Taking photos of others is it a crime?

bigdaddymac

Neighbour of mine told me that recently another man appeared to take photos of my neighbour and two of of his kids. Reasons unknown but apparently this picture esc taken in a public street

So my neighbour is obviously not impressed but the question remains is the illegal or legal ?

Gmak2442

Of person you don't know? I doubt it's legal.

They need to have the rights.

Smee_Again

In public it’s grand. Mostly.

From behind a bush and into their bedroom, not so legal.

athlone573

No law against it
Unless repeated to the point of harassment

If aggro started over it there might be other offences such as breach of the peace

Lenar3556

bigdaddymac wrote: »

Neighbour of mine told me that recently another man appeared to take photos of my neighbour and two of of his kids. Reasons unknown but apparently this picture esc taken in a public street

So my neighbour is obviously not impressed but the question remains is the illegal or legal ?

Not illegal.
If it was part of wider pattern of harassment that would be different.

bigdaddymac

Indeed it appears it was this man has a few mental issues and my neighbour can’t understand why he can’t be prosecuted but there’s no law saying he could

John_Rambo

I was assigned to photograph a kids GAA match and almost had my camera (with my most expensive long lens) knocked out of my hand before the over zealous coach was apprehended by the member that hired me.

The coach was walking quietly behind me, never said a word but when I bought the camera up to my face to see how fast I could shoot in the light he lunged. He could have just asked me who I was.

It is legal to photograph kids in a public place, but when it's a camera and not a phone people see red, or decide to be a hero.

GM228

As others have correctly stated it is not illegal (an offence) to take a photograph of someone (either in public or in private), however, the story does not end there.

It is a very commonly held belief that anyone in public for example can be photographed, that it is fair game and often the freedom of expression/freedom of the press is used as a just excuse, that could not be further from the truth.

You have a reasonable expectation of privacy (even when out in public) and there has been many cases where peoples rights have been breached, not just in a private setting, but also where photographs have been taken of them in public, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy and protection of your private life (this includes when in a public place and even if for example you are famous and in the public eye), in other words your right to privacy (even in public) will often trump any claimed freedom of expression or public interest, even when your well known.

SmartinMartin

So can you point to a law/statute that says that, or are you just making stuff up?

Garibaldi?

If you are taking photos of buildings, scenery or inanimate objects in general and human beings happen to be included that's one thing .To focus a camera on a complete stranger (child or adult ) is quite another. I don't know whether it's illegal or not but it would be highly inadvisable.

athlone573

A useful summary from the photographer perspective here :

https://www.digitalrights.ie/photographers-rights/

Re the post 2 up I would be interested to see any references to rights to privacy in public places.

GM228

SmartinMartin wrote: »

So can you point to a law/statute that says that, or are you just making stuff up?

Here are a few threads where we have touched on this previously:-

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058081297

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058108252

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057924579

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057703548

Plenty of cases on the issue mentioned by Robbo (who is very well up in this area of the law also) and myself.

athlone573

When this comes up people usually point to cases involving paparazzi, Hello magazine and famous models /minor royalty.

Not wading through all the threads but the impression I get is its very much determined on a case by case basis.

GM228

athlone573 wrote: »

A useful summary from the photographer perspective here :

https://www.digitalrights.ie/photographers-rights/

Re the post 2 up I would be interested to see any references to rights to privacy in public places.

Regularly gets quoted around here, it's old, inaccurate, and interestingly lacks anything to back it up.

athlone573

GM228 wrote: »

Regularly gets quoted around here, it's old, inaccurate, and interestingly lacks anything to back it up.

How is it inaccurate?
If you're claiming a generalised right to privacy in public I would appreciate you backing up with references.

Snotty

GM228 wrote: »

You have a reasonable expectation of privacy (even when out in public) and there has been many cases where peoples rights have been breached, not just in a private setting, but also where photographs have been taken of them in public,

Please provide something to back this up in relation to the OP

magicbastarder

also, people often conflate the issues of the legality of *taking* the photos, and of the subsequent use. for example, one of the cases mentioned in a thread linked above was the doonbeg resort using photos of children in a brochure. this is clearly not allowed, as it's commercial use of someone's likeness without their consent; but that's a separate issue to the actual image capture in the first place.

