There Are Probably Cameras on Your Flight, but Relax, They’re Not On (Yet)

Forget about the privacy angle for a moment (easily solved with a bandaid), and consider a full flight of people skyping. Now that’s some scary stuff.

I am quite surprised there is no camera in the cabin in general. Akin to any other place of business and often found on public transport. As for the tiny pinhole lense on the seat back. A piece of chewing gum or masking tape will do the trick.

Most airlines are removing the screens from their airplanes as it is much cheaper for them to just provide WiFi. They are correctly assuming that everyone that wants one has their own video device. Weight is king in aviation and the removal of 150-300 screens is a substantial reduction in weight. The emergency briefing can be provided by someone already on the plane, the flight attendants. The FAA requirement is for one flight attendant per 50 passengers, the same as it is for exits. If you have never noticed, British Airways 747 aircraft have 2 fewer doors than required in the US, different rules.

The airline industry is the only business that profits off of its abuse of its customers - from child restraint seats used as adult seats, to nickel and dime fees and surprise fees, delays, lost or damaged luggage we pay extra for, to .... Now they want to stick a camera in our face to record the agony they've caused? Just what I need, a selfie scrunched up sweating in a child seat hour after hour on a hot tarmac. What could be worse than people chatting away on cellphones than a bunch of people FaceTiming or Skype-ing each other onboard or the other side of the world? Sorry Mr. Sorensen, I do not want to be marketed to or sold to on my flight. If I'm interested I'll order online through the overpriced SkyMall when I FEEL LIKE IT. Just what we need, Crazy Eddie trying to sell you something onboard. “Disconnect the wires by pushing a button” is like the pedestrian street light button and elevator close doors button - they do nothing. Now I have to carry opaque tape in my carry on. So much for reducing weight on planes to improve efficiency.

NO PRIVACY UPGRADE area for narcissists? If we "vote with our feet" and fly another airline, they will get it. Just remember to tell Singapore Airlines why you refuse to fly their airline anymore. Maybe we can demand "NO PRIVACY" seating sections on the airplanes for narcissists who want to be seen all the time. The only way to take back the 40 square inches in front of our noses is to protest the invasion of privacy & bring duct tape with rubber gloves if they don't meet our personal demand. If the guy sitting next to me says, "Okay, Singapore airlines, invade my privacy and everyone on this row", I can require that one of us be moved to the first class "Full Privacy" section at no increased cost. Hey, if they plan to make money selling my personal data & my image, it is only fair to to be compensated by first class leg room and champagne.

Manufacturers should concentrate on keeping the planes in the air rather than on the infotainment systems.

I’d strongly advise against using chewing gum. Too easy to match your DNA with your passenger info.

Next time I fly I'm going to bring some duct tape with which to cover the camera lens.

Entertainment systems are already anachronisms: most passengers get their entertainment from their mobile devices, and many flights offer internet access too. These cameras are spy devices, and they'll be used by ICE and similar government agencies involved in 'protection', 'kompromat', and all manner of nefarious applications. How long will it be before flight attendants demand that you uncover their camera, and uncooperative passengers are ejected before takeoff?

The airlines should just make this a fee-based choice like luggage. You want a seat without a camera? It's gonna cost you.

One reader suggested masking tape. How about a chewed piece of gum? Much more likely to be brought on board.

I object on privacy grounds but also to anything that adds to the cost of flying. Maybe they want to watch us try to get comfortable in the ever tinier seats they squish us into.

Yikes! Emirates' and/or Boeing's PR folks are about half a century behind the times imaging an arguably stunning first class suite...replete with a lovely view of the ground service equipment and ramp area. It's evocative of the early 1950s PR shoots of first class "passengers" in Boeing Stratocruisers enjoying a a fancy meal...with the inside of a hanger substituting for cloudscape and landscape passing by below. (Well, it's at least preferable to a guy in a gorilla suit peering in the window like in the old Twilight episode).

Cameras can be active without notification. They can be hacked or used by the airline and no one would know. Bring some tape when you fly.

Airlines: prepare to see the moon rise inside the cabin.

Sounds like the perfect spot to temporarily place a well-chewed wad of gum, at least for the duration of the flight. Trust no companies or businesses with your privacy.

Oh, good. I suppose the next camera locations will be in the airplane lavatory. Or maybe they are already there (but not yet operational, of course).

Are people really so childish that they cannot sit still on a flight or read a book? How disturbing, to sit next to someone who is engaged in all this activity and movement. Why not set aside a romper room for them to play in? Technology's intrusions have to stop. I can't even control my stove because it has electronic controls inside. Technology has improved life, for the people who make it, that is. Not the rest of us. Life was best in the 1980s.

Surveillance is a big and growing problem. Why should we be subject to it? It's all about control of the many by the few. It's essentially a modern equivalent of taxation without representation. We will be seduced by politicians and others that it will make us safer. While that might be true it might be also cause our freedom to suffer. Look at China. A little (and some times a lot) distrust is healthy for democracy. Or are we just going to roll over and play dead? Civilization is going to be facing some big choices, and surveillance is one of them. For my part all of my on computers are covered. I am forever vigilant towards surveillance. Of course if the people who are doing the surveillance would submit to 24/7 monitoring of their entire lives by anyone who wanted to check-in maybe that would be a reasonable approach.

How about they install a simple cover for the camera. I think people would trust that much more then being able turn it off.

modern infrastructure is digital surveillance structure. get used to it, because it's only going to become more pervasive.

