Right to privacy in a public area?

I’ve just watched that RTÉ Prime Time special on anti-immigration groups in Ireland. At all the public meetings, however, RTÉ blurred out the faces of protestors against Direct Provision centres, multiculturalism, etc.

Is there any legal reason why RTÉ would have done that?

anamcheasta

anamcheasta wrote: »

I’ve just watched that RTÉ Prime Time special on anti-immigration groups in Ireland. At all the public meetings, however, RTÉ blurred out the faces of protestors against Direct Provision centres, multiculturalism, etc.

Is there any legal reason why RTÉ would have done that?

I saw it too and thought similar.

I reckon it’s a Covid 19 thing- people huddled together around lockdown time back in March/April when I think that footage was taken- possibly RTÉ avoiding law suits or getting caught up in ongoing investigations of people breaking Covid rules?

punisher5112

You can request your personal data to be redacted.

GerardKeating

anamcheasta wrote: »

Is there any legal reason why RTÉ would have done that?

Perhaps defamation, some might infer that RTÉ implied they were racist/AnfiFA whatever.

hullaballoo

Your right to privacy extends to public places. It's a myth usually pedalled by people with a skin in the game like paparazzi that the right to privacy is extinguished once you leave your home.

The right to privacy is new relatively speaking and still developing so there will be further clarity in coming years but it is to the fore for EU legislators so it's reasonable to say it is unlikely any such clarity will favour those who make a living from appropriating images of people without their consent.

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

Your right to privacy extends to public places. It's a myth usually pedalled by people with a skin in the game like paparazzi that the right to privacy is extinguished once you leave your home.

The right to privacy is new relatively speaking and still developing so there will be further clarity in coming years but it is to the fore for EU legislators so it's reasonable to say it is unlikely any such clarity will favour those who make a living from appropriating images of people without their consent.

In America the Supreme Court has upheld people’s right to film in public- I wonder will EU have to go a similar route eventually - the RTÉ news this evening even blurred out photo journalists - I think this was purely a Covid 19 thing - I’ve never seen the extent of blurring as I did this evening

hullaballoo

US jurisprudence is next to useless in this situation as they have zero developed right to privacy.

It's going to go the opposite way to the way you are suggesting. Blurred images of people going about their lives without seeking or wanting intrusion from photographers will become commonplace.

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

US jurisprudence is next to useless in this situation as they have zero developed right to privacy.

It's going to go the opposite way to the way you are suggesting. Blurred images of people going about their lives without seeking or wanting intrusion from photographers will become commonplace.

Totally unworkable- technology will railroad legislation eventually. Legislation just won’t be able to compete with things like Facial recognition, instant social media posting and live streaming etc

Simply put, if you step outside your door onto public pavement, assume you’re on camera. Russia is introducing facial recognition cameras in all schools.

UK had facial recognition mobile units.

GDPR from a video perspective s just a compliance officers wet dream at this stage- it can’t compete with what’s happening in real life - at some stage it will be thrown in the bin as completely unworkable

hullaballoo

It's an interesting perspective and thanks for that.

But we are in the EU as against the examples given above and we also have a reasonably strong written constitution so although I can't say you're wrong about the limitations on privacy rights in the US, UK and Russia, you are wrong about how this is going in Ireland and the EU.

Whatever people might think about the EU in general and I understand a lot of the criticism, it has a very strong attitude to individual rights and protection of the small people so to speak.

I'm not saying people can expect not to have their picture recorded in some or many ways when out and about but they will be able to expect that they won't later appear on the main evening news without notice and permission.

Robbo

hullaballoo wrote: »

Your right to privacy extends to public places. It's a myth usually pedalled by people with a skin in the game like paparazzi that the right to privacy is extinguished once you leave your home.

Never helped by that outdated and inaccurate (even for the time) Digital Rights Ireland document that seems to be the first port of call for everyone who relies on 2 minutes Googling for all their information.

Vetch

Could anyone recommend some quality reading material on privacy in public areas please?

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

It's an interesting perspective and thanks for that.

But we are in the EU as against the examples given above and we also have a reasonably strong written constitution so although I can't say you're wrong about the limitations on privacy rights in the US, UK and Russia, you are wrong about how this is going in Ireland and the EU.

Whatever people might think about the EU in general and I understand a lot of the criticism, it has a very strong attitude to individual rights and protection of the small people so to speak.

I'm not saying people can expect not to have their picture recorded in some or many ways when out and about but they will be able to expect that they won't later appear on the main evening news without notice and permission.

GDPR has been in now for quite some time- I still think the RTÉ feature last night was blurred due to Covid 19 and people breaching social distancing- I’ve never seeing RTÉ blurring shots of adults taken at public events- especially outside the 4 goldmines

hullaballoo

Sorry, are you talking about the past or the future because it seems a little confused at this stage.

