So here’s a dumb idea about digital cameras. Let’s imagine a world in which everyone has a camera – and they carry them with them all the time. Say – for example – that they’re built into mobile phones. Right. Now you add in a sensor to each camera that means that they can communicate with all cameras within a narrowly focused area that corresponds with the area about to be captured within the viewfinder. Right. Now every camera includes information about how the person who owns it “feels” about various uses of their images. They can say, “I don’t feel comfortable with you distributing this image to your friends” or “Don’t take pictures of me” or whatever. Maybe even “no close-ups”. This information is thrown out to any camera that tries to take a picture of you and this has an influence on how the picture can be easily used.
So – for example – if I were a private nervous person who didn’t want photos taken of me at all, then I could set my camera to a ‘leave me alone’ mode. If someone tried to take a picture of me on a “normal” setting, then they’d find that their camera simply wouldn’t work. They’d keep pressing the button, but would be presented with error beeps instead. They’d have to actually switch to a “rude” mode in order to be able to take a photo. And if you didn’t want it to be distributed, the phone would just stop you forwarding it to other people – again unless you were prepared to switch into a “rude” mode. Could be fun…