Samsung Bans Camera Phones In The Workplace

from the gotta-ship-'em-out-the-door...-not-in dept

Mon, Jul 7th 2003 1:03am — Mike Masnick

Emily Turrettini discovered that Samsung, makers of quite a lot of camera phones, are now banning them in their own factories, as they're afraid that people will use them for corporate espionage. The link that Emily originally included is now gone, but another story has the details including an answer to my first question: the factory that makes camera phones will not have the ban enforced. Seems like an over-reaction, but the number of such "mobile phones banned!" stories seems to be showing up at an increasing rate. It will be interesting to see if the resulting bans lessen the adoption rates of such phones, as people will realize there are additional tradeoffs.

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6 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2003 @ 1:33am

The post-celebrity era?
In an era when the common person increasingly receives unwanted fame from ubiquitous surveillance devices, will people come to despise the institution of celebrity? People living in tourist locations did not like it when tourists came up to them and took pictures, like they were some sort of exotic zoo specimen. Could we not see a new social phenomenon wherein groups of malevolent paparazzi spontaneously decide to scandalize a random person?
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mark, 7 Jul 2003 @ 7:29am

camera phones
For years corporations and insitutions have been just fine with invading our lives and privacy with their agenda whether it be video survilance or passive-aggressively ramming sponsorship of publlic events down our throats. Increasing, the playing field is being leveled and I have zero simpathy for the big players who get slapped because tech that used to be expensive finds it's way into the hands of the commoners.
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munich, 7 Jul 2003 @ 10:10am

Re: camera phones
Yeah, Samsung has really invaded a lot of people's lives...Get real.

The ban is a bit silly from a espionage stanpoint, but makes sense from a corporate governance standpoint.

If someone wants to do corporate spying, a ban on the cellphones isn't going to stop them. The real reason for any corporate ban would likely to avoid lawsuits by employees for imappropriate use by other employees. For example, if Cletus uses his phone to look up Marge's skirt while at work. With a corporate ban in place, the company is protected from Marge's lawsuit and Cletus can be fired. Without one, Marge can probably sue the company creating a "hostile workplace".

Although in Korea Samsung doesn't have to really worry about this, it will probably be a trend in the U.S.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jul 2003 @ 7:22pm

Re: camera phones
A few years back, Motorola's Cellular Sector had a policy of banning all cell phones from their sector facilities - you were to leave them at the guards desk when coming in. The main problem was theft from the factorys. The ban was widely derided and poorly enforced. Customers, vendors, white collar employees, and especially management were commonly seen walking around talking away, and pocketing the phones on their way past the guard.
The main enforcement effort landed on the hourly factory workers. Several were caught, fired, and prosecuted for theft; there was even an organized group stealing cell batteries which got several hundred thousands of dollars worth of batteries before getting caught. But it was funny seeing all the engineers walking around with proto-phones or unreleased phones (functional of course). They could pretty much smuggle anything
they wanted out the front door.
They never got hassled about it.

A couple years ago, the new CellSector VP dropped the ban. They put in better inventory controls, tighter purchasing restrictions, and held lower level managers much more accountable for departmental equipment - I suspect this contributed much more to detering theft than any
ban ever did.

A mindless ban on something is usually a sign
that management doesn't understand the issue.

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Dvovcwgn1Q, 5 Jul 2006 @ 3:52pm

Dvovcwgn1Q
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Bob, 1 Feb 2007 @ 9:03am

Re: Re: camera phones
Your final sentence should be a mantra.
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