In late 2004, when Congress passed the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act [.pdf], America breathed a sigh of relief knowing that taking naughty photos was now illegal “in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” That’s just about nowhere as far as thwarting video voyeurism goes, but the symbolism was just too good for Congress to pass up.
Cameras are shrinking in size while improving in quality, and human nature remains unchanged, so video voyeurism is a growing problem. It’s a “technology” problem in the sense that the technology enables carrying a natural human interest to unnatural extremes. Let’s talk about solutions.
Both law and morals are weak tools. You can make it illegal and you can shame the people you catch, but it’s not going to stop. After all, the behavior is carried on in secret already. Legal or illegal, and shameful as it is, video voyeurism is likely to increase.
That’s why I was so happy to read an article this week about a technology to thwart furtive picture-taking. A researcher at Georgia Tech is developing a system that can find and neutralize digital cameras. You see, most digital cameras emit unique visible or invisible beams of light that can be sensed to reveal their whereabouts. Once the sensor identifies a digital camera, it can shine an infrared laser at the camera, overexposing it and rendering it inoperable.
Many people are concerned with RFID and other radio devices. The cure is not to prescriptively regulate, but to empower people with awareness and control over the radio waves around them. I would like to see software radios — and perhaps someone is working on one somewhere — that monitor traffic across the spectrum and observe on our behalf what devices and communications are in our midst. These radios could then give special warnings when RFID readers, unknown cell phones, and other unusual spectrum users are present.
Empowering, pro-technology, non-regulatory.
The First Amendment’s prescription for curing bad speech is to encourage more speech as a counter. A similar principle should be used when technology creates problems: Use more technology to counter them.
