Is filming someone in the street a breach of privacy?

uh-huh

if you are on a public steet and the person with the camera is also on a public street then where is your expectation of privacy ??

If you wanted privacy you shouldnt have gone out. You cant expect to be free from everything if you interact with public society.

Help me here, please.

I'm a private citizen (not jurno) in a public place and I take a picture of a scene (in public place)were I believe a crime is being committed in which the potential criminal can be readily identified. Do I have a defence? For example, if attacked by the miscreant can I use reasonable force to defend myself? Can I deny a police officers demands to stop/desist and/or handover the pictures as making them available to others may prejudice a possible prosecution? Just asking...

The question is though...

...is she fat?

That is all.

Simple

If you are on the street - in a public place - you have no expectations of privacy. If you are in your home, or on your own property, then you do.

The woman isn't upset about being filmed - she's probably filmed 50 times a day by CCTV cameras anyway. She's upset because embarrased. She might stand a chance on suing on those grounds.

However, if she's a big fat fatty then she couldn't really complain about being shown on a program about other lard arses could she? It's not the program-makers fault. Everyone who knows her already knows she is fat. It'd be kind of hard to miss.

Hmm.

If it hadn't been a documentary on Obesity, would she have cared?

It's not a tricky question

If you're not in private then it can't be a breach of privacy. You don't have to like it, and it is a double edged sword. But whatever else it is, it's not a tricky question.

That'll buy quite a few cream buns

Perhaps instead of compensation they could pay for a lifetime membership to a gym?

Guess work

I'm guessing the person in question is fat.

So the real issue is that calling somebody fat, who is fat, is illegal?

I'd think it tasteless and lacking in empathy, but not illegal.

confused about terminology.

OK, I understand the meaning of the word "private" - keeping things confidential and away from the observation and knowledge of others. However, I can't help but thinking that "public" means the opposite: in view of others and open to their gaze or scrutiny (my definitions, not from a dictionary).

So when one is in a public place - knowingly, how can there be any expectation of privacy?

You can't go up to people in the street and tell them to stop looking at you. Well, you can, if you don't mind them muttering "nutter" under their breath. Similarly, you can't go around chopping down CCTV cameras, just in case they happen to catch a shot of your face.

So where exactly does this conflicted and inconsistent idea public privacy come from? Are we so scared that everyone we don't know is some sort of pervert, that every action they undertake should be assumed to be for the worst possible reasons?

I have a theory that none of this is actually about people innocently including passers-by in their photos (afterall, people only get annoyed when they realise they've been photographed). Anyone who lives in a "touristy" area is so used to the idea of being included - either implicitly or explicitly in other peoples' photos, the idea of objecting is laughable. No, it's more of a backlash against the overwhelmingly intrusive state. Since we are totally impotent to act against it, the protesters channel their dislike against the only subjects possible: normal people, legally doing something similar to what they object to.

Personally, I don't care who takes my photo. When I'm in a public place, I'm fair game. Likewise to anyone who films me for whatever reason. All I ask is that they spell my name correctly in the credits.

and so it begins

you'll have the BBC getting sued by people who appear in the background during news reports or anyone who appears in anything filmed anywhere! The greed of people (on two counts here I feel) is to blame but just as much the greed of solictors who will represent anyone for anything these days, anywhere is a sniff of some money!

I wonder if she'd have complained had it been a different kind of show, if it was a fashion show I'll be she'd have loved it! The flexibility of people's morals eh? I suppose the lady is question was of a larger build? The Reg didn't say but I can't imagine a thin person objecting to this somehow...

the world has gone bonkers! Trying to sue one's parents for somehow conceiving an ugly or somehow disadvantaged child is only round the corner.......

Being in public is not consent to remove privacy

IMHO, simply being in public is not consent to remove privacy rights.

It's not as though you have a choice but to appear in public, you have to go to work, you have to buy food, you could wear a mask perhaps, but even that is an offence in the UK if it's for concealing your identity.

So how can it possibly be consent to remove privacy when you have no real choice?

i.e. using footpaths does not entitle TV companies to use your fat image. Using roads does not entitle the rozzers to track you with ANPR or walking down the street does not entitle person tracking with CCTV biometric face recognition, using the GSM network does not entitled Wacked-Out-on-Pot-Jacqui to track who-calls-who or where-everyone-is under the data retention database she's planning.

BTW, I see Boy George was prosecuted once (22 years ago) not for possession of drugs but for SAYING HE ONCE used drugs. Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary once admitted to smoking cannabis at University "more than 25 years ago" which it would have been a Class B drug.

It seems to me that she is setting a bad example to todays youths by her blantant admission of consumption of 'lethal' drugs, and should be prosecuted.... as she said herself recently "MPs are not above the law" when she proposed the new "sinners will be stoned and I get to cast the first one" policy.

depends on the purpose

If i am captured on film as a general member of the public, just a typical person on a typical high street, well, I am unwittingly helping others make money, but what the heck. But if I am singled out, say, as a disabled person and featured as a disabled person who clearly is not aware of the new prosthetics, silly, silly me, then I would feel that I was being abused and held up to ridicule, and I'd want to sue their socks off.

Won't anyone think of the

native american indian, some who believe their spirit is stolen when a photo of them is taken.

I thought you needed a release form to publish a picture of someone where they were recognisable.

Anyway it is a war out there, personal privacy has gone to the wind, and defamation seems to be the order of the day, no one is liked, no one is respected, those behind the camera are shown to be self serving pricks, and those in front just chattel in an ongoing psyops war. I blame education and a Labour government it just produces nasty people

I hope she wins, it is a bit off to be called a chubster on national TV, and have no control over how it is shown. I would be interested to see the camera man, I bet they are either anorexic, or obese, have halitosis and in grown toe nails, along with a really ugly face.

no pictures here...

Bye bye to street photography. :(

@Dave

There are actually 2 separate issues here I think.

The first is whether someone should have any right to take pictures / have their picture taken