Camera Phones and Security

I tend to disagree with Andrew Exum a lot, but his recent op-ed is spot-on, and reflects one of my earlier posts about security and social media. The case of the American troops caught snapping pictures of themselves posing with dead Taliban is disconcerting, but the questions it raises about camera phones in combat are synonymous with the questions it raises about camera phones and both personal and organizational security. The implications are different for every person and every organization - for example, I probably don't have to worry as much about a stalker collecting information about me from pictures I post of myself online as would a hundred-pound cheerleader. In the business realm, a local flower shop will have less cause to hire a public affairs officer to clear the release of employees' camera phone photos than the Department of Defense. "Ex" is right: some of this will improve as policy makers retire and are replaced by a senior officer and NCO corps that understands technology - as "natives", to quote Ex. That said, I think an issue still stands, because whereas the retiring officer and NCO corps views security through a post-Cold War framework in which information required tight controls, but was also much easier to control. Today's young people come from a culture in which it's natural to share every detail, all the way down to the time and location of the restaurant that you've just "checked into". A greater understanding of technology and its capabilities (positive and negative) is important, but so is strong training on why some information is sensitive and worthy of protection. The same concept applies to individuals and private organizations.