Photography in a public or private place clarification

positivenote

Hi all,
a legal query that came up today in discussions was wether a classroom is a public or a private place. If it is considered a private space is there an expectancy of privacy by a student or lecturer if they are having their photograph taken and put up on line?
any advice on this would be appreciated

Paulw

My view - a classroom is a private place since it is within private property - the school.

Manach

One of the reasons given why recordings were not allowed in lectures I attended was that it was a breach of privacy and that permissions would have had to be collected from each individual to consent to this.

hullaballoo

I would love if someone could provide some precedent or legislation that even suggests the need to obtain consent before recording people in either a public or private space.

Tom Young

Richard Atherton , Accused v. Director of Public Prosecutions, Prosecutor

[2005] IEHC 429,
[2005 No. 671 S.S.]

High Court

21st December 2005
Criminal law - Evidence - Video surveillance - Carried out by complainant - Incidental footage of accused's private dwelling included - Admissibility - Whether obtained in breach of accused's constitutional rights - Whether evidence unlawful.

Constitution - Privacy - Inviolability of dwelling - Whether video footage of accused's private dwelling obtained in breach of his constitutional rights - Constitution of Ireland 1937, Article 40.5.


The accused was charged with an offence relating to his allegedly having cut his neighbour's hedge without permission. The complainant had arranged with the owner of the house opposite for a video camera to be set up. In the District Court, the accused objected to the video footage being admitted as evidence on the basis that it captured the front of the accused's house including his front door, his front driveway, his front garden as well as the hedge between his and the complainant's house, the subject matter of the charge.
The District Judge stated a case to the High Court posing the following questions:-
"If the complainant arranges for continuous video surveillance of the front of his private residential property from the upstairs window of a neighbour's house across the street which results in video evidence that incidentally includes adjacent frontage of the accused's private dwelling and its curtilage which can be seen from the public thoroughfare, is the evidence obtained:-

(i) in breach of any constitutional rights of the accused;

(ii) unlawfully; and

(iii) if the answer to (i) and/or (ii) is in the affirmative, is the evidence admissible in a criminal trial?"

Held by the High Court (Peart J.), in answering the case stated in the negative, that there had been no breach of the accused's right of privacy in relation to his dwelling and its curtilage - especially in the absence of any trespass or other unlawfulness. The front of the accused's house was visible from the public road and from the upstairs of the house opposite from where the video footage was taken. There was no meaningful distinction between the evidence of what was happening to the hedge in the garden opposite that house being given in the form of video footage and that very same evidence being given by the owner of the house opposite if he arranged things so that he was standing at the same window as that at which the camera was set up and observed what was happening.