Jan 27, 2009 05:05 AM
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Representative Pete King of New York has introduced a bill to Congress that would require all new cameraphones to have shutter sounds. Why? For the children!
The bill states that "Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone," a fact which I doubt many would challenge. What many will challenge are the notions that the main purpose of silent camera modes is to perv on Kindergartners and that banning these modes would stop anyone from doing so.
There is a practically unlimited supply of existing, silent-mode-enabled cameras that are available to anyone who wants them, not to mention the fact that many cameraphones have video modes, which present a problem that couldn't really be solved short of requiring handsets to scream "HEY NAKED KIDS, I'M TAKING A VIDEO RIGHT NOW SO YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GO GET YOUR PARENTS" on loop for the duration of the recording.
The measure wouldn't be effective at solving the problem it set out to, but it would certainly be effective at stripping a useful feature from phones for regular, law-abiding users who just don't want a tacky fake mirror slap every time they take a picture. Update: This kind of thing has been happening in Japan for some time now, so make of that what you will. [Crave]
Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.
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