If you’ve ever been on public transport you might have been the victim of someone looking over your shoulder at what you’re doing on your phone. A new Sony privacy screen patent, however, has been filed in order to create a new screen to protect people’s privacy, according to the patent.
“To prevent [eavesdropping], a privacy screen is provided for displays that actively adapts to the viewer’s location. Such a narrower field of view provides more security against nearby people looking at the screen, even if their line of sight is close to the viewer’s head.”
Such a thing wouldn’t just be for gaming but also all sorts of technology, whether it’s computers or phones or tablets, when you’re on public transport such as a plane or a bus and sitting next to another person curious about what you’re doing. This is especially relevant for people dealing with important things, as the patent says.
“Present principles are useful for times when a screen is displaying something that is meant only for the viewer, such as a businessman traveler working on a laptop computer, a commuter on a train reading private messages on their phone, or a security agent viewing a screen showing carryon luggage screening images.”
The Sony privacy screen patent doesn’t involve any attachments to current devices, but would change how images are projected onto the screen of your device in order to make it more difficult for someone to see the screen unless they’re facing it dead-on. The blockage can also be changed depending on the direction someone is looking at the screen from, according to the patent.
“In example embodiments the instructions can be executable to execute image recognition on the at least one image to identify a location of a user and move at least the first louver based on the location.”
While it’s nothing groundbreaking, a lot of people who have to commute on public transit would probably be grateful for Sony for something like this in their phones. If you would like more information on the Sony privacy screen patent, you can follow this link to read it for yourself.