United and Delta Cover Tiny Seatback Cameras Over Privacy Concerns

After months of consumer backlash and opposition from privacy activists, major North American legacy carriers say they are covering cameras installed in seatback inflight entertainment systems. In public statements, both United Airlines and Delta Air Lines said they were covering the cameras to ease passenger concerns, but denied that the devices were ever used.

When passengers started spotting tiny seatback cameras on passenger planes in recent months, the response was near universal concern. Airlines were quick to reassure the public that the devices were never intended to spy on air travelers and, in most cases, were never used at all, but were just a case of off-the-shelf-hardware no different than the camera on passengers’ mobile phones and personal computers.

The airlines’ explanations did little to ease the concerns of the flying public. Privacy experts noted that even if airlines had pure intentions, in this age of rampant, large-scale data hacks, a camera just inches from a passenger’s face is ripe for abuse by nefarious elements.  The airlines’ case wasn’t helped when industry trade group, APEX published a list of potential uses for the seatback cameras which included monitoring passenger behavior and making onboard surveillance available to law enforcement agencies.

Now, Buzz Feed reports that United Airlines and Delta Air Lines will cover the cameras on any seatback inflight entertainment systems that contain the devices. Both carriers say that privacy issues were overblown, but they felt compelled to respond to customer concerns.

“As with many other airlines, some of our premium seats have in-flight entertainment systems that came with cameras installed by the manufacturer,” United Airlines officials told the news site in a statement. “None of these cameras were ever activated and we had no plans to use them in the future, however we took the additional step to cover the cameras. The cameras are a standard feature that manufacturers of the system included for possible future purposes such as video conferencing.”

Delta said it was following United’s lead and would cover the lenses as a “visible way to reassure customers.” The carrier emphasized that it has no plans to enable the cameras for any purpose.

American Airlines has so far not publicly announced any plans to follow suit. When passengers first became widely aware of the seatback cameras on some of the airline’s aircraft earlier this year, however, AA officials struck a somewhat defiant note.

“They have never been activated, and American is not considering using them,” American Airlines said at the time. “Cameras are a standard feature on many in-flight entertainment systems used by multiple airlines. Manufacturers of those systems have included cameras for possible future uses, such as hand gestures to control in-flight entertainment.”

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