Airlines admit to seat cameras on some planes

Two major airlines flying to New Zealand have admitted some of their planes have small cameras pointing at passengers, but say they aren’t turned on.

It comes after Singapore Airlines passenger Vitaly Kamluk earlier this month spotted one of the small cameras below the monitor of his in-flight entertainment system aboard a Boeing 787.

“Just found this interesting sensor looking at me from the seat back on board of Singapore Airlines,” Vitaly tweeted, with a photo.

“Any expert opinion of whether [this is] a camera? Perhaps @SingaporeAir could clarify how it is used?”

The tweet triggered a debate on Twitter as to what the “sensor” was.

Now Singapore Airlines and United Airlines have admitted their planes carry some of the cameras after being asked by the Herald whether the cameras were aboard flights in and out of New Zealand.

Singapore Airlines spokesman Karl Schubert said some of the airline’s newer entertainment systems had come with cameras built in.

“These cameras have been [disabled] on our aircraft . . . and cannot be activated on board,” he said. The cameras could be found in business, premium economy and economy class on medium and long haul planes.

United Airlines said in a statement that, like many other airlines, “some of our premium seats have . . . entertainment systems that have cameras installed by the manufacturer”.

“This is a standard feature that [manufacturers] have included . . . however our cameras have never been activated on United aircraft.” Air NZ said it used Panasonic entertainment systems that did not have “integrated cameras”.