this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
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That's because there is generally implicit trust that there is no hidden cameras. The open display of a camera effectively destroys that trust. If everyone was always suspicious of there being hidden cameras everywhere, functioning in society would be pretty difficult.
Well, you see, I need my hidden wearable camera to detect other hidden cameras...
Sure, but if a person doesn't trust their doctor to have a camera in their possession in the room, why would they trust that same doctor not to have one hidden?
That's what I'm saying. They have that trust and the visible camera would destroy it in an instant because it's expected to be private. You can't expect people to assume that there will be something that shouldn't be there and validate that fact.
Does it matter whether the camera is on or off?
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating for bodyworn cameras (or any cameras) in exam rooms, on or off-- I just find it interesting where the line is.
From my perspective, if you think your doctor is a creep enough to surreptitiously record you in the exam room using a camera that's on their face, then you can't rule out that they'd do it in ways that would be more difficult to detect. And if you do trust them not to record you with a hidden camera, then that trust should extend to a camera in plain sight.
At the end of the day, people have a right to be comfortable in these situations with their doctor, regardless of if it makes logical sense. I hope I didn't come off suggesting otherwise.
Yes, I totally understand the logic. It's just a transitivity problem, and can be modeled using a cost-benefit analysis:
Although, the problem here then shifts to the hardware itself. Like, since these lenses were probably closed source and proprietary hardware, and their software as well, then you don't have a way to prove that if you turn off the camera on said lens (either via the software kill-switch or via the hardware kill-switch) it is actually turning off, or just appears to turn off when it is actually still on but disguised as being turned off. And taking into account that there are precedents of devices doing this (a particularly famous case was that of a smart TV that even when you turned it off, it was not really off, but in a false shutdown, a very low power state where the screen was off, but the core and some telemetry processes, and the microphone, were still running and, thus, recording and sending everything that was recorded to their servers). So the only rational position, at least from a Game Theory point of view, is to assume that every device that is both closed source and closed hardware, that is not Free, Libre and Open Source Software, and Libre and Open Source and Schematics Hardware (yeah, even releasing their schematics), does the same thing.
If you'd actually read the comment you'd see they already answered this question