Front Page

Front Page

Girls, watch out for secret camera
By Chris Kamalendran
One of the latest additions to the cellular phones - the Multi Media Supporting System with an inbuilt secret camera is causing concern after it was revealed that many young people were misusing the facility at shopping malls, restaurants and clubs.

The device has an inbuilt camera where a person could be secretly photographed from a distance of about 10 feet and in recent weeks secret pictures of girls have been used to cause mischief or trouble. The pictures obtained could be either transmitted directly from the phone, down loaded to the computer and transmitted via email or hard copy prints could be obtained.

The camera could be activated without alerting the person to be photographed as it could be done in the same manner like dialling a telephone number or by the mere pressing of a button.

Currently the company providing the facility for transmission of pictures through the cellular phone charges an additional monthly fee of Rs. 50 and an additional charge of Rs. two per connection and every 10 kilobites 20 cents. A good quality picture would use up about 150 kilobites.

This type of cellular phones are available in the market for sums ranging from Rs. 35,000 upwards. The Sunday Times found that such secret camera phones were being used in some of the shopping complexes and some of these pictures had been in circulation recently. In one of the cases photographs taken at a shopping complex had been transmitted to the person who had been photographed.

In another case pictures of a girl had been taken secretly at a restaurant and posted to the house. Recently the particular type of camera was also made use of in parliament by a PA MP during a demonstration staged by the opposition in the well of the house against the government members.

Back to Front Page