Rowling ruling bolsters privacy chief's view of data protection

Many many photos now illegal?

So, hang on... Does this now mean that any photo taken in a public place that shows people who have not given explicit permission for the photo to be taken, are illegal? It seems so.

Er, does that mean that CCTV systems are also illegal?

This needs to be discussed in more depth!

Many many photos now illegal?

"So, hang on... Does this now mean that any photo taken in a public place that shows people who have not given explicit permission for the photo to be taken, are illegal? It seems so."

So you want to give carte blanche to people taking photographs of young schoolgirls as they exit from the school gates? Yes, you can argue that technically you are within your rights to do so but whether you should be doing so and then publishing the photos is a different matter.

In the case of Rowlings I think the action was taken because the child in question was only 20 months old when the photos were taken. Photos of celebrities walking down a public street might be considered of public interest but that argument should not hold for under 2s.

What the ..... ?

There is no "expectation of privacy" in the street. Otherwise, street CCTV cameras would be illegal. And if you are a celebrity, then there is no expectation of privacy *anywhere*. We, The Public, are the ones who *made* you famous in the first place. That means we *own* you.

If the photographer and the subject were both rightfully on the Queen's highway, then the photograph was legal. If you don't want people taking pictures of you, stay at home.

@Jim Booth

Dangerous fucking ground there.

Legal minors is a hell of a lot of people, far more than you'd ever want to be requiring parental permission for. Following your proposal to the letter, you'd need parental permission for every 17 year old going to a festival, or a football match, or the beach on a hot day, just in case they get caught in a crowd photo.

It's hard enough as it is to take photos without the police accusing you of planning terror strikes or child molestation.

Chiiiildruuun

Ah, the "think of the chiiildruuun" plea. A good sign that someone hasn't any better-argued points to make.

You can read the ECHR at http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/EnglishAnglais.pdf

Article 8 is short (only two sentences) and it is clear from it that the expectation of privacy belongs to everyone, whether adult or child and whether or not either they or their parent is famous.

If this ruling leads to fewer examples of the paparrazi promoting their own cult of photo-celebrity I feel it can only be a good thing.

Not sure but...

Um, technically unless I'm very much mistaken, parental consent has to be obtained from guardians for any photo's involving children - including school photo's as one obvious example. If the child can be easily identified I think permission has to be granted. I can't remember where I read it, probably in one of the Blackstones manuals, or maybe under some Child Protection Act rule?

take my picture in public

but if you publish it, you better have a signed release from me.

Then again, I'm not famous. Is the sprog famous, or just his mum?

Identified vs. unidentified

Surely when it comes to privacy, there's a material difference between publishing a picture of some random/unidentified person taken in a public place and publishing a picture of a named individual taken in a public place.

It would seem rather extreme to say to someone famous that if they don't want their child's picture repeatedly appearing in newspapers, they should keep their child away from all public places.

Even if a relative of someone famous is an adult rather than a child, they should have a default expectation of privacy.

Public interest

"In the case of Rowlings I think the action was taken because the child in question was only 20 months old when the photos were taken. Photos of celebrities walking down a public street might be considered of public interest but that argument should not hold for under 2s."

Famous person has a child, goes out in public with kid for first time, surely it's not unreasonable to expect the press to want that photo? Certainly would be of public interest.

So long as they don't harass them.

Rowling is apparently turning

Into an obnoxiously litigious cow. Or perhaps just Marchioness de Safe. Not reading her own books or hanging out in Hollywood for too long?

Talking of which, after Whacky Jacqui's extreme pr0n law is activated, anyone photgraphing a cow or sheep or goat is definitely going to be looked at as some kind of perv (unless it's the farmer's own animal and you're the farmer). Leaving the field to the Marquis de Sade (120 Days, if you really must know). Your country outings are never going to be the same again.

Several people here seem to be missing the point.

No-one has said photos cannot be taken. But Rowling is complaining that they were published.

So yes, anyone can take photos of anyone in the street. But publish them without permission and you're on dodgy ground.

This is all wrong

They were in a public place and thus had no expectations of privacy. The only other thing they could argue is harassment, however a single incident would not really be cause for this to be classed as such.

