Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

Camera cell phones can capture the precious and horrid times of our lives -- anytime, anyplace.

People used them to record hurricane damage last month for the media and insurance agents. Others use them as portable photo albums, replacing the cracked, yellowed pictures of loved ones in wallets. Some camera cell phones even record video clips.

"We are really entering a science fiction world where hundreds of millions of people will have the ability to record everything that occurs around them and instantaneously transmit that around the world," says Alan Reiter, president of Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing, a consulting firm in Chevy Chase, Md.

Camera cell phones already are used as crime-fighting tools.

In February, St. John's University basketball players in town to play the University of Pittsburgh proved a woman falsely accused them of rape with the help of a camera cell phone.

The woman fabricated the rape story after the players refused to pay her $1,000 for having sex with them, Pittsburgh police reported. One of the players captured video and audio snippets of the woman trying to extort money from them on his camera cell phone.

"That exonerated them from criminal prosecution," Pittsburgh police Lt. Kevin Kraus says.

Earlier this month, a Tennessee limousine driver used his camera cell phone to take a picture of a knife-wielding man in a red pickup truck who robbed him. Because of the photo, police were able to capture the robber within minutes.

Earlier this year, an Atlanta-area woman captured images of a man exposing himself to her on her camera phone. Her pictures helped police catch the man.

Last year, about 9 million camera phones were sold in the United States. This year, another 28 million are expected to be sold, says Erin McGee, spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association in Washington, D.C.

Worldwide, 60 million camera cell phones were sold last year and more than 100 million are expected to be sold this year, says Reiter, who also runs the Web site www.cameraphonereport.com.

With more than 169 million U.S. cell phone subscribers, camera phones make up a small but growing percentage of the overall market, McGee says.

"In a few years, there will be hundreds of millions of people using them," Reiter says. "I'm a big fan of camera phones."

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Taking a photo of your pet is no problem, but other images are raising issues. Click photo for larger image.

However, for all their good uses, camera cell phones also are used to commit crimes -- from stealing a credit card PIN to secretly invading people's privacy.

"People have been known to use their cell phone cameras at ATMs where they actually use the phone to record somebody entering a PIN into the machine and use that in the future in a theft or robbery situation of a MAC card or credit card," says Kraus, who oversees the Pittsburgh police major crimes division.

Students at a Salinas, Calif., high school and the University of Maryland have used camera cell phones to cheat on tests.

Employees have used them to steal corporate secrets. People have used them to covertly take pictures or video clips of partially dressed people in school locker rooms and health clubs. Some even use them to peek under women's clothing in grocery and department stores.

As a result, some schools, health clubs and businesses have restricted or banned their use.

However, fans of the technology say banning camera cell phones isn't the answer.

"You can do a lot more damage with a computer than with a camera phone, but we don't ban computers," Reiter says. "We teach people how to use them responsibly and we punish people if they misuse them."

That's what society needs to do with the camera cell phone, he says.

"They have to learn to deal with it."

Camera cell phones sit at a crossroad of cutting-edge technology and societal ethics where laws still trail technology, but slowly, society is learning to deal with them.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that would prohibit secretly photographing or videotaping people for lascivious purposes. If the legislation becomes law, those convicted of video voyeurism on federal lands -- such as national parks, military bases or federal buildings -- could face a fine of up to $100,000 and/or imprisonment of up to a year. The U.S. Senate is expected to take up the bill in the lame duck session that convenes in mid-November.

"With the advent of technology, people's privacy can be violated in ways they never anticipated," says Tim Johnson, press secretary for Rep. Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio, co-sponsor of the federal video voyeurism bill. "It's just a matter of our laws keeping up with technology."

More than half the states have some type of video voyeurism law, Johnson says. Sponsors of the bill hope it will serve as a template for states that don't have such laws.

In Pennsylvania, what's informally known as the "upskirting" bill passed the state House in June. The state Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Nov. 9.

The terms "upskirting" and "downblousing" refer to people using camera cell phones or any small or easy-to-conceal camera to surreptitiously take pictures up women's skirts or down their blouses. Countless Web sites have cropped up on the Internet with these types of photos.

"You wouldn't anticipate being on an escalator and expecting somebody behind you to have a camera phone or [a camera] in their shoe or in their bag and placing it under your skirt, then placing the picture on the Internet," says state Rep. Mary Ann R. Dailey, R-Montgomery, the state bill's sponsor. "That's unconscionable behavior. It's an unfortunate thing that in this society we have to create laws to prevent this type of bad behavior."

The proposed Pennsylvania legislation would make it an offense to "surreptitiously view, photograph, [electronically] depict, film or otherwise record the intimate parts of another person, whether covered or not, which that person does not intend to be visible by normal public observation [or] transfer or transmit an image obtained ... by live or recorded telephone message, electronic mail, the World Wide Web or any other transfer of the medium on which the image is stored."

A single violation would be a third-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and/or a $2,500 fine. Two or more violations would be a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine.

Still, experts in law enforcement and technological circles maintain that the good uses of camera phones outweigh the bad.

"As law enforcement, we welcome any type of information or evidence that's extracted from these cell phones that can aid in a criminal investigation," Kraus says.

However, he cautions that there's a flip side to camera cell phone use and that the phones can be detrimental to innocent victims.

"The problem lies with a few miscreants misusing what is innovative technology," McGee says.

"One of the reasons that camera phones are getting such a bad rap is because the wireless industry has been incompetent in marketing the useful aspects of camera phones," Reiter says.

In the U.S., camera phone marketing is aimed at young adults with ads showing a teenager taking embarrassing photos of another teenager and then showing them to other teenagers, he says.

"People get the [false] impression that all you can do with a camera phone is embarrass people with it," Reiter says.

Ads don't show the positive uses for camera cell phones, he says, such as construction workers sending photos of work done on site to supervisors, doctors sending photos of accident victims to other doctors for consultation or real estate agents sending pictures of hot properties to potential home buyers.

Camera phones can replace a pen and notepad. Can't jot down a street or intersection? Just take a picture of the street sign. Doing comparison shopping on an item? Take a picture of each model you investigate, along with the price, and compare them later.

In the United States, camera phone pictures often are fuzzy and not of the best quality, but some one-megapixel camera cell phones now are available that produce photos good enough to print. In other parts of the world, camera cell phones are becoming true competitors to digital cameras, Reiter says. In Japan and South Korea, three-megapixel camera phones with optical zooms and flashes are available.

"I've been analyzing wireless for 26 years and [the camera phone] is one of the most important technologies that I have seen because it's going to change business and social communications.

"Think of the immediacy of reporting if the Chinese students who were demonstrating in Tiananmen Square had camera phones that could immediately transmit photos and videos of tanks rolling across the square," Reiter says. "If there's an episode of police brutality, troops invading a country, abuses in prison, there will be people with camera phones that can take still photos and videos of whatever occurs."