In gyms, few are smiling for the camera
They’re small, inconspicuous, can send and receive pictures surreptitiously and could make the locker room the riskiest place in the gym.
The new breed of cell phones with built-in cameras is stirring anxiety in L.A.’s fitness world, where some health clubs are banning cell phones from locker rooms and other areas of the gym. Their concern: The phones, which typically have a tiny lens on the back and a viewing screen in the front, could be used to take clandestine shots that could find their way to the Internet or elsewhere.
In major cities in Asia, where digital camera phones are common, a few health clubs have banned the devices from gyms and locker rooms in an attempt to forestall any problems; in Hong Kong, for instance, a chain called Physical has outlawed cell phones in locker rooms. Outside the gym, Japanese police say they have arrested people using camera phones to take photos up the skirts of women on trains and elsewhere, according to news reports.
The Sports Club, which operates the Sports Club/LA and other upscale gyms in New York, Boston, Miami, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, has tightened its restrictions on cell phone use to prohibit members from using them anywhere other than the lobby.
Nanette Pattee Francini, founder and executive vice president of the Sports Club chain, said the firm’s security director recently recommended the restrictions as camera phones, which only recently debuted in the U.S., became a concern. “It’s going to be a hurdle for us to jump, because not all of our members necessarily understand about the photo phones yet,” said Francini. “They may think we’re trying to police them, but it’s for their own privacy and protection.”
Francini said the club, which is popular with celebrities and power brokers, was concerned about protecting the privacy of members. As these phones become more common, smaller and capable of producing higher-quality pictures, the potential for problems grows.
The Gold’s Gym chain is also devising a policy that would prohibit the use of camera phones among its members. “If I’m a guy from Iowa who came to see the gym and I’m next to Mel Gibson, sure, I’m going to be tempted to take a picture of him and send it to a friend,” says Derek Barton, senior vice president of marketing for Gold’s. “So far it hasn’t happened, but it’s definitely something we’re putting in our rules and regulations.”
Experts in privacy law say that as technology evolves, society is struggling to develop a clearer understanding of what is appropriate behavior for using new gadgets. “I would say that most reasonable people know that taking pictures of naked people is a no-no,” says Brian Rishwain, an attorney with the Los Angeles firm Johnson & Rishwain who specializes in privacy and 1st Amendment law. “But you see all kinds of crazy things, and I’ve got to believe this [problem] is coming.”
Although Rishwain is unaware of any legal cases in the U.S. involving camera phone use in gyms, he views it as another variation on voyeurism. He cites the example of two men convicted several years ago for videotaping up women’s skirts at public events in Washington state. Their convictions were overturned by the state Supreme Court, but the case prompted the passage this year of local legislation prohibiting “up-skirt” photography in public areas.
A random sampling of larger clubs in the L.A. area yielded no specific examples of problems with camera phone misuse.
Just as almost every regular Joe has a cell phone nowadays, it’s likely that one day nearly everyone will probably have phones capable of recording pictures and who knows what else. Less likely to change, perhaps, is the side of human nature that wants to record things to satisfy some voyeuristic need.
At the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego nonprofit organization, Communications Director Jordana Beebe believes misuse of camera phones “could be something serious” once the phones become more popular. “With the everyday cell phone user I don’t see a wide [misuse] of them,” she said, “but I do think some people will surreptitiously be taking pictures.”
While we embrace advanced technology for what it affords us -- new freedoms and conveniences -- at the same time we fear it. In the case of camera phones, the joy of seeing a child’s first steps may be overshadowed by the horror of what we shouldn’t be seeing.
Qualms about indecorous behavior are natural but may not always be warranted, says Douglas Thomas, associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication who specializes in technology and new-media issues. People tend to think of technology as a “malevolent force out of our control,” he says. But voyeurism didn’t start with camera phones, he adds. “On the other hand, technology is making things smaller, faster and easier to use,” he says, “and each time we get a new technology we repeat the same anxieties.”
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Jeannine Stein’s e-mail address is jeannine.stein@latimes.com.
