This is the iPatch, a cheekily-named iPhone case hoping to add an added layer of privacy to your mobile device(s). Currently seeking crowdfunding on HeadFunder, iPatch as an iPhone case with a built-in slider for the front and back cameras that allows you to manually cover them when not in use.
There are those dreaded moments in everyone’s life when you hand your phone over to someone to show them a collection of images you’ve saved or captured on your phone, only to have them continue swiping well past what you intended them to, possibly wandering into dangerous territory.
This, however, could become an issue of the past thanks to a new iOS app called Here, Look.
If you regularly share snapshots of your life online, turning off geotagging isn't a very reliable way to keep your location private. Everything seen in the photo -- including faint reflections -- can be used to figure out where you were with scary accuracy.
It's only an idea, a thought experiment that is equal parts cool and terrifying from a privacy perspective, but the Gofor concept is definitely turning heads. Right now, getting into drone photography is pretty pricey, but Gofor imagines a world where you could rent one right from your smartphone.
Effective today, a new civil code in Hungary makes it illegal to take a photograph without obtaining permission from everybody in the photo, making street photographers' and photojournalists' jobs infinitely more complicated and opening the door for a landslide of litigation.
In what is quite possibly the creepiest photo-related ruling we've ever run across, the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston has ruled that 'upskirt' photographs taken in public by sneaky perverts are actually 100% legal.
It's more or less a given these days that cameras are everywhere and privacy is a quaint notion from the past. But it turns out that people were already starting to feel that way in the 1880s, when advancing technology allowed the production of cameras small and fast enough to be hidden by the user and produce shots of unprecedented candidness.
An unnamed photographer and the editor of a French celebrity gossip magazine have been charged with privacy violations for publishing topless photos of new royal mom Kate Middleton (now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge), and more charges are likely to follow.
The western world was sent into a brief paranoid frenzy when whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked government information about the surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA). I say brief, because it seems to have been forgotten by a large number of people; it seemed like it was just more news. The revelations, and more that followed, showed how the NSA record phone calls and data and more controversially; that they use information from emails and social networking sites.
Turns out that driver's license photos are useful for more than acute embarrassment. States, realizing they have a de-facto visual database of most of their residents, are increasingly plugging those photos into facial-recognition software and Facebook to solve crimes -- and worrying privacy advocates in the process.
Many photographers get nervous when the talk turns to street photography. There are step-by-step plans laid out for those who want to get over their fear of street photography, and entire articles dedicated to using telephoto lenses when taking candid street shots so you're less likely to invade someone's personal space even as you're photographing it.
But on the other side of this spectrum are photographers like Bruce Gilden and Eric Kim, who make no apologies about getting in their subjects' faces and practicing what might be called "invasive street photography." And if you've ever wondered where this cringe-worthy technique was invented, you need look no further than the above video of photographer Mark Cohen.
Photographer Arne Svenson lives on the second floor of an apartment building in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City. For his project "The Neighbors," he pointed his camera at a luxury apartment building across the street and secretly photographed its inhabitants through open windows.
Those photographs are now being sold for thousands of dollars at a gallery in NYC, but it turns out the subjects aren't very happy with having their images stealthily snapped and sold.
If you're the proud owner of a Wi-Fi-connected digital camera, there's something you need to be aware of: your camera could be used to spy on you.
At the hacker conference Shmoocon 2013 last month, German security researchers Daniel Mende and Pascal Turbing reported on findings that Internet-connected cameras can easily be exploited and turned into spy cams.
Award-winning photographer Michael Wolf is raising some eyebrows with a new photo project titled "Window Watching." The series features photographs of high-rise apartment windows in Hong Kong, offering glimpses into the lives of people living inside the private residences. Basically, Wolf pointed a telephoto lens at open windows to photograph people going about their day-to-day-lives, without their knowledge and consent.
NPR sparked a debate regarding photojournalism, ethics, and privacy this past Monday after publishing a story titled, "What It Feels Like To Be Photographed In A Moment Of Grief" on its photography blog.
The discussion revolved around the photograph above, which AFP photographer Emmanuel Dunand captured in the evening after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
Today is Data Privacy Day, and all of the major social websites have come out to play. Facebook is launching an "Ask Our Chief Privacy Officer" form, Google explained its approach to government requests for information in a blog post, and Twitter launched an entire website dedicated to transparency in all things data privacy related.
Several mugshot websites -- including Just Mugshots, Busted! Mugshots, Mugshots Online, and MugRemove -- are ringing in the new year with a massive class action law suit. According to NPR, hundreds of people who have been exonerated of all charges and had their records sealed are suing the websites for not only keeping their mugshots up and using them in banner ads, but refusing to take them down and "scrub" them off the Internet unless the victims pay a hefty fee.
