I remember a while back Apple filed a patent that allows concerts to disable iPhones cameras if a certain signal is emitted from the stage. Apple never implemented this, but my pessemistic ass always try to think of worse case scenarios, like being used by government. Do you think this could occur in the future?
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36672001
You can search “Apple Concert Disable Camera” and find more about it.
If it does I’d expect it to catastrophically fail because the codes will undoubtedly get reverse engineered and everyone would be able to easily reproduce the signals, and they could easily be broadcasted everywhere until people are so annoyed they can’t take pictures anywhere that it’ll get dropped.
Also unless it somehow gets baked directly into the camera chip, you’ll always be able to root your Android phone and disable it, and jailbroken iPhones probably will easily disable that “feature” too.
I also think recording police activity especially if you’re involved is a protected constitutional activity. Generally you always have a right to record in public.
I tend to lean toward OP’s original scenario never happening.
Back when signal jammers first came out, people used doom and gloom to say that autoritarian powers would jam our phones so we couldnt use them. It never happened.
Not because there weren’t people who didn’t try. But because the United States doesn’t have one “government.” We have governments. So if an out of control state legislature tries to do something, the FCC fights back. And if Congress gets too crazy, courts will strike it on Tenth Amendment grounds.
In the end, people are going to find a way to record cops. So we will. And – despite internet pessimism – most of the people in our governments will actually back us on it.
Authoritarian states do use their power to cut off internet connection to prevent people communicating or getting the word out about atrocities.
I don’t think American police Jam signals specifically but they do spoof cell tower signals to man in the middle people’s phone traffic. The government hacks people’s phones. They arrest people who protest or expose government crimes. It would be tough to get away with preventing people from recording a police crime because the videos happen and spread so fast.