Cell Phone Cameras & Privacy
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: So what did you find under the tree? Maybe a new cell phone with a camera built in? Camera phones are taking off. They're also opening a can of worms when it comes to privacy. Michael Okwu explains.</s>MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looks so harmless, you've probably laughed at this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Check this out. I'm sitting next to your new boyfriend.</s>OKWU: That Sprint PCS commercial extolling the value of the latest "it" item, the camera phone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a phenomenon that has taken off like nobody's business.</s>OKWU: Problem is the popularity of the phones, six million circulation and counting, now has some private institutions and legislators worrying about their misuse. In Washington state, a man was charged with voyeurism after he allegedly slid a cell phone camera under a woman's skirt and took pictures while she shopped, pictures that can be downloaded on the Internet. Web watchdogs say the phones have helped to refuel so- called up skirt and down blast photography.</s>MICHAEL YEATER, REEBOK SPORTS CLUB, NY: When we realized that this technology was first coming out, it -- something you have to take a very strong stance on.</s>OKWU: At this sports club in Manhattan and others like it, zero tolerance now for cell phones of any kind in exercise and locker rooms. Camera phone manufacturers say...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not the technology. It's how people are using it.</s>OKWU: But in towns and villages across the country, lawmakers concerned about the public's privacy are taking preemptive action. Desperes (ph), Missouri, an ordinance passed in September, bans taking photos of a partially unclothed person without consent. Chicago, city council there considering a ban on camera phones in public places, where one would expect privacy, such as bathrooms, locker rooms, hospital changing rooms. In the Elk Grove Park district outside Chicago, you can't use any kind of cell phone in Park owned restrooms, locker rooms, and showers. But privacy lawyers say safeguarding the rights of unwitting subjects might tread on the rights of cell phone users, especially those who need cell phones in emergencies.</s>RICK FISCHER, PRIVACY ATTORNEY: You have to look at all of these rights and responsibilities and find the right balance.</s>OKWU: The dilemma of protecting the rights of the majority from the conduct of a few. Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.