Child porn case reveals interesting side note.

What do you base that on?

Was there an industry survey or is it personal information
from working in a large number of minilabs?

I can't tell you where I work, but I can say with some authority that all major online digital photo processors "scan" images to ensure that there is nothing illegal.

Essentially, the computers in these giant processors look for percentages of skin tone. So yes, a perfectly innocent picture of a lot of people in swimsuits near a pool, or of a child in his or her swimsuit, may alert an operator to check the content.

Many of the analog photo processors these days do the same thing. While before, it was a chance occurance because an operator would only randomly check prints to ensure the machine was working properly (a young student at a local JC was caught last year because he had pictures of his arsenal being printed), the processing equipment nowadays have skin and shape algorithms to catch child pornographers and copyright violations. Yes, there are a LOT of false positives.

-- Typeaux

There is a difference between the store looking at your photos, and the cops. And when you take your photos to a store for developing, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

James Pilcher said:

MagicAngel said:

I'd think that we would have some right to privacy and that clerks
and photo techs could [not] just look though images at will.

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It's a largely overlooked fact that the United States constitution
offers no right to privacy. While it might be desirable, the
government and anyone else who wishes to do so can invade your
privacy entirely constitutionally. All of those credit rating
companies would be out of business if there were a right to privacy.

You have the right to bear arms, avoid unreasonable search and
seizure, speak your mind, worship as you see fit, etc. but you have
no explicit right to privacy. Hmm...

(and let's not get into why local authorities won't let you carry a
gun when the constitution says it's your right)

--
Cheers,

Jim Pilcher
Living in the Queen City of the Plains, USA

'I know what I know and I know what I like. But sometimes it's like
I just don't know.' -- Me

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Right on. As an attorney, I get people asking me how it could possibly be that the word of one person might get someone convicted of a crime. And I ask them, in the nicest way I can, what they would think should happen if their daughter was molested, and her word was the only evidence of it.

jonolk said:

This whole privacy thing needs some perspective. I have a six year
old daughter who frequents friends houses of people I trust in the
neighborhood. If there was an unexpected uncle at one of the
houses who took child porn pictures of my daughter, then went to
the local Wal-mart to print them I would expect that the clerk
would call the police.

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I can tell you I work for Shutterfly (a major online
photo finisher). We do not electronically scan images
for content. I don't know of any labs that do (but
would be curious to hear names).

It's been discussed here and other forums that I've seen. By enough people with enough experience that there is no reason to think they'd be wrong. I would hazard a guess that there might be fewer "test" prints made now than when the process was more behind closed doors than it is now but it's an easy enough thing for an operator to do.

Tijean said:

And, finally, to make sure we weren't printing anything we weren't
allowed to, i.e. porn, child porn, ect. The company had a strict
policy against printing this sort of stuff - even the one or two
consenting adult stuff - because, among other reasons I assume,
there were minors working in the store (including myself at the
time) and they could get in a good bit of trouble if they were seen
as tolerating the exposure of minors to explicit material.

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So you, as a minor, had to discard adult material so that other minors wouldn't be exposed to them?

Roy.

RayN said:

I can tell you I work for Shutterfly (a major online
photo finisher). We do not electronically scan images
for content.

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BUT... You didn't say you don't manually scan for content.

RayN said:

I don't know of any labs that do (but
would be curious to hear names).

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Some one is doing it because I read an article about the software that was developed to do it. The article discussed it from a programming point of view, but the software basically looks for nude people.

There are photo finishers out there that will do any legal nudes no questions asked and my finisher doesn't never askes about copyrighted content (Which would be a major pain)

jonolk said:

I took child porn pictures of my daughter, then went to
the local Wal-mart to print them I would expect that the clerk
would call the police.

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I agree, I think that if a clerk saw images that were clearly child porn, then they should call the police (and try to get you to pay with a credit card or at least check your ID before you leave).

Tijean said:

Then they're not doing their job.

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Oh, I thought there job was to get finger prints and dust on my negatives, perhaps a scratch or three.

Funny story. The last time I had film processed at Sam's I went to pick them up and they told me that the film was blank and they had tossed it out! So, my two hours of astrophotography was in the trash can. I made them pull it out and give it to me. Good thing, the shots were really good. Stupid clerks.

Theresa K said:

Print them at home.

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If those were really child porn pictures, why didn't he print them at home??? If the guy already had a digital camera, why didn't he invest in a PC, or even a PC-less printer to get those images???

but the clerk should be immediately fired, definitely not labelled a hero.

The article says plainly that:

MagicAngel said:

Hawes tried again at a Manchester CVS.
He was able to process the photos directly
from the kiosk this time. But the kiosk retained
the photos, leading the clerk to call police
on May 24th, the affidavit said.

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The guy printed the pictures, left the store. What right did the clerk have to check out the photos that were made there? This was definitely a sort of a big brother tactics, in which every person is guilty unless he or she is proven innocent. That's just disgusting. The guy wasn't caught red-handed, so leave him alone.