GM228

Everyone has a reasonable expectation to privacy, even in a public place, long held by the ECtHR, the Von Hannover vs Germany (No. 59320/00) ECHR 2004 is a good starting point for anyone who wants to go Goggling, but read through the links provided on previous discussions of this matter and you will see the various cases and principles and plenty of quoting of case law to digest.

Snotty

GM228 wrote: »

Everyone has a reasonable expectation to privacy, even in a public place, long held by the ECtHR, the Von Hannover vs Germany (No. 59320/00) ECHR 2004 is a good starting point for anyone who wants to go Goggling, but read through the links provided on previous discussions of this matter and you will see the various cases and principles and plenty of quoting of case law to digest.

How is commercial publication of a famous person's pictures in anyway related to the topic of a random person taking pictures of a family in public, which is the topic here, for which you have provided completely irrelevant responses to?

GM228

magicbastarder wrote: »

also, people often conflate the issues of the legality of *taking* the photos, and of the subsequent use. for example, one of the cases mentioned in a thread linked above was the doonbeg resort using photos of children in a brochure. this is clearly not allowed, as it's commercial use of someone's likeness without their consent; but that's a separate issue to the actual image capture in the first place.

It has also long been held by the ECtHR that simply taking a photograph without someones permission is a breach of Article 8 of the ECHR.

Snotty wrote: »

How is commercial publication of a famous person's pictures in anyway related to the topic of a random person taking pictures of a family in public, which is the topic here, for which you have provided completely irrelevant responses to?

The Hannover case deals with "everyone", not just famous people, it reiterates the point that everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy even in public, the Reklos and Davourlis vs Greece (No. 1234/05) ECHR 2009 case is also a good read which concerns taking of photographs which are not necessarily going to be published.

A person’s image constitutes one of the chief attributes of his or her personality as it reveals the person’s unique characteristics and distinguishes the person from his or her peers. The right to the protection of one’s image is thus one of the essential components of personal development and presupposes the right to control the use of that image. Whilst in most cases the right to control such use involves the possibility for an individual to refuse publication of his or her image, it also covers the individual’s right to object to the recording, conservation and reproduction of the image by another person. As a person’s image is one of the characteristics attached to his or her personality, its effective protection presupposes, in principle and in circumstances such as those of the present case . . , obtaining the consent of the person concerned at the time the picture is taken and not simply if and when it is published. Otherwise an essential attribute of personality would be retained in the hands of a third party and the person concerned would have no control over any subsequent use of the image

Now of course any potential case will very much depend on the facts of the case, but the point being that the assertion that you can just take anyone's photo in public is incorrect, the mere fact you photograph someone without their permission can amount to a breach of their rights, it's not so clear cut as people/photographers think it is.

mrslancaster

GM228 wrote: »

It has also long been held by the ECtHR that simply taking a photograph without someones permission is a breach of Article 8 of the ECHR.





The Hannover case deals with "everyone", not just famous people, it reiterates the point that everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy even in public, the Reklos and Davourlis vs Greece (No. 1234/05) ECHR 2009 case is also a good read which concerns taking of photographs which are not necessarily going to be published.



Now of course any potential case will very much depend on the facts of the case, but the point being that the assertion that you can just take anyone's photo in public is incorrect, the mere fact you photograph someone without their permission can be a breach of their rights, it's not so clear cut as people/photographers think it is.

Does that mean that photographers or news cameras outside a court for example are breaching the rights of suspects/convicted individuals? We see photos & newsreels of people going in & out of courthouses every day.
also how can rte report stuff e.g. the brawls in South William street recently.

GM228

mrslancaster wrote: »

Does that mean that photographers or news cameras outside a court for example are breaching the rights of suspects/convicted individuals? We see photos & newsreels of people going in & out of courthouses every day.
also how can rte report stuff e.g. the brawls in South William street recently.

Yes it could potentially be, even of the accused and even when they are subsequently convicted, it came as a big shock to many when we discussed that very question previously:-

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2058108252

athlone573

There are a lot of mights and maybes there involving references to the ECHR, all very interesting I'll admit, in a theoretical sense.

