The impact of the mobile phone camera lies in the immediacy of the facilities it offers the user. A picture can be captured, stored and transmitted to another person or organization in a matter of seconds. The capacity to handle pictorial information in this rapid and convenient manner provides every user with the means to capture potentially interesting events which they may encounter in their everyday lives.

When cameras were first incorporated into mobile phones, the quality of the images was so poor that the pictures were of little practical value other than personal interest and amusement. However, all that has changed. The images produced by modern camera phones are of sufficient quality to allow their publication or transmission in the news media. The direct consequence of this is that millions of ordinary people all over the world now have effectively become citizen journalists and photographers.