Engadget and gdgt founder Ryan Block has published an op-ed over at The …
The saga of anti-virus pioneer John McAfee's run from the law is a strange one, but this much is clear: McAfee wishes geotagging wasn't a feature built into modern cameras. After a month of fleeing from Belizean law enforcement after a neighbor was found murdered, the software tycoon was finally taken into custody this week, largely due to a single photo loaded with GPS data.
Have you heard of the term sousveillance? It's the inverse of surveillance: instead of a camera pointed at individuals, individuals wear their own cameras on themselves to document their activities. Wearable-camera pioneer Steve Mann has written a fascinating piece for Time, titled "Eye Am a Camera: Surveillance and Sousveillance in the Glassage", in which he offers his vision of what the future will look like once wearable cameras such as Google Glass (seen above) become ubiquitous.
Well, this can't be good for photographers' rights: An anonymous man over in Seattle, Washington is causing a stir in his area and on the web by walking up to random people in various locations -- both public and private -- and sticking a camera in their faces to film them. When asked to explain his actions, he simply responds in vague statements such as "It's OK, I'm just recording video."
With the advent of Internet-connectivity and apps in cameraphones and digital cameras, images can now be shared with others in ways never before seen in the history of photography. Unfortunately, not all of the ways are positive. Some are downright creepy.
Take PlaceRaider, for example. It's a malicious Android app that hijacks your smartphone's camera, secretly takes photos of your life, and uses those images to reconstruct 3D virtual spaces of private locations.
Facebook has rolled out a new feature that may make privacy-wary Internet users cringe. It's a link called "seen by" that shows up under photos posted to groups. The link reveals a box that shows exactly who has seen the photographs -- timestamps and all.
Ingrid Lunden of Techcrunch writes that UC Santa Barbara professor Ben Zhao first noticed the feature last Friday after sharing a photograph of his daughter to one of his groups.
YouTube just announced a useful new feature: an easy face blur option. The announcement says the feature is aimed for news and human rights agencies to protect privacy and identities especially if posting images of activists who may need to remain anonymous or if minors are present in the videos and privacy is a concern.
Professor and self-proclaimed cyborg Steve Mann created an eye and memory-aid device he calls the EyeTap Digital Glass. The EyeTap, worn by Mann above on the left, is a wearable device that is similar to Google Eye, pictured right, but he's been making them at home since the 1980s. The goal of his project is to use images to aid memory, or even to augment the memories of people with Alzheimer's Disease or who simply want to preserve their memories more permanently. However, a recent misunderstanding over Mann's technology allegedly caused a confrontation between Mann and several employees at a Paris McDonald's restaurant.
Sebastian Guerrero, an independent researcher in Barcelona says he's discovered a way to force friendship with any Instagram user -- private or public -- by exploiting an Instagram server-side vulnerability. In one case, Guerrerro forced Mark Zuckerberg to follow his test account. Then Guerrerro sent him a message through a photo post, which would show up in Zuckerberg's photo feed of people he follows. Guerrero also used a test account to follow a private user without the required approval from the private user.
Artist Kyle McDonald caused quite a hoopla last year after using a custom-written …
@NeedADebitCard is a new Twitter account that finds and retweets photographs of credit/debit cards that are publicly shared through the service. Apparently many people don't know that it's not a good idea to publish photos that allow anyone to see your credit card information. The account's byline is: "Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people."
9 out of 10 adults in America believe that people are over-sharing sensitive personal information.
Earlier this month the US Army published an article warning its soldiers that …
The private photographs on your phone might not be as private as you think. Earlier this week, the …
Remember the hoopla last year after artist/programmer Kyle McDonald installed an app on …
A recently discovered flaw in Facebook’s abuse reporting tool allowed anyone to access private photographs of other users, including …
There was a minor hoopla yesterday after Boing Boing shared that mugshot photos of arrested Occupy Portland protesters were being uploaded by the Portland Police Department to Facebook.
Last year, Apple purchased Swedish facial recognition firm Polar Rose for $22 million, and yesterday's iPhone 4S announcement revealed that the technology is now baked into iOS and is touted as one of big new camera features. The iPhone is now a compact camera and mobile computer that can detect -- and possibly recognize -- faces.
Flickr introduced a novel privacy feature yesterday called “geofences”, which lets you hide the location data of …
Flickr introduced an innovative location-based privacy feature today called “ …
Facial recognition features are appearing in everything from cameras to photo-sharing sites, but have you thought about the different …
If ordinary citizens have the right to photograph police in public places, what about the other way around? That’s …
Update: We hear that all charges against Rhonda Hollander have been dropped after a judge found the testimony “not credible.” …