London artist agrees to cover faces in images captured from unsecured Hong Kong webcams
Artist will also stop selling merchandise that featured uncensored images featured in art gallery after receiving warning from privacy chief
The artist behind a controversial exhibition in London, featuring images captured from unsecured webcams, has agreed to cover the faces of people in the images after the exhibition was reported by the media and caused public uproar.
Earlier this week, Channel 4 News in the United Kingdom and the Post revealed that uncensored images were being used by artist Nye Thompson, for her art exhibition called, Backdoored.io. The images consisted of unsuspecting people in various states of work, play or rest, with their faces clearly visible in the images. Many of the images featured Hongkongers.
The images were found by bots, which scanned for unsecured webcams around the world, gathered shots of unsuspecting users and placed them onto search engines. The exhibition also includes images from Russia and the US. The exhibition was hosted by the London Metropolitan University.
When the images came to the attention of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Stephen Wong Kai-yi, he called for the images featuring Hongkongers to be pulled from the exhibition, citing violations of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.
As I brought these out to the public, I quickly re-evaluated and thought, ‘no actually, I can’t do that’
After the revelation and enquires by the media, Thompson agreed to blur the faces of people in the images, and stop selling merchandise, such as limited-edition prints, featuring uncensored pictures.
