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American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

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Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#221

Post by exabrial »

jonahx wrote: post #102
exabrial wrote: post #94

Security concerns aside, I thought the cameras were there so you could swipe in front of it to turn the infotainment system on? Is there proof they are recording? Planes have weight limitations. A long-haul 8-12hr flight for 300 passengers is a significant commitment to storage space and the weight of said drives.

1 TB fits on a flash drive these days. If they were transferring semi-regularly when grounded and recording in SD, you'd be talking on the order of a few pounds.

I forgot security cameras only run at like 5fps, so that's a good point.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#222

Post by mnm1 »

deathanatos wrote: post #82
techer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends in what country you are. Don't need your permission in the USA or the UK.

IANAL. In the USA, it depends on jurisdiction and the circumstances. For example, CA is a "two-party consent" state, meaning that to record another party requires their knowledge and consent in some circumstances. This case (a camera in the back of an airline seat) is a bit on the line: the space isn't terribly private (it's a row of seats on an airline), yet a private conversation might be had in a low voice between…

So surveillance cameras are illegal in California? I don't think so. I think your statement is incorrect and likely applies only to private voice conversations.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#223

Post by mnm1 »

JohnFen wrote: post #206
devinmrn wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't like it and if I noticed I'd politely ask them to stop. However, (and I'm not a lawyer) I don't think it'd be illegal or even unethical. If someone was recording me napping on a plane I'd treat it the same way as if I was napping under a tree in a national park. It would be a non issue for me. Privacy is something I control by not exposing sensitive information in areas where recording is a possibility. I…

> Privacy is something I control by not exposing sensitive information in areas where recording is a possibility. The problem is that this attitude will ultimately mean that the only place where you might have any chance of privacy is in your own home. And even there, privacy is getting more and more rare.

Where else do you have privacy in America? Can't think of a single other location other than one one's own property.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#224

Post by mnm1 »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #132
mnm1 wrote: post #2

How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?

No, the burden is on you. How can you have a concern with people not being spied on in public?

Because that's been the norm for decades and while I don't like the laws of our society, I must adapt to them.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#225

Post by pizza »

Animats wrote: post #182
pizza wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you want to go to a movie theatre where audience engagement is recorded by a hidden, undisclosed camera? Would you prefer that? People are right to have instinctual suspicion of being covertly spied upon en masse in public spaces.

Would you want to go to a movie theatre where audience engagement is recorded by a hidden, undisclosed camera? Deployed since 2004 to look for camcorders.[1] Disney tried out technology for recording audience engagement in a theater in 2017. [2][3] "We instrumented a 400 seat movie theater using four infra-red (IR) cameras and four IR illuminators placed above the projection screen. The cameras were outfitted with IR…

Well, I'll be..

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#226

Post by PavlovsCat »

mnm1 wrote: post #224
PavlovsCat wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the burden is on you. How can you have a concern with people not being spied on in public?

Because that's been the norm for decades and while I don't like the laws of our society, I must adapt to them.

Anything that goes on for a few decades is already gospel to you? If everybody though that way, there would be no vote for women, there still would be slavery and segregation, half of the world would speak German or Russian today, and so on. Laws come from people. From citizens, actually. Just going along to get along is beneath all adults, not to mention citizens in socities that are still free on paper. Nobody has the right to be obedient. That is, you can forfeit all your own human rights if you want, but you cannot forfeit them on behalf of others and future generations.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#227

Post by imtringued »

netsharc wrote: post #60

To me this is just a distraction. Yes there's a hardware camera. I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ. Some are raging about the non-existant theoretical privacy violation (again, not 100% non-existant, but I will bet money there's no surveillance through this camera), meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of a…

If no one opposes the cameras then they will be added to every aircraft by default. They're just a distraction after all! When those cameras are everywhere, suddenly someone (most likely the government) will turn them on. No one will realize. They're just a distraction after all...

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#228

Post by imtringued »

netsharc wrote: post #162
jackhack wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ. not yet Given the last 20 years of bad behavior from tech companies overall, and the steady erosion of privacy in nearly all quarters, I question your confidence and must ask "based on what ?"

Based on my belief that developing software for it would not be cheap (hello, contractors), and that I don't see a use case how it could make more money for the airline (fine maybe I'm just not creative enough). They could have analytics that say "Passenger X (profile: male, paid with a platinum credit card, flew 5 times in the last 6 months) watched movie Y for 40 minutes before looking up the price for the WiFi con…

>Based on my belief that developing software for it would not be cheap (hello, contractors)

It would be extremely cheap, that's why they chose android based tablets in the first place and the government has deep enough pockets to try to break TLS. Developing an app that records a video to storage is completely trivial.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#229

Post by imtringued »

docker_up wrote: post #207
JohnFen wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people likely don't care at all. I honestly don't think this is true. I think that most people don't realize the amount of surveillance they're being subjected to, and many of those that do realize it engage in a little self-deception (they aren't really watching/they dont'care/etc.) in order to be OK with it. But that's changing, and fast.

I think most people know, and they don't care. Look at UK as an example, it's literally 1984 with people on cameras talking to pedestrians to pick up their litter. Home voice automation with non-stop voice recording is the biggest privacy intrusion, and yet it's the biggest hit in the last couple of years. I really don't think people care as much as you think. HN is not a good representation of how regular people thi…

I don't think people on HN care that much either.

Re: American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

#230

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pmohun wrote: post #216
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #116

They already take a high resolution back scatter shot of my genitals on the way in, what's a little more humiliation among friends? If they want to spend 6 hours watching me make pained expressions as I shift and turn and feel the bits that make me human slowly slip away, leaving me a crippled, grunting inhuman beast by the time I get out of the aluminum can full of other peoples farts, I guess they are welcome to it…

I don't have an input on the potential security risks of pen cameras on airlines, but I do have an opinion on your description of economy travel on modern airlines. It's spot on, and unbelievable to me that there are no other options available for air travel. With the amount of time business executives spend in the air I have to imagine there is an airline company out there modeling the business case for increased ti…

> with the justification of companies subsidizing to make up for lost productivity.

It's not just productivity - after a 6 hour flight starting from midnight, I have no idea how people are allowed to drive. I hear complaints about "why do people stand up immediately when the plane lands?" - I stand up so that I'll have enough feeling in my leg that I can actually walk off the plane by the time the doors open. Every bit of you is reduced by the time you're clumping off that airplane.

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