July 29, 2003
New laws specifically drafted to react to a given type of new technology are rarely good for society and for business
In this thorough and well written article for the WSJ, Bruno Giussani looks into the privacy concerns raised by camera phones and how they are being used in totally unexpected ways. He reveals a story which didn't make the English speaking press, but was published in Swiss German tabloid SonntagsBlick, about illegal pictures taken of the inside of a secret army bunker in Switzerland, snapped with a camera phone.
The article concludes that though the wireless telecommunication industry is sitting in the hot seat with foreseeable privacy violation lawsuits, bans and government intervention, "recent history has taught us that new laws specifically drafted to react to a given type of new technology are rarely good for society and for business, as usage evolves in unforeseeable ways, and the unexpected cannot be captured into a sensible legal text.
Observing the trajectory of other disruptive technologies, we also see that over time society tends to adjust to the new situation and to develop appropriate answers". I'll go along with that.
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