Mobile phones with inbuilt cameras, expected to be big sellers here this Christmas, have put privacy in the picture, sources in the fitness industry said yesterday.
A strict camera phone ban is in place in at least one gym in Dublin, to save clients the embarrassment of being secretly snapped on the treadmill or in the changing rooms.
The owner of Pat Henry's Gym in Pembroke Street said yesterday that camera phones posed a threat to the privacy of his clients.
"We are very concerned about the privacy issue, and that is why we have banned the phones from the gym. They have to be left at the front desk," said Mr Henry, who numbers several celebrities among his clientele.
Other gyms and leisure centres may also ban the phones, which can be used to send pictures, complete with added sound and graphics, to other camera phones.
A spokesperson for the Jackie Skelly chain of fitness centres in Dublin said such a ban would be difficult to enforce.
"People need their mobile phones with them at the gym for business reasons," he said. "But it is something we will have to monitor as clients definitely don't want to be photographed when they are working out. We will have to play it by ear".
In Singapore, which has the world's largest number of mobile phone users per capita, such phones are banned in some fitness centres and leading hotels. Elsewhere, the Saudi government recently banned the phones, fearing they would be used to take "inappropriate photos" of women.
Mr John O'Keeffe, head of the law school at Portobello College in Dublin, said there could be legal implications arising out of the misuse of such phones, "for both the gym and the person taking and then disseminating the pictures".
"One could certainly sue a gym, for example, for not putting up appropriate warnings about the misuse of such phones by its members," he said, adding it was not possible to predict whether such a claim would be successful.
It is thought the use of camera phones could also have legal implications in other places where people are not expecting to be photographed, such as lap-dancing clubs and beauty salons.
A spokeswoman for O2, one of the companies providing the MMS handsets, said there was a level of "personal responsibility that we ask all our customers to adhere to".
The new phones cost around €300.