As it stands now under Irish law, there is no law against taking photographs of someone in public unless you are harassing them.
It would probly need someone to win a case in Europe for this to change.

magicbastarder

GM228 wrote: »

Now of course any potential case will very much depend on the facts of the case, but the point being that the assertion that you can just take anyone's photo in public is incorrect, the mere fact you photograph someone without their permission can amount to a breach of their rights, it's not so clear cut as people/photographers think it is.

getting back to the OP, this is key; however it's not 100% clear what the OP meant - 'the photographer appeared to take photos of my neighbour and his kids' could mean 'the photographer appeared, with the purpose of taking the photos' but i suspect it meant 'it seemed the photographer was taking photos of my neighbour and his kids'; and if someone you don't know starts taking photos specifically of you, you've every right to ask them to stop and if they don't, that could constitute harrassment which is already covered by law (AFAIK! IANAL).

however, what a lot of people would be considering in relation to this law is them standing on grafton street say, and taking a photo of the street, in which a lot of faces would be visible and identifiable. or taking their camera to their kid's football match and taking photos of them playing, etc.; given the eye watering number of photos being taken around the country every day, which capture people's likenesses intentionally or incidentally, the ECHR ruling has very little bearing on 99.999999% of photos taken, i'd expect.

mrslancaster

What's the difference taking photos of people around a court & say a photographer taking photos outside an lgbt bar or a place of worship of different faiths or at an airport seeing who is coming & going? is the first seen as ok because court cases are heard in public?

I read somewhere that local councils can't use CCTV to deter flytipping as it's a breach of gdpr. Are people only entitled to privacy in certain situations or places

magicbastarder

the bottle bank near me has a camera trained on it and i was talking to a chap there one day who got done for littering precisely because he was caught on camera.

i do recall an issue at one point with them *releasing* footage of someone fly-tipping, perhaps that's the context you mean?

athlone573

mrslancaster wrote: »

What's the difference taking photos of people around a court & say a photographer taking photos outside an lgbt bar or a place of worship of different faiths or at an airport seeing who is coming & going? is the first seen as ok because court cases are heard in public?

I read somewhere that local councils can't use CCTV to deter flytipping as it's a breach of gdpr. Are people only entitled to privacy in certain situations or places

The main law governing all those situations is GDPR (an EU regulation) as implemented into Irish law.
What that basically says is that if you collect data (including photographs) which may identify people, those people have certain rights over what you do with the data. Even more so if it is "sensitive" personal data.
There's a lot more to it and companies that process data have policies and training around it.

MoonUnit75

magicbastarder wrote: »

getting back to the OP, this is key; however it's not 100% clear what the OP meant - 'the photographer appeared to take photos of my neighbour and his kids' could mean 'the photographer appeared, with the purpose of taking the photos' but i suspect it meant 'it seemed the photographer was taking photos of my neighbour and his kids'; and if someone you don't know starts taking photos specifically of you, you've every right to ask them to stop and if they don't, that could constitute harrassment which is already covered by law (AFAIK! IANAL).

however, what a lot of people would be considering in relation to this law is them standing on grafton street say, and taking a photo of the street, in which a lot of faces would be visible and identifiable. or taking their camera to their kid's football match and taking photos of them playing, etc.; given the eye watering number of photos being taken around the country every day, which capture people's likenesses intentionally or incidentally, the ECHR ruling has very little bearing on 99.999999% of photos taken, i'd expect.

I think that's the crux of the matter, the person whose photo was taken could possibly take you to the ECHR but that course of action is so extreme it is practically unenforceable in 99% of cases. Imagine 60,000,000 requests to prosecute or fine people for taking another person's photograph in public.

athlone573

MoonUnit75 wrote: »

I think that's the crux of the matter, the person whose photo was taken could possibly take you to the ECHR but that course of action is so extreme it is practically unenforceable in 99% of cases. Imagine 60,000,000 requests to prosecute or fine people for taking another person's photograph in public.

Or if they have deep pockets they could bring you to civil court for example if you tried selling the photoes.

Claw Hammer

MoonUnit75 wrote: »

I think that's the crux of the matter, the person whose photo was taken could possibly take you to the ECHR but that course of action is so extreme it is practically unenforceable in 99% of cases. Imagine 60,000,000 requests to prosecute or fine people for taking another person's photograph in public.

You can't go to the ECHR unless you have exhausted domestic remedies first and even then the ECHR may not take the case if it doesn't meet their criteria for acceptance.

Snotty

To answer the OPs question, no it is not illegal. If your neighbour found out that the pictures where used for some reason like storing information on the family or they were published somewhere, then yes your neighbour could take some recourse, but ignoring all the rubbish posted previously, it is not illegal for someone to take your picture in a public area if its not covert and the pictures are not being used for anything.