Vitaly Kamluk was returning from vacation on Singapore Airlines in February, when his wife noticed a small circle that looked like a camera lens along the lower edge of the seat's video screen
Vitaly Kamluk, a cybersecurity and malware expert, was returning from vacation on Singapore Airlines in February when his wife noticed a small circle that looked like a camera lens along the lower edge of the video screen in the seat back.
“It really looked like a camera to me, but you can never be sure,” Kamluk said. So he took a photo of the circle and tweeted it to the airline.
He got a quick response from Singapore, which acknowledged that it was a camera but said it had been “disabled.” He also got plenty of attention on Twitter.
Now, two senators have asked eight U.S.-based airlines to respond in the next few weeks to questions about the cameras, including whether the airlines have used them “to monitor passengers” and whether passengers have been “informed of this practice.”
“I think it’s just outrageous,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who sent the letter along with Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “I don’t want a camera staring at me, and I don’t think most passengers do.”
Of the carriers that received the letter, at least three do not have any kind of embedded seat-back screen. According to the Airline Passenger Experience Association, an airline trade group, the U.S. carriers that do have cameras have not made them operational.
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