On the one hand, technology will apparently get the better of law makers. On the other, it's never been done before so why would it be done in the future.

Also I'll just say GDPR. Sure why not.

un5byh7sqpd2x0

hullaballoo wrote: »

US jurisprudence is next to useless in this situation as they have zero developed right to privacy.

California?

Other than GDPR and it’s predecessor in the Data Protection Directive, most of worldwide legal privacy law is American oddly enough. Anyone who has ever done a CISSP would recognise that

hullaballoo

Rose Loose Venom wrote: »

California?

Other than GDPR and it’s predecessor in the Data Protection Directive, most of worldwide legal privacy law is American oddly enough. Anyone who has ever done a CISSP would recognise that

You will have to educate me here.

I have not heard before that privacy law was anything other than an academic concept in the US. Happy to learn otherwise tbh but really California is not the US being probably the only state anywhere near reality.

I also do not know what CISSP is.

Can you elaborate on the above at all?

Potential-Monke

Just to give my 2 cents, but I think that once you are in public, you're open to being recorded. Technology is everywhere, so there are cameras everywhere, be they traffic cams, CCTV, media, etc. While it would be great to be able to go wherever you want without being recorded, I don't think it's possible, nor do I think it should be allowed. Would it extend to groups of friends taking pictures? Like, if I took a picture with my and 2 friends, but there was someone walking by behind us, would I have to blur their face before posting it wherever?

No, I think the public should be covered with CCTV, and while some would see that as Machiavellian in a way, I think public safety trumps someones perceived right to privacy in public areas. It's a shared area, and because of the way the laws currently are, we need CCTV and the likes to keep public safety. If people don't want to be recorded, it can be easily avoided. You can't miss a TV crew recording. So keep your head up and watching for things like that, so you can avoid it.

hullaballoo

hullaballoo wrote: »

Sorry, are you talking about the past or the future because it seems a little confused at this stage.

On the one hand, technology will apparently get the better of law makers. On the other, it's never been done before so why would it be done in the future.

Also I'll just say GDPR. Sure why not.

RTÉ blurred a whole bunch of people- journalists and members of the public, on a current affairs programme the other evening. I’ve never seen that done before and I don’t believe it’s due to GDPR.

Peregrinus

Not due to GDPR, but to the risk of unintended defamation (or simply complaints from angry members of the public).

I recall a case from back in the '80s, when a Sunday newspaper was running a series on youth unemployment ("scandal of Ireland's wasted talent" - you get the picture). To illustrate it they used a photograph of some aimless-looking, carelessly-dressed people in their 20s loitering in Stephen's Green. The people concerned were readily identifiable in the picture, and it turned out they were all bright young things from Price Waterhouse in their Saturday clothes.

It's not defamatory of somebody to say that he's unemployed, but it may be defamatory to say that of someone who has allowed all his family and social connections to think he has a good job in an accountancy firm, since it implies that he is dishonest. Plus, it's definitely defamatory to imply of someone that he is squandering his talent and opportunities in idle dissipation with similer wasters in Stephen's Green.

The matter was hastily resolved with a correction in the next week's edition and a donation to charity, so you won't find it turning up as a precedent in the law reports. But it illustrates the point; photographing people in public places is absolutely fine but be very, very careful what use you make of the photograph. And very often it is easier for editors who are facing tight deadlines to default to blurring out faces, number plates and other potentially identifying features than to take the time to reflect carefully on the risks that may or may attend upon not blurring them.

Thanks Peregrinus. No doubt there was a definite legal aspect to the blurring in this instance- we may never know the reasons why.

Peregrinus

Deleted User wrote: »

Thanks Peregrinus. No doubt there was a definite legal aspect to the blurring in this instance- we may never know the reasons why.

Well, we can hazard a guess.

1. Per the OP, "RTÉ blurred out the faces of protestors against Direct Provision centres, multiculturalism, etc".

2. The test for defamation is whether what I publish about you tends to injure your reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society.

3. Obviously, reasonble members of society are going to think less of you if they believe that you are picketing refugee centres or protesting against the grant of asylum to refugees. They'll think you're a heartless bigot. If I broadcast that kind of thing about you, you might sue me.

4. If sued, it would be a defence for me to prove that you were doing these things, which most or all of the people whose faces were blurred were presumably doing.

5. But the evidentiary burden of proving that you were doing these things would rest with me, and I don't want the hassle and expense and risk of having to do that. Plus, inevitably there'll be an action from someone who says "I wasn't part of any protest at all - I was just on my way to the shops/the pub/my granny's and the way you presented the footage made it appear as though I was an obnoxious bigot". And I don't want to have to deal with that, either. Particulary unless I am screening my footage with great care and a good deal of research it could, conceivably, be true.

