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Companies Develop Camera Phone Policies
from the blame-technologies-or-users'-actions? dept
Found over at Alan Reiter's wireless blog is the news that more companies are coming up with human resource policies concerning camera phones (telling them, basically, that using a camera phone to take "sexually revealing" photos of co-workers is wrong). Alan Reiter thinks this is a good thing, and that companies should all be writing such policies. Personally, I think it's going a bit overboard. If companies need to write up new HR policies for every new technology that comes down the road, they're going to be a lot of busy policy writers out there. I don't see why the policies can't be general enough to cover things like this. Clearly, violating the privacy of a co-worker or doing anything that makes for an uncomfortable work environment for others shouldn't be tolerated. Specifically singling out camera phones is paying too much attention to the technology, and not enough on the actions.
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I have a co-worker who is young and parties frequently. He takes his camera phone along and then uploads all the " boobie shots " up to a webpage. Monday mornings have become much more enjoyable since he bought a camera phone.
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It's not about the phones
Imagine you work in an office and there is one guy who always carries a camera (film or digital, doesn't matter) and is always holding it under the table at meetings, etc.
People are going to figure out he's some kind of perv and avoid him.
But, what if instead that same guy (prior to picking up a reputation as a perv) gets a camera phone and every once in a while during a meeting does that little 'my cell phone is vibrating' jerk and reaches in his pocket, discretely keeps his phone below the surface of the table like he's checking to see who is calling and then puts it back in his pocket.
Are people going to suspect he's a perv? Probably not.
If you see someone manipulating a camera it's a safe bet they're taking a picture and you can cover your face, cross your legs, etc. If you see that same person maniuplating a cell phone you have no reason to assume they're taking a picture.
That's the problem with cell phone cameras.
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Re: It's not about the phones
Doesn't change the issue. It's the actions that are the problem, not the phone itself.
How does having a policy in place change any of what you wrote?
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Re: It's not about the phones
Policies are in created in order fisrt and foremost to protect the company. If there's an occasional side effect of actually protecting employess, then it's a happy coincidence.
If a company has a policiy in place forbidding cell phones cams, then when a perv posts the "under table panty shots" gets caught by someone who doesn't like them, they're protected. "We have a policy against that, you're (picture taker) fired and you (the outraged party) can't sue us."
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