In the world we live in today, I am not only 100% fine with cameras on all passengers, I would be more comfortable if there were extra flight attendants hired to sit and watch the cameras, monitoring every passenger. Flying in and out of New York for a decade, my entire flight is usually filled with suspicious activity. True story: I once sat next to a Middle Eastern man that legitimately lit up a joint in the seat next to me and explained how Arabs all hate Americans, That he was in the “Persian military” and would I like to go to Dubai with him? However, if you’re flying from Idaho to Kansas or something similar, I’m sure the camera thing might bother you.

One easy solution is simply to bring a piece of masking tape with you and cover the camera.

Good grief. If you want a flight attendant's help, use the call button over your seat. That's been working for years. I don't even understand why they put tv screens in seat backs in the first place. I find them extremely annoying. Now my seatmate is going to be mad at me because I have to pee and he is going to miss 10 seconds of his stupid movie. Great. Newsflash: they have movies on the ground. Go watch one there. There's nifty things called books and magazines. Learn how to amuse yourselves without technology, people. It's been done for decades. You will live. There is no decent reason on earth why any airline would even ever consider putting cameras in seat backs. None. It is creepy and disgusting.

So I guess I'll be keeping a roll of electrical tape in my carry on bag from now on.

I'm glad my time left is limited. This Brave New World holds little interest for me.

Solution: Bring a roll of blue painter's tape with you on your next flight. Or if you want to make a protest, cover the camera lens with sticky, hard to clean duck tape.

Are you kidding? My next door neighbor has them all over because they do Air BNB. My best friend bought a 4 story house in Brooklyn and has them everywhere including the one I discovered on the mantle positioned toward the dining room table and the kitchen because the police said that's where "they'll go", toward where you'll be. Now every LIRR and Metro North has them pointed at you. My guess is there are a thousand within the one block where my apartment is. Bob Dylan said, if you ain't got nothin, you got nothin to loose. I heard Soshana Zuboff recently say "if you've got nothing to hide, you are then just nothing".

Everything the airlines and their association says is a lie. Next time I fly, if I see what looks like a lens pointed at me from the seat back, I'll take some tape or even better some Vaseline ans smear the lens. Then sit back and hope they sue me so we can go into court and discuss privacy, the Constitution, on and on. I'm sure the ACLU will be interested.

Put a piece of tape over it. If the stewardess comes over with a smile and asks you to remove it, you know you're on to something.

Seems a wad of chewing gum will do the trick.

That was a bonehead move ... get rid of the cameras or I'm going to have minor accidents that scratch the lenses.

Bring a piece of electrical tape on board with you every time you fly and place it over the lens if you can find one. Personally, I'd prefer the more permanent solution of a Sharpie but for the risk of vandalism charges being pressed by the airlines.

I forget to mention iris scans being lifted during our monitored non-sleeping time. That's a get way to get unauthorized access to any number of so-called secure, limited access areas.

Facial recognition technology is one of the (currently) most invasive of technologies threatening our privacy and right to be anonymous in any such wished-for (in vain?) privacy. Now the airlines are willing and able to start pumping lovely, closeup pictures of us into their internet connected data systems/network. Oh, and they say they will tell us before they do anything with the data...whatever they want. (Anyone still remember from last week the latest Facebook affront(s)?) Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A simple manually operated slide to cover the lens would fix most, if not all, privacy issues.

When the chief technology officer for Panasonic comes up with ideas such as video chats or motion-controlled games, did it ever occur to him that the passenger in the next seat might find it terribly annoying? Who wants to be sitting inches away from someone engaged in that?

Ah, yes, let's trot out the made up excuses - seat-to-seat video chat, taking passenger selfies (yes, because that addresses a real need out there), detecting when you're asleep. Spare me. These are as lame as pretending that thinner seats with less legroom are just as good as old seats because it "feels" like the same amount of room - even though you can feel the knees of the passenger behind you through the flimsy padding. Right. (And will the airlines "forget" to tell us the cameras are on, just like Google "forgot" to mention the active microphone in their devices? You better believe it.) Every such innovation is ultimately aimed at generating revenue from us, all under the guise of pretending (and making us believe) that it addresses a real need. But do we really, truly need things like the refrigerator making up the grocery list by observing what you use, or your thermostat being controlled from afar by your phone, or your car telling the world where you're at at every second, how fast you're going, how long you're at some location? The answer of course is no. What ever imaginable "need" those address are easily outweighed by the reality that these devices and innovations gather data about you and your life and habits - all to sell to someone for their use and benefit, not yours. We need to do something to stop this constant invasion of our privacy, and approach such tech with our eyes more fully open.

Prediction 1: "Explicit passenger approval" will consist of a line of fine print in the terms and conditions no one reads when they buy a ticket. Don't like it? Don't buy a ticket. Kind of like how buying a ticket to a baseball game means you waive your right to sue if you get hit by a foul ball. Your only other option is not to go, which -- in the case of air travel -- is not really an option for most people. Prediction 2: Airport convenience stores will make a killing selling $9.99 pieces of tape to cover the cameras.

I am so tired of being the product and being the data. It’s time for companies to start compensating ME for my data!

I personally would find it an invasion of privacy but I would also be really worried about to whom are they selling the information. If it's all about the power of selling you something, advertisers will want in on it (and maybe other entities as well).