6. So, I blur your face. Now you're much less likely to sue because, to do so, you'd have to be at least possibly idenfitiable even with your face blurred and in suing you would have to publicly confirm yourself as someone who was present on the occasion which, for obvious reasons, you'd be slow to do.

7. The whole point of my programme is that there are people picketing direct provision centres and protesting against multiculturalism and that this is a growing movement, or something to that effect; it is not that PlentyOhToole is one such person. Thus, blurring your face doesn't detract from the point I am making. Be different if my purpose was to expose the identities of those involved in or behind this movement; in that case I would not wish to blur the faces, but I would obviously have to be bloody careful about what exactly I showed or said.

80j2lc5y7u6qs9

@Peregrinus


A newspaper report about drivers not stopping at a pedestrian crossing used by children going to school had a photo and there happened to be a car approaching it when the photo was taken. I assumed when I saw that the reg plate was blurred, it was because it might infer that that car driver was one such even though there were no children, or indeed adult crossing or waiting at the time the photo was taken.



Do you think that may have the reason? Or just GDPR

Marcusm

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not due to GDPR, but to the risk of unintended defamation (or simply complaints from angry members of the public).

I recall a case from back in the '80s, when a Sunday newspaper was running a series on youth unemployment ("scandal of Ireland's wasted talent" - you get the picture). To illustrate it they used a photograph of some aimless-looking, carelessly-dressed people in their 20s loitering in Stephen's Green. The people concerned were readily identifiable in the picture, and it turned out they were all bright young things from Price Waterhouse in their Saturday clothes.

It's.

They were probably on a break from their Saturday morning lectures at RCSI whilst concurrently nursing their Friday night hangovers through breakfast in the Kylemore at the top of the Stephens Green Centre.

Peregrinus

Jessie Freezing Grapevine wrote: »

@Peregrinus

A newspaper report about drivers not stopping at a pedestrian crossing used by children going to school had a photo and there happened to be a car approaching it when the photo was taken. I assumed when I saw that the reg plate was blurred, it was because it might infer that that car driver was one such even though there were no children, or indeed adult crossing or waiting at the time the photo was taken.

Do you think that may have the reason? Or just GDPR

Could be both. The practice of blurring number plates in such situations long predates the advent of the GDPR. The context you describe does indeed carry the implication that the car illustrated is one that doesn't stop for kiddies at zebra crossings so if I was the editor, yeah, I'd be blurring the number plate.

80j2lc5y7u6qs9

@Peregrinus I can't quote. Not at home on someone else's phone.

The paper i refer to didn't used to blur plates before GDPR. I didn't know other papers did.. Thanks

80j2lc5y7u6qs9

@Peregrinus I can't quote. Not at home on someone else's phone.

The paper i refer to didn't used to blur plates before GDPR. I didn't know other papers did.. Thanks

Peregrinus

Prior to GDPR, editors might or might not blur number plates, depending on the context in which a photograph was displayed. The main concern was whether the plate-owner might complain that the publication of his number plate in that context might be in some way derogatory to him.

Since GDPR, blurring is a lot more common, based on a view that a number plate is "personal data" within the scope of GDPR.

billyhead

What's the legal status around drones and cameras. Surely flying one over a beach taking pictures of people is breaking GDPR compliance?

robinph

Peregrinus wrote: »

Could be both. The practice of blurring number plates in such situations long predates the advent of the GDPR. The context you describe does indeed carry the implication that the car illustrated is one that doesn't stop for kiddies at zebra crossings so if I was the editor, yeah, I'd be blurring the number plate.

Would depend on what the article was about. They could use exactly the same clip of a car stopping at a zebra crossing for an article about a new zebra crossing being painted in the road at a location to improve safety for pedestrians at that location and no need to blur the image, but if the article was about people getting run over at zebra crossings then you'd need to blur the plate.

Or show a clip of some football fans dancing in the street because their team won something and there is no need to blur the faces, but if your article is about them celebrating in the street whilst they shouldn't be out there because of a lockdown, or even if there wasn't a lockdown but some other football "fans" that are definitely not in the video clip got in a fight elsewhere in the city then you would need to blur the faces.

brian_t

billyhead wrote: »

What's the legal status around drones and cameras. Surely flying one over a beach taking pictures of people is breaking GDPR compliance?

Action Cams and Drones

The DPC does not currently have specific guidance on the use of ‘action cams’ (such as GoPros) or drones capable of recording video, but, as you can imagine, many of the considerations relevant to CCTV and dash cams apply equally to the use of these types of video recording equipment.

In particular, users should consider the location in which they use these devices and the possibility of identifying any individuals recorded, and whether or not they are required to comply with certain obligations under data protection law, outlined under the ‘For Organisations’ section of this website.

https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/guidance-landing/video-recording