American Airlines Has Cameras in Their Screens Too

They already take a high resolution back scatter shot of my genitals on the way in, what's a little more humiliation among friends? If they want to spend 6 hours watching me make pained expressions as I shift and turn and feel the bits that make me human slowly slip away, leaving me a crippled, grunting inhuman beast by the time I get out of the aluminum can full of other peoples farts, I guess they are welcome to it.

To me this is just a distraction. Yes there's a hardware camera. I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ. Some are raging about the non-existant theoretical privacy violation (again, not 100% non-existant, but I will bet money there's no surveillance through this camera), meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks (which that webpage has too, btw).

One might say "But what about hackers?", luckily unlike Alexa or Google Home, it's hard for hackers to tinker with one these devices and find remotely-triggerable exploits.

Most of these are just COTS Android tablets. When they reboot the IFE, you sometimes see the Android soft home/menu button on the bottom.

It's easy enough to repair, too -- just apply some opaque tape to the camera.

I mean, I'm a big fan of privacy but I consider an airline cabin to be a pretty public place.

I'm already used to security cameras in pretty much every public building I walk in...

...can anyone think of something nefarious that could be done with these cameras?

The only possible "threat" I can think of would be to eavesdrop on someone's laptop/conversation for potential business secrets or otherwise, but the cameras are pointed at someone's face (not screen) and no mention is made of a microphone... although planes used to have those phones (obviously with a microphone) in them for many years.

And in any case, a commercial flight is probably not the best place to be discussing top-secret info anyways.

I understand why airlines and other industries are using off-the-shelf parts; I actually prefer this because it gets us closer to more modular IFE systems like what Delta/GoGo are doing on the A220, which means airlines can conceivably upgrade their IFE systems more frequently and at lower costs.

What I don’t understand is why there aren’t commodify parts available sans cameras, given the myriad of use-cases and the customer volume for camera-free Android/Linux/QNX (I doubt QNX is even a player given their royalties but just thinking of what embedded systems are available) tablets.

Anyway, it would take very little effort to assuage customers by blocking the cameras. If a 2¢ cover is too much, gaffer tape would work. It’s disappointing — though not surprising — that the airline industry hasn’t done this.

Given the state of surveillance at airports already, I'm honestly kind of surprised the cameras aren't active & recording the whole time to try to "detect threats"

It's ironic that in the book 1984 all the citizens have hidden cameras in their TVs. Today, in 2019, all the citizens have non-hidden cameras and microphones in pretty much every electronic device they use. We also have the customary day of rage, where we all direct our collective rage at some political opponent. Don't get me started on the butchering of the English language...

This is the reason we need laws surrounding data its collection, usage, retention and sharing. Companies and people will willfully or through sheer incompetence collect data, create privacy violations. For consumers there is no option but to rail against every new find. As we saw every company big and small do it. There is no solution but laws. At least that way we have a line drawn and we can fight for that line and about that line. Right now we are all screaming into a void hoping someone will listen and in some cases we yell into a void when its not warranted.

Actually surprised there's no cameras on planes (that I know of at least). Buses, subways, other mass transit have cameras.

And I've seen no one complain about the cameras some food chains use in their table-side checkout systems. Red Robin is the first that comes to mind. It sits there your entire meal... Obviously it's to take your pic when you swipe your credit card (and apparently scan coupons and gift cards).

The real question is, why didn't AA & Singapore Airlines not put a sticker on top of the camera instead of having all this negative publicity? QA was probably concerned about something else.

I flew on a plane similar to the one cited in the article this past Monday. It was a late night flight and I turned the screen off to try and sleep, only to have the screen turn itself back on (and disable the power button) to show me advertisements. Between this and "smart" TVs that secretly surveil the end user, I'm not optimistic about the future of humane consumer electronics.

Griping at and shaming companies who may or may not have a legitimate use case is a battle that will never end. You don't necessarily know which products have cameras, and you don't have a ton of leverage anyway.

