BlatheringPenguin

MrAndy1369

Simple solution for those concerned: bring a Post-It pack with you on the plane, put one over the camera. Problem solved.

Gino Troian

TLDR: American Airlines spokesperson Ross Feinstein confirmed to BuzzFeed News that cameras are present on some of the airlines’ in-flight entertainment systems, but said “they have never been activated, and American is not considering using them.” Feinstein added, “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.”

My thoughts: for the amount of cost cutting measures taking place, I'm surprised the AA bean counters went with an entertainment system that includes cameras, as they are surely more expensive than those without - not to mention the cost of software if they were to implement hand gesture control junk

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

What a joke of an article. The cameras are not operationable. No wonder Buzzfeed is struggling to survive.

enpremiere

American has this concern well under control.

By removing IFE from narrow-body aircraft, privacy enthusiasts will rejoice.

Just for good measure I frown at the IFE whenever I'm on board a MAX so that way my displeasure is registered with the non-operational camera.

Antarius

Yawn. It's not like AA is hiding them, it's super obvious there is a camera there;anyone can tell by looking at it.

next breaking story - Buzzfeed discovers camera on phone while typing yet another rubbish story.

arlflyer

Of course not. That will be left to the Russian or Chinese hackers.

bse118

Maybe that's because it's a total non-story? @:-)

Catbert10

Clearly cameras weigh less than olives.

JumboJet

I just assume I am under video surveillance these days

flightrisk

I suspect that the spokesman made up that hand gesture excuse, and in reality AA simply bought the cheapest OEM tablets (which already included cameras) and slapped them into the headrest. Most of the newer IFE seem to be running Android and don't have any real need for customized hardware versus buying something off the shelf.

On a separate note, what exactly are people doing in their 10 cubic feet of seat space that they think is worthy of being spied on? I have an idea - maybe AA should use the camera and deliver a shock to the seat when people aren't paying attention to a very special offer, available on this flight only, for 50,000 bonus points, which is good enough for two round trip tickets within the continental US.

mvoight

Or zapping people when ignoring the pre-flight safety info............Kidding, I am tired of hearing about it. I once had a BA FA snap at me for reading the airline magazine when they started with the safety chat.... (using a video)
Of course, zapping when people are playing devices without headphones would also be useful

enpremiere

^^^^^^^^

In what world do folks think that it's considerate to do that?

I'm starting my own inoperable seat-back camera show which is sure to be a spectacular success with how many Oasis planes I seem to stumble into this days.

CPRich

Like iPhone and Galaxy's without cameras are cheaper? Cameras cost nearly nothing and are far from defining cheap vs. expensive electronics these days.

Sadly, in this world many, many people do. I'm continually bombarded by people watching videos, having speakerphone conversations, video chatting, etc., in public places.

enpremiere

They don't need them. They have Marriott and SPG