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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

People by and large keep to themselves on airplanes. If someone was recording you with their cell phone for the duration of the flight, I promise you, you wouldn't like it. The resultant footage wouldn't particularly be any different than if it was recorded by the seatback in front of you, though.

If I'm going to, say, a concert, or especially a taping of a TV show, I have a much higher expectation of ending up in some video footage. But people often sleep on planes. They're not expecting to be recorded.

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I wouldn't like it and if I noticed I'd politely ask them to stop. However, (and I'm not a lawyer) I don't think it'd be illegal or even unethical. If someone was recording me napping on a plane I'd treat it the same way as if I was napping under a tree in a national park. It would be a non issue for me.

Privacy is something I control by not exposing sensitive information in areas where recording is a possibility.

I already take precautions when flying by not working on my laptop or having sensitive conversations with family or coworkers.

I generally don't consider information on where my gaze is looking, facial expressions, or if I'm awake or asleep sensitive information unless I'm in a private space like my home, a hotel room, or a bathroom.

Pretty sure someone could experience serious ramifications if they persisted recording you after being asked to stop. They might even be met by police at the destination and banned for life if they refused the commands from flight attendants after their inevitable involvement.

Flight attendants do seem to have a lot of discretion when it comes to instructing passengers and I know that failing to follow safety related instructions can lead to bans or police involvement.

I'm not sure if they'd be able to extend that to someone recording me although it likely varies by country. I think British law considers continued recording a form of harassment where the same protections don't exist in America.

If I was really really bothered by it for some reason I might raise it once. The cabin crew has the safety of the flight and other responsibilities to be concerned with.

You're not supposed to use your camera in customs areas in airports. Some airlines get really weird about people even taking photos on the plane (though that has relaxed a lot), so it might not be against FAA rules, but I think someone purposefully recording a sleeping person would still be frowned upon and would be one of those activities that could get a plane turned around if the passenger didn't desist when asked or delete the footage.

But aside from that, I'd posit that it's actually a very different thing to have a random passenger recording you (which is still gross) and the airline (which may be owned and operated by a foreign government, which is the case for most of the airlines in the Middle East and some in Asia), which has your name, your passport number, your birthdate, your address, and other very sensitive and identifying information on file.

One is creepy and uncool. The other could be flat-out surveillance. Especially since when you travel, the government data you give to the airlines isn't negotiable (meaning unless I'm flying domestic, I can't use a fake ID and name to travel (and even that would be against the law), I have to use my passport, my full name, my address, etc.

> Privacy is something I control by not exposing sensitive information in areas where recording is a possibility.

The problem is that this attitude will ultimately mean that the only place where you might have any chance of privacy is in your own home. And even there, privacy is getting more and more rare.

Where else do you have privacy in America? Can't think of a single other location other than one one's own property.

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