Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #469

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Airlines Admit Having Cameras Installed On Back of Passengers’ Seats
By Jane Dalton
Three of the world’s biggest airlines have admitted some of their planes
have cameras ins talled on the backs of passen- ger seats.
American Airlines, United Airlines and Sing apore
Airlines have new seat-back enter-
tainment systems that include cam- eras.
They could also be on planes used by other carriers.
Companies that make the enter- tainment systems are fitting them with cameras to offer passengers options such as seat-to-seat video conferencing,
according to an American Airlines spokesman.
But American, United and Singapore all say they have never activated the cameras and have no plans to use them.
A passenger on a Singapore flight tweeted a photo- graph last week of the seat-back
display, prompt- ing other air trav- ellers to voice concerns about their privacy at 30,000ft.
Vitaly Kamluk, who pho- tographed the camera on his flight, suggested that carriers should cover the lenses with stick- ers and said it would be easy for airlines to monitor passen- gers with them.
“The cameras are probably not used now,” he tweeted. “But if they are wired, operational, bun- dled with mic, it’s a matter of one smart hack to use them on 84+ air- crafts and spy on passengers.”
American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said cameras were in
“premium econo- my” seats on 82 Boeing 777 and Airbus A330-200 jets.
“Cameras are a standard feature on many in-flight entertainment systems used by multiple airlines,” he said.
British Airways told The Independent non e of its planes had cameras on seat backs.
Singapore spokesman James Boyd said cameras were on 84 Airbus A350s, Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s and 787s.
But a United spokeswoman repeatedly told reporters on Friday that none of its entertain- ment systems had cameras –
before apologis- ing and saying that some did.
Delta did not respond to ques- tions about some of its entertain- ment systems, which appear to be identical to those on American and United.
The airlines stressed that they did not add the cameras – saying manufacturers embedded them in the entertain- ment systems.
American’s sys- tems are made by Panasonic, while Singapore uses Panasonic and Thales, according to air- line representa- tives. Neither Panasonic nor Thales respond- ed immediately to requests to com- ment.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine