Crazy it might sound, but yes – it appears to be going that way. The US have now approved the “Video Voyeurism Prevention Act”, and since passing the Senate last year, it’s now also gone through the House Judiciary Committee. It’s well on it’s way to becoming law in the USA.
Both TheRegister.co.uk and Reuters are covering this story, however whilst it might sound a bit “mad” it’s actually designed to “prohibit taking covert pictures in locker rooms, bedrooms and other places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy”, which….. is fair play really.
If I’m honest, there has been an increase of this kind of activity thanks to camera phones – there’s plenty of mobile blogs on the internet, like Buzznet and TextAmerica which have pictures taken on trains, busses, shopping centres etc etc. These are places you would never have previously taken a camera, and it’s all too easy to take a picture of someone without them realising. I’ll not go into details here, I’m sure you can imagine, however they’re already calling this act part of the “Up Skirt Law”!