Who is this couple? And how can I reunited them with their vacation pictures?
Early this morning, probably around 6:15 a.m., we found a small case in the Kaneohe-bound lane of Kamehameha Highway just past the Kaaawa Fire Station. Inside, a small point and shoot camera, two extra memory cards. Unfortunately, no identifying information.
In the camera, vacation photos from a trip between Oct 22 and late afternoon yesterday, October 28. It looks like they were staying in Waikiki, but spent a lot of time on our side of the island, from Waimanalo to the North Shore.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2010/foundb1029.jpg)
Late Monday afternoon, they visited Temple Valley, then apparently met a friend in a bar, shown here.
In a quick scan through the photographs, I couldn’t see any clear, identifying items to narrow the search.
So I’m looking for suggestions of how to reunited these folks with their camera and their photos? All suggestions welcome!
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Craigslist has a Lost & Found section – you may want to post there.
I’ll mention it on Twitter and Facebook!
In addition to reporting it to HPD, you might want to contact Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii at 926-8274 or the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau at 923-1811.
I’ve also posted this to my Facebook. Will let you know if I get any leads.
-r-
These sites are dedicated to helping people reunite with their cameras:
http://www.ifoundyourcamera.net/
http://www.camerafound.com/
I know that your intention is that of a Good Samaritan, but photos + time/date information + approximate locale seems like a lot of private information that they may not want released on the internet, regardless of whether or not it leads to the return of their property.
Chances are high these people want their stuff back.
the bar picture seems like a starting point for this mystery — someone should be able to identify the bar from the picture
I wouldn’t worry about the picture itself revealing anything private … but the resulting names might need to be kept private if the people end up caring about that
I’d post a few on Flickr – perhaps they have a “lost camera” section?
Ian, I would have left it where I found it. They probably retraced their steps and looked in vain for the case.
What you did was invasion of privacy by posting those pics.
Since it was in the road in the dark and in the rain, it would not have been wise to leave it. As for the photos–while there’s some privacy risk, perhaps, the potential reward–reuniting them with their photos–clearly outweighs, in my view.
Really? An invasion of privacy?
How are pictures taken in PUBLIC settings an invasion of PRIVACY? I can’t wait to hear this one. lol
Just because two people were in a public place doesn’t mean that they want EVERYBODY to know that they were in that specific public place at some specific time.
For example, what if they were making an excuse that they needed time off from work to care for a sick relative, but instead flew to Hawaii for a vacation. Then their boss somehow finds this picture online, realizes that their employee was lying, and uses that as grounds for termination. The intended act of kindness ends up having a huge detrimental impact.
I admire Ian’s desire to help his fellow man, but if it were me, I would probably just turn the cameras in to the police and let them deal with it.
1. If they lied about having a sick relative, they deserve to lose their jobs.
2. Why on Earth would someone’s boss on the mainland be reading Ian’s blog?
3. Tell the cops, yes, but turn it in to HPD? … no. They’re not going to put an investigative team to work trying to find the camera’s owners.
Ian, you’re doing it right. Carry on.
An invasion of privacy? Oh, good grief. No good deed goes unpunished. Gigi, you want a real example of an invasion of privacy? Try the breach in UH’s security of confidential data i.e. social security numbers twice in six months. A ‘class’ action lawsuit is needed. Posting pictures and trying to find the owners is “not” unethical in my book. Aloha.
I’m incredibly frustrated with UH as my household has been affected twice by recent breaches in confidential data. AND I would like to know why the media had all the info first, before any email came out via the UH system. AND how was a professor/researcher even allowed to have all that confidential info in the first place?! Let’s hope it wasn’t copied to any other system as a *backup* data set.
Speaking for myself, if I left my camera somewhere or lost it, I’d rather not have the images posted on the web. They’d usually be of meetings or bridges falling apart in Chinatown, but maybe not… and maybe the pics I took of someone or something were not intended to go farther than to me. I also copy documents and whiteboards, etc.
I’d ask the police if my camera were found. So most likely would the owners of the camera you found. Turning it in promptly sounds like the thing to do, they might have an airplane to catch.
In fact, I’d recommend that taking down the pics from your article, but of course, it’s up to you.
This boils down to–“Do you think the police have the capacity to reunite people with property in a timely fashion?”
My answer, based on our personal experience, would be a definite “No.”
So, what next, knowing that vacation photos would be valued?
I think displaying selected photos is perfectly reasonable. In less tech days, you might tack them on a community bulletin board.
Otherwise, I might as well just dump them in the trash.
-Ian