Getting found and arrested is one of the better outcomes.
There are cases where military aircraft pointed their lasers (likely invisible IR lasers) at photographers. It's unclear if this was intentional and what kind of laser (e.g. rangefinder or designator) it was, but the laser likely wasn't meant as a weapons system but still fried the camera, with visible scorch marks.
I can't imagine eyes faring much better than the sensor if hit.
They'd fare poorly, but for different reasons. Digital cameras can be vulnerable to IR lasers because their sensors are sensitive to infrared light. Human retinas aren't sensitive to IR, which ironically makes IR lasers more dangerous than visible ones, since they don't trigger the blink reflex which would otherwise limit the damage to the eyes.
Whether or not the laser is in the visible spectrum matters quite a bit for it’s classifications/safety. According to IEC 60825–1 a laser from roughly over 1/2 a mW up to 5mW goes from class 2 to class 4 if it’s outside visible. A nearly 5mW laser could scorch many materials, given enough time.
Cameras are very sensitive to lasers, there are lots of reported instances where a camera was damaged by e.g. a light show at a concert, even though it's presumably harmless to the human concert-goers[1]. So I don't think the fact that the camera was damaged would necessarily mean that it was dangerous to eyes.
As a controls engineer who deals with CDRH regulations for laser sensors, laser engravers, and and laser cutters on a regular basis, the crap that some light shows get away with is criminal.
The lasers used in light shows are only allowed because they're moving; if you looked directly down the beam while it held still your blink reflex would not save your vision. Fortunately, you've got natural liquid cooling: your cornea is bathed in tears and your retina is surrounded by fluid-filled tissues, so there's a safety window of a few milliseconds while the laser pans across your eyeball too fast to cause dangerous temperature rise. If the laser beam slows down - if the encoders/resolvers on the galvanometers register insufficient change in the mirror angles - the controller will shut off the laser.
I don't have sufficient trust in my own professional, methodical, high-quality work using top dollar equipment to open up a machine without safety eyewear and lock out/tag out procedures; I have even less trust in products for the lower-margin, faster-paced entertainment industry. On top of that, it would not surprise me if a camera sensor has slightly less heatsinking compared to human eyeballs...but the fact that the safety margin is so thin that cameras can be damaged makes me not want to go to a light show!
> the crap that some light shows get away with is criminal
Seconded.
Telecoms laser engineer here, and amateur musician. I'm astounded how casually class 3B and class 4 lasers are treated in the entertainment industry, or that using them in free space with poor travel limit stops / beam containment is even legal..... Often it appears little-to-no consideration is given as to what happens if a beam becomes misaligned or reflected into the audience.
I felt hoodwinked when it turned out when I'd designed in a class 1 (intrinsically safe, power limited) time-of-flight laser distance sensor and the purchasing department replaced it due to lack of availability for a 'superior' range class 2 (DO NOT STARE INTO BEAM for more than 0.25 seconds, intentionally suppressing your blink reflex can cause damage) sensor. Flags went up, every stakeholder was pulled in, we redid the risk assessment (aware of the temptation to fudge it to ship the equipment on time) and eventually allowed it after replacing a clear anodized part with a black anodized one and festooning the machine with "Do not stare into laser" stickers.
My roommate in college was a stagehand, we talked a bit about the safety and it appears the consideration is more on the scale of "We try not to shine the lasers in people's eyes" and less like "We have redundant, proven processes that ensure people cannot be harmed."
It feels like they've missed an important distinction between what's acceptable for your own purposes and what's acceptable risk to impose on someone else. Safety when messing about in your own backyard would often not pass OSHA requirements, that makes sense because it's your own risk and your own reward, this is ethically different an industrial scenario where you're forcing someone who's just trying to feed their family to endanger their eyes for someone else's profitability, similarly, concertgoers should and do assume that entertainment light shows are safe, while [some in] the entertainment industry take it much more casually.
Last time I was at a concert in San Francisco Bill Graham auditorium, I noticed that lasers travelled fixed path always pointing at the walls or between balcony levels, never at people.
See the comment below regarding concerns of misalignment, limit stops & containment for beams with the power to cause permanent blindness. I'm sure some venues handle this safely [1], but powerful lasers are being treated far to casually for my liking.
[1] Though I wonder what would happen if you asked for a copy of their risk assessment?
There are professional standards. Show lasers are very definitely NOT harmless. I have mild but permanent retina burns from a home-made 40mW projector I put together in the 2000s.
Modern show lasers are more likely to be around 1W for smaller events, around 20W for stadiums and up to 100W for the biggest outdoor events. Getting the beam from any of those in your eye will blind you almost instantly.
So audience scanning is carefully calibrated. The lasers are set up either to scan balconies and ceilings, to move at a certain velocity to minimise dwell time, to lose most of their brightness below a certain height - or all of the above.
Professional shows require a "variance" - basically regulation and associated paperwork - to make sure no one is hurt.
Of course any idiot can buy a 1W show laser for less than $1k now, but the US has quite strict legal requirements for public use, and anyone who causes serious eye damage is potentially on the hook for a law suit and bankruptcy.
Not just cameras, apparently. Recently I was watching a movie at some small cinema, and there was a dim vertical green stripe on the left side of the screen. I got curious and asked the projector guy after the movie. His answer was "some dumbass flashed a laser pointer right into the lens, burning an entire pixel column".
Many countries have signed the UN protocol that says they will not use laser weapons on people.
The whole thing is a bit of a scam though and the crew on tanks and similar vehicles are taught to use lasers offensively on people even though the lasers are being classified for "range finding" or similar. So in practice offensive lasers are part of modern warfare.
There are cases where military aircraft pointed their lasers (likely invisible IR lasers) at photographers. It's unclear if this was intentional and what kind of laser (e.g. rangefinder or designator) it was, but the laser likely wasn't meant as a weapons system but still fried the camera, with visible scorch marks.
I can't imagine eyes faring much better than the sensor if hit.