The fact (and the law) is that I have every right to take a photograph of anyone in a public place. I also have the right to publish and sell that photo for my own profit. So, AC - I won't need a release from you. I'm talking in the UK here. Other countries may require a release. The only caveat is that many agencies will require a model release before buying a photo, to cover their own backsides.

@Jim Booth - I too wouldn't really like people taking pictures of my kids without my permission, but they are doing nothing illegal so I can't stop them.

@Chris W - what is _actually_ wrong with taking pictures of schoolgirls walking out the school gates? Where I live the girls are fully clothed at school so it's not exactly child porn is it? Plus, I can go onto the school website and - shock horror! - there are pictures of the kids in school uniform on it.

This attitude that anyone taking photos of kids is automatically going to use them for nefarious purposes is completely ridiculous. Crap analogy, but we'd better ban kitchen knives, because somebody might use them to kill somebody else.

<climbs down from high horse and calms down>

Public interest?

'Public interest' doesn't mean:

"Some sad member of the public might find it interesting to read about rather than getting a life",

it means:

"There is some value (ie interest) to society of the public being informed/educated about something" (eg hypocrisy of a public figure, etc)

Summary of UK photographer's rights

http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php

Nearly, but not quite, every thing viewable from a public location is okay to photo - if you can see it, you can photo it (just don't step onto private property at all).

There are exceptions, but it's doubtful that anything concerning national security was included, unless MI6 has an cloaked entrance on King's Cross platform 9 ¾, or Rowling's pram uses stolen US Stealth 3.0 tech to avoid Heat(mag)-seaking white Fiat Puntos.

Copyright?

>>"My understanding as an amateur photographer, is that I can photograph anyone or anything in a public place, and as photographer, I own the copyright, so can publish it as iI wish."

If you own the copyright, doesn't that rather mean that no-one else can publish it without your permission?

Is there not a difference between copyright (protecting your right not to have people profit from your work) and the unrestricted right to publish?

If I wrote a libellous article, or one giving details which infringed on someone's privacy, the literary work would be mine, but that wouldn't give me the unqualified right to publish it.

If I took pictures of someone in a private place, would I not still have copyright even if I couldn't publish them?

>>"If you take some of the comments about 'illegally' photographing people at face value, you would have no "You've Been Framed" or other candid camera type programmes"

With candid TV programmes, don't they seek the subject's consent before broadcasting?

>>"...newspapers would have no papped slebs, nor crowd scenes. Metro and Hello! would be very empty."

And?

Anyway, surely crowd scenes are quite different from identified pictures specifically taken of specific people.

@AC

"What utter bollocks - you have the right to go about your (lawful) business in private and without interference from others. Just because you are in a public place does not mean that right is waived."

But that's the point, you are not going about your business in private when you are in a public place. You are going about your business in public. The right you have in public is to not be harassed. Taking a photo isn't in itself harassment unless you persist in a way that causes the subject to be distressed.

If you were to then go into a private property, that's another matter.

After all, if it was private business in a public place you could parade around in the nude without worry ;-)... but you can't because it's in public and you are responsible for not offending others through indecency because you are in public.

As for film, I'm not sure, but I think it's the same as photography. The only reason for releases and seeking permission is likely to be to do with guilds/unions and the fuss that would be created by actors and extras who hate the idea of Joe Public taking their work. Permissions probably involves waivers to say they have no rights to credit or any money made on the film.

p.s. what makes me laugh about TV news these days is the way kids seem to be just disembodied legs! although surely this will feed people with a leg fetish! ;-)

Nothing to do with the fees then.

I thought may of the big celebrities allowed magazines to take pictures of their children providing enough money changed hands. As afore-mentioned, Whacko covered his with beekeeper style hats etc and I have seen quite a few mag and paper photos of celebrities with their children when the childrens faces have been blurred out.

I would have thought that any picture of a youngster would not be much extra use for identification purposes at that age as they will always be with their easily identifiable parents when out in public. It's not likely that someone will look at a child and say that is little joe bloggs, so that woman holding him must be his very famous mother Mrs Bloggs.

So it appears that her real issue her own privacy, but again as mentioned earlier, she has the money to waste to go through the law courts to impose judgements which will later become detrimental to the lifestyle of the rest of us mere mortals who can't aford to go back to court to get a judgement that the Rowling judgement was meant in way x as opposed to way Y in which it is now being interpreted by completely unrelated Mr Plod.