If some people simply wanted to make prints from their holidays or honeymoon, including a number of nudies, how are they supposed to do it cheaply and privately? Don't suggest a home printer, not only are they more expensive per print, but the cheap ones are far from print quality of a typical kiosk.

And this brings another twist to the story: what if the clerk printed out the pictures for himself or herself, and then notified the police? Quite possible, don't you think? And yet, the grandpa who simply didn't want attention (thus the second store), and wanted to print out some nice pictures of his granddaughter for himself, and didn't see anything wrong with the kind of pictures there were (remember we are talking about completely different attitudes towards what is going to be described as porn) is going to be the villain, and the store clerk is going to be the hero.

The guy was doing his job!! If I saw child porn, I'd report it immediately. In fact, he's OBLIGATED to report such offenses.

You obviously don't have any children. And like so many barren people, you have no stake in the future. YOU are a typical liberal, your mind utterly clouded by the Leftist mist. This poppycock you've come up with is just so much flotsam and nonsense.

Please answer.

BobHaverford said:

The guy was doing his job!! If I saw child porn, I'd report it
immediately. In fact, he's OBLIGATED to report such offenses.

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The guy's job is to ring up the pictures. If he didn't catch the guy red handed, and only learned about the pictures post factum, he has only invaded his privacy.

What if the guy did not make any alleged 'child porn' pictures? Would it THEN be an invasion of privacy, if the clerk looked at private pictures without controversial content? And if he doesn't know what can be there in those pictures, what right does he have to sift through all of them?

BobHaverford said:

You obviously don't have any children.

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Au contraire, and I come from a large family as well.

BobHaverford said:

And like so many barren
people, you have no stake in the future.

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It's great to hear that kind of talk from a person who resorts to namecalling.

BobHaverford said:

YOU are a typical
liberal,

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Once again, on the contrary. I'm a right-wing voter, and I'm a right-wing agenda supporter. However, big brother tactics DO NOT support THAT agenda. Frankly, if the guy was a real pedophile AND if he posed any threat to any child, he would have known how to evade such situations.

BobHaverford said:

your mind utterly clouded by the Leftist mist.

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Why resort to such words? Especially if you don't know the truth?

BobHaverford said:

This
poppycock you've come up with is just so much flotsam and nonsense.

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Once again—what do you have to back you up?

Uhhh, Bob - you're sounding pretty confused, here - Liberals are not pornographers. Nor are they Anti-American, or Satan worshipers or...I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't believe it, coming from a Liberal like me....But I'd bet you'd reddily add Fornicators to your anti-liberal diatribe.

Gotta go get my kids up, cya.

BobHaverford said:

You obviously don't have any children. And like so many barren
people, you have no stake in the future. YOU are a typical
liberal, your mind utterly clouded by the Leftist mist. This
poppycock you've come up with is just so much flotsam and nonsense.

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No, it simply enables you to identify the enemy. If I was mistaken than I apologize, BUT I tend to doubt your conservative bonafides!

Toughluck, I absolutely disagree with your analysis. PERIOD.

I really dislike porn, but as long as the acts depicted are not abusive, why would it be illegal to make a picture?
--
Stephen M Schwartz

Actually, liberals and their policies support pornograpy. And of course they are anti-American in any meaningful sense of the word. They say they love their country, but hate its traditions and history.

I don't know about Satan worshipers, but I suspect that this sort of deviant would fit in quite well with the rest of the motley collection of deviants that makes up today's DEmocratic party.

Uhhh, Bob - you're sounding pretty confused, here - Liberals are not pornographers. Nor are they Anti-American, or Satan worshipers or...I could go on, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't believe it, coming from a Liberal like me....But I'd bet you'd reddily add Fornicators to your anti-liberal diatribe.
Gotta go get my kids up, cya.

I am not sure what child porn might be. If it is photos of adults having sex with children, then the act itslef is wrong and the phots wopuld incrimnate the perpds.

Hpwever, I can imagine other sorts of photography ... also sick to my taste, but not necessarily abusive. Thsi could include images of children's genitalia or "erotic" poses by kids. Would all of this be "porn?"

I guess I am concerned about the first amendment issues here.
--
Stephen M Schwartz

Paul in Colorado said:

Right on. As an attorney, I get people asking me how it could
possibly be that the word of one person might get someone convicted
of a crime. And I ask them, in the nicest way I can, what they
would think should happen if their daughter was molested, and her
word was the only evidence of it.

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But...that's a trick question...designed to bias.

In your example: person asks a question(presumably wanting an explanation of why it is or should be logical), but you(in response) ask another question instead of answering, playing directly on base emotion(s) of said person, which are by nature, lacking logic/rationality(since when are emotional feelings logical/rational?).

-Chris

Paul in Colorado said:

Paul in Colorado said:

This whole privacy thing needs some perspective. I have a six year
old daughter who frequents friends houses of people I trust in the
neighborhood. If there was an unexpected uncle at one of the
houses who took child porn pictures of my daughter, then went to
the local Wal-mart to print them I would expect that the clerk
would call the police.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...