Hello Iowans!!
By and large this does not apply to most people! However after yesterday I have to say something.
Everybody has got a phone capable of taking pictures with a camera app. There are cameras every where recording everything and every one. Our phones have become our life and sometimes we use our phones for our work. People use their phones for apps that enable us to earn money. It might be Door Dashing your food from a restaurant or Grub Hubing It might be a Uber bringing you the latest Apple iPhone or Android phone. It might be an app to bring your medicine or your clean laundry all clean and folded clothes for the next week. All the apps or most of them want a picture of the items left at your doorstep. There are pictures taken of packages left at your door step from Amazon or UPS or USPS.
There are apps that utilize the camera to perform audits of a retail store. Sometimes these audits are checking product placement by a manufacturer sometimes without the store being aware it’s going on or they are told after it happens and the audit person is trying to be discreet. Sometimes these audits are being performed by international companies through a shop company. Cameras are everywhere and when out in public many state and federal courts have said if you are in public place you should not have any expectation of privacy. Sometimes companies are built around taking pictures of the exterior of a house, sometimes yours, sometimes your neighbors house. This could be from an insurance company, finance company, landlord. It may have been from some work that was performed on a house to replace a roof, or siding, or windows. The person that is taking the pictures knows very little information. They know who they have contracted out with but don’t really know who hired the company to get the person to take the pictures.
I have been on an assignment for the last 3 weeks to take pictures at over 100 stores. I had stopped at a store to take pictures of items at stores and I am somewhat discreet as I can be but I can only be so discreet without affecting picture quality. This assignment I have to take around 25 to 50 pictures. I try not to have people in pictures but it is difficult and can be time consuming waiting for people to clear the picture field.
By and large I don’t have any issues at most places except yesterday. At the end of my stop as I was putting my shopping cart
back a younger than me lady muttered something and I didn’t know it was directed at me. I ignored her and then she yelled at me and told her I wasn’t taking pictures of her. She immediately grabbed my phone that was in my hand with enough force that I had to squeeze my phone pretty hard and yank it back as she continued flipping out and yelling at me she was yelling stop recording me, calling me a pervert. I consider that assault and almost called the police. However we are supposed to be secret on this job and I didn’t want to have to explain to a store manager that I was contracted out to be a mystery shop. However it was enough of a ruckus that the lady drew attention to us. Once I was in the vestibule area with her she pulled out her phone and said how to do you like it if I record you. I told her that’s fine and I was doing my job! She said sure let’s go back inside and talk to them, again calling me pervert. I told her I was doing a shop! She again yelled at me to stop recording her. Just For the record I was taking pictures and never recording anyone. I actually looked at the pictures and there were none that I took with her in them. She was yelling at me, and I finally snapped, I told her to stop being a bit*h. I got into my car and she kept yelling at me, calling me a pervert. I yelled back at her somewhat worried she would follow me. I am thinking the whole entire time she was in the store, the store was recording her. I don’t know what was happening that she felt she could attack me and try to take my phone from me.
About three weeks ago I was photographing a house that was abandoned or so it seemed it had all been boarded up with the windows. I had a guy approached me in my car and ask me why and what I was taking pictures of. I told him I was doing my job. Keep in mind. I was across a busy street and somewhat faraway from the house. I had to take picture at 16x the distance of that tells you anything. I replied to the guy, my job and rolled up my window and drove away. A month before that I was there to photograph the same house. Another young lady was flipping out on me and yelling at me again I was across the street. I never stepped foot on the property, as a matter of fact we are instructed not to. She was yelling at me and threatening to call the police. I never replied to her and did not engage her as she was across the street. I have had other people get upset and threatened me even after giving them an authorization letter.
All this is to say people have jobs and I make pretty decent money, as long as I don’t take the company’s first, second or third offer. The phones and the technology have allowed people to do things that we have not normally been able to do before the smartphone technology. People drive to bring other people food, clothing, household supplies and other things. Why is the natural environment such that people need to be assholes to the other people doing their jobs? I have never gotten an assignment that says take pictures of this person. I would probably never take that assignment. I am not a private investigator. I almost always have to take a picture of the storefront to prove I was at the correct store. I have had store cashiers questions from older cashiers, than younger people.
I would say people are REALLY paranoid. That being said I travel all over Iowa and I have the most problems in the Des Moines metro. It doesn’t happen every day but I think it’s definitely increasing. Like I started out to say at the beginning of this post people use their phone for their job and take pictures and video sometimes. Not every picture that gets taken is nefarious. However if you attack someone or threaten someone that is doing their job and they are contracted out by a company to do picture taking in a public setting of a house or shelf or grass of a business (yep I have to measure and take pictures of grass) calling the police may end up being bad for you!! I have a reason for being there do you have a reason for attacking a person?
Thanks for reading! Like I said by and large this only happens once a week but it’s been maybe 75 to 100 people.