appear to be one of the few exceptions to that rule but they aren’t aimed at the average consumer. Instead, they are designed for industrial business use. For some reason, camera makers don’t seem to think the average photographer would want some of the same features advertised to businesses and that includes password protection.

“In addition to outdoor applications at civil engineering, construction and disaster relief sites, the Ricoh G900 II and Ricoh G900SE II can also be used in a wide range of indoor industries,” Ricoh’s press release says. “Security features including a password-protected camera lock function make them ideal for use at high-security workplaces.”

Preventing a camera from being used without access to a password would solve a huge issue facing photographers today: theft. Over the last several years, cameras — and therefore photographers — are increasingly targeted by thieves because there is no way to stop the equipment from being easily flipped. This isn’t restricted to just car break-ins either: photographers have been held at gunpoint, shot at, and even killed over cameras. Cameras and lenses are the highest-value consumer electronic products that exist on the market today that have no built-in theft or unauthorized access protection of any kind. That is absurd.

Photographers have no recourse other than to track equipment with a third-party service like Apple AirTags or Tiles, and even that is hardly a solution. If those are found and discarded by the thief, the gear is likely lost forever. Even if they’re not and equipment can be tracked, trying to get stolen objects back is still dangerous. Seeking help from the police might not work either — they often say there is nothing they can do.

The better solution would be to make equipment more unattractive to steal in the first place. Password protection is of course not foolproof (smartphone theft still happens even if they can be biometrically locked), but it would at least be a deterrent. Cameras are basically computers with image sensors at this point, so there really is no excuse that camera makers haven’t done anything other than apathy. Right now, the approach seems to be, “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.”

While it would be nice to integrate tracking, thumbprint reading, or any other number of features that prevent a camera from being used by anyone other than a registered owner, adding a simple password lock would go a long way toward showing photographers that camera companies understand that this is a real problem and want to try and do something — anything — to help address it. Heck, Canon’s eye-tracking autofocus could be leveraged to add an iris lock feature that could be just as fast as it’s ability to track moving subjects. Wouldn’t that be great? I’m not even calling for that level of technology, as nice as it would be. All I’m asking for is a show of just a modicum of effort here: a simple password lock.

Ricoh’s new G900SE II camera — the higher-end of the two — costs $900, which is downright affordable for what is marketed as an enterprise product. Therefore, it cannot possibly cost that much to add password locking to all the latest-generation cameras. It’s time this was built in as a standard feature.

Image credits: G900 II photo via Ricoh. All other elements licensed via Depositphotos.