Beth Gillin
December 24, 2003
Dec. 24--They've battled crime and immortalized sushi, sent X-rays, sold houses and propagated porn.
Camera phones -- handy little gadgets that marry a cell phone with a digital camera and can upload images to the Internet in seconds -- are a global hit.
Compact, discreet, and all but indistinguishable from regular cell phones, they've provoked concerns about privacy invasion and industrial espionage.
But most people aim them at friends, coworkers and pets.
"When you're having a good time at a bar or restaurant, you can use your phone to create a keepsake," said Joseph Yu, 23, who works for Mobile Solutions, a cell-phone retailer in the Cherry Hill Mall. "You take someone's picture and e-mail it to them. It's cheaper than a disposable camera."
Doctors in Wales use them to send X-rays. Real estate agents transmit pictures of properties to prospective buyers.
"I carry a small purse, and it fits," said Andrea Riso, director of public relations at Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, who's always on the lookout for old pictures of the landmark hotel, which turns 100 next year. At the Pyramid Club "there was one hanging on the wall, so I snapped it."
While some love them, others fear them.
Britney Spears had every last camera phone confiscated from guests at her Rolling Stone Party in Los Angeles, lest she be caught in an unflattering candid moment.
And last Thursday, a member of Parliament was ejected from the House of Commons for using his during a session.
Still, there's no escaping them. By next year, say market leader Nokia and other manufacturers, most new cell phones will come equipped with built-in cameras.
An estimated 80 million are in use worldwide, and the number is growing fast.
Introduced three years ago in Japan, the phones have been available in the United States since 2002.
Sales here took off just this year. About six million of us now use the gadgets, and more are hoping to find one under the Christmas tree.
They're such a hot holiday item that Illinois-based Motorola, world's second-biggest cell-phone producer, ran out of parts and couldn't fill all its scheduled shipments.
With popularity has come a backlash.
General Motors and Volkswagen have barred them from research departments. Lawsuit-wary health clubs are trying to limit their use.
"We have locker rooms with naked adults and kids, and if somebody wanted to cause harm, they could," said David Simpson, chief operations officer of the Philadelphia YMCA.
The Y is putting up signs in its 10 branches that say, "Cellular phones now have the capacity to take pictures," and urge patrons to "PROTECT YOURSELF!"
The signs warn, "Anyone inappropriately using visual recording devices will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
A ban on camera phones would be "heavy-handed" and hard to enforce, Simpson said. "We're not going to search people's gym bags."
Other workout facilities are also on alert. At the Philadelphia Sports Clubs, cameras and "other image-capturing devices" are forbidden, according to the chain's Web site, mysportsclubs.com.
All photography is prohibited at the Sporting Club at the Bellevue, where pols and TV personalities go to sweat.
"Our members are well-educated," said Fran Cassidy, president of Athletic Clubs International, which manages the Sporting Club. "This is something they know not to do, in the same way men know not to go into the women's locker room."
Concerns about privacy are not unwarranted.
In South Korea, authorities are cracking down on roaming bands of men who aim camera phones at women in skirts on stairways, then upload the images to Internet sites that traffic in hidden camera porn.
Last month the South Korean government ordered mobile phone makers to equip future handsets with a sound to alert everyone in the vicinity that a photo is being taken.
Saudi Arabia went further, outlawing camera phones after reports that men were using them to secretly photograph women. (The phones continue to sell briskly on the black market, the Arab News reports.)
Closer to home, Chicago's City Council is considering banning their use in public bathrooms, locker rooms and showers.
Elk Grove, Ill., recently voted to prohibit mobile phone use in its parks' rest rooms, locker rooms and showers. But authorities there complain that the rule is nearly impossible to enforce.
While some regard camera phones as a threat to law and order, others see them as a boon to police work.
In Osaka, Japan, police set up an e-mail address so citizens could instantly send in photos of suspicious activity.
When two robbers in Italy held up a shop, the owner pointed, clicked, and called police, who circulated the image and caught the thieves.
And in Clifton, N.J., in August, a 15-year-old boy foiled a kidnapping attempt by taking photos of a man trying to lure him into a car. He also snapped the car's license plate. A suspect was apprehended.
The growing number of camera phones has spurred another trend: moblogs, or mobile phone Web logs, to which people submit photos of just about anything.
On Aug. 14, camera-phone-wielding residents of a dozen cities captured the drama of the Northeast blackout and posted images at blackout.textamerica.com.
More than 1,000 people have sent pooch pictures to The Dog Blog (dogblog.textamerica.com).
And a moblog called Sushi Everywhere at sushi.textamerica.com offers photos of raw fish wrapped in rice and seaweed, each tasty tidbit captured for a global Internet audience moments before it was eaten.
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(c) 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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