By Jessica Arabski and Heamakarn Sricharatchanya

On a recent day in the Lower East Side, instead of whistling or commenting, a teenager discreetly pushes a button on his camera phone as an attractive woman strolls by. She keeps walking, unaware that her image now belongs to a stranger.

By the year 2010, phones will transmit an estimated 228 billion images, more than all other technological devices combined, according to the research group InfoTrends. Yet, as use expands – shipments will grow from 233 million units in 2004 to an estimated 903 million units in 2010 – recent reports of unsolicited images captured in gyms and elsewhere imply a shift in the public perception of privacy. 

“I think there’s a general sense in which privacy harms are not really taken seriously yet,” said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School specializing in telecommunications law and technology. “We are in the first sort of decade of mass privacy intrusions in the United States. Like in any part of a new era, there’s just not a clear understanding of this problem.”

People often fail to recognize privacy concerns until a problem occurs, said Wu.

In 2004, Congress passed the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act in response to the growth of camera phones, which were first introduced to the country in 2002. The law builds on prior legislation addressing hidden cameras and explicitly prohibits photographing or videotaping a naked person without consent in places where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. Punishment can include fines as high as $100,000, a year in prison or even both.

Small and easy to conceal, camera phones can invade privacy in multiple ways. Inappropriate pictures taken in gyms have caused workout sites throughout the country to ban cell phones. Images taken in dressing rooms, locker rooms and homes have been reported, and some women have even been violated with “up the skirt” shots.

Some companies have banned employees from carrying camera phones for fear of revealing lucrative designs. In South Korea, privacy invasion became such a serious concern that all new handsets were required to sound a beeping noise whenever a pictures is taken. >>>