Instead, what would make sense to me is to have an across the board regulatory requirement that cameras, regardless of purpose, product type, etc.:

(1) must be clearly marked (logo, wording, etc.), and

(2) must have some kind of reliable, independent way to shut them down or defeat them (such as a plastic shutter to cover the camera, etc. -- not just a software controlled indicator light).

That way there is considerably less need for complicated agree-to-disagree debates about whether a camera should or shouldn't exist in this or that context. Instead, there would be one thing that is clear cut, objective, and possible to enforce, and people would be empowered to do something about the cameras around them. (Except for security cameras, which would need to be a separate category.)

Most airplanes have built-in CCTV cameras whose explicit purpose is to record everyone in the cabin for the entire flight. So do MUNI buses.

Instead people are raising the issue of a stock camera that's obviously not being used to record. There would be no way to keep that a secret, everything in an airplane has to be FAA approved.

United has several planes with what appear to be active IR LEDs in the same spot on the front bezel. Any idea what those are doing? Tracking empty seats? Movement for some reason?

If you're in a taxi cab the driver will have a camera pointed at them and you, the passenger. You're paying to get transported from A to B. If you're on an airplane you're doing the same thing only paying more and going up in the air. I guess I don't see the issue? Maybe, and I mean maybe if you paid for a plane ticket that had a "private" seat with a door, could this be a gray area.

Security concerns aside, I thought the cameras were there so you could swipe in front of it to turn the infotainment system on? Is there proof they are recording? Planes have weight limitations. A long-haul 8-12hr flight for 300 passengers is a significant commitment to storage space and the weight of said drives.

These cameras will eventually be enabled plus they're pointing at your face. This becomes especially important when facial recognition software gets to the point that it can, with high probability, capture your mood. If you look angry or aggressive then you are a risk to a safe flight. It might get to the point where you're escorted from the plane before it takes off due to you looking mad because you couldn't find an overhead bin. An extension of this would be for air marshals to Taser you inflight before you can causes an incident, all because you look drunk or look mad due to sneezing giving you a red face.

What's the big deal, though? Its not like these devices are in your home -- they are in a public space that is well known to be heavily surveiled.

So I guess, even in the worst case scenario where these cameras were recording you, what is so different from the other 500x camera FOVs you step into during your journey? What am I missing?

It's been about a year or so since I've flown, but from memory there were tablets on my last QANTAS flight that also had run of the mill hardware cameras on the tablets. They looked like any ol' chinese made tablet to be honest, I didn't think too much of it.

This seems like a cost issue. Aside from the privacy issues, it’s gotta be cheaper to buy a pile of COTS tablets and bolt them to your airline seats than commission a custom form factor and hardware spec.

That said, this is actually a time when physically occluding the camera makes sense.

I think I remember reading Cathay Pacific has cameras in the first class cabin for a customer service reason—to attend to you when you were awake...

I give it about a week until the airlines cover all the cameras with stickers. Maybe a nice little company logo.

The overwhelming availability of gum in an airplane cabin might suggest a solution to the privacy-conscious.

Wait until they start embedding cameras in toilet seats. "For better passenger comfort".

I've seen these in:

SAS Emirites Cathray Pacific

flights.

Hmm. I guess I need to start carrying post-it notes when I fly.

Soon the TSA will be confiscating sticky notes.

There's security cameras in every mass transit vehicle I've ever been in. Why is this a privacy issue?

I can't wait for the MKBHD breakdown of them.

You're in public on an airline, so whatever, they can have all the cameras they want on that airline.

How can you have privacy concerns in a completely public space?

Buzzfeed confirms his focus on writing articles for the sole purpose of provoking outrage to get the last few clicks before they finally go bankrupt.

These stories remind me of something that happened in my first internship in 2000.

One of the interns that I worked with left a week earlier than I did so he could have some R & R. That Monday, we all got an email from him that went something like, "Check out my WebCam!!!!"

I clicked on the link, and my screen was filled with a picture of him with his finger fully up his nose, picking a winner.

Would have been better if we saw the full booger.