Speed camera capturing man grabbing a girl’s breast while driving sparks debate on privacy

From Netease:

Lately, a photo of a man grabbing a woman’s breast in the car while driving is captured by the speed camera and has become viral online. As shown in the photo, a silver Nissan was driving at the speed of 92 km/h on a fast lane with the speed limit of 80km per hour. In the photo, one can clearly see the driver’s appearance, and how the driver put his hand on the passenger woman’s breast.

The photo has ignited a heated debate. People even dubbed him "Breast-grabber dude" or “Brother breast grabber”（摸奶哥）。While some people find this incident hilarious and busy with Human Flesh Search the two people in the car, many people grow worried about the privacy issues. A debate on whether the speed camera is posting a threat to people’s privacy.

Suspicious microblog entries: driver claimed that he accepted his bad luck

A microblogger under the name of “绵阳邓嘉林” (The alleged real name of the "Breast-grabber dude" disclosed by Human Flesh Search) claimed to be the driver and posted two entries explaining that the girl in the passenger seat was his colleague and insisted that，"We are not doing anything against the law. Why on earth is touching breast in the car illegal?" But he also said he wouldn’t sue the traffic control department and would just consider himself unlucky. But he canceled the microblog account soon after posting the only two entries and with more than thousand people followed his microblog account.

Supervision V.S. Privacy protection

When the photo was posted online, netizen’s first reaction was the driver must be some corrupted government officers or super rich people and as a result, Human Flesh Search began. But unlike most of the Human Flesh Search case, this time netizens’ attention soon shifted from the involved people’s identity to another issue: privacy. Many people started to wonder, what if the driver is just some ordinary Chinese people and in that case, his privacy is severely invaded. "Touching breast while driving is not a decent thing to do but it’s certainly nothing illegal either. His privacy should still be respected and protected. Netizen "愚巷"(Yu Xiang) said.

There are many surveillance cameras installed and being installed in our society. From indoor space-like hotel, elevators, office-to outdoor place such as public parks, street surveillance cameras are everywhere these days. While the intention of introducing the surveillance cameras is to protect people, the increasing scandals exposed by a photo or a video captured by the surveillance camera is raising the question: Do more cameras mean more protection or a greater risk of our privacy being invaded?

"In this whole incident, the driver is not the one to blame but the omnipresent surveillance cameras in our society. Any mismanagement of these cameras would cause an embarrassing situation like this." said one netizen.

There are also people who defended the camera."Surveillance camera has no fault. It’s technology. The people behind these cameras should be responsible. If anything happens concerning privacy invasion, and photo leaked on the Internet are because of the people who control these cameras."

A netizen has created an illustration of the incident and made up a funny story titled "Truth". The story goes, "One day I was on my way to a meeting in the suburb. On the way my colleague fell asleep and I spotted a mosquito on her breast. Since I realize what harm its bite can cause, I decided to protect my colleague and kill the mosquito for her. That’s what was happening in the car. Whether you believe it or not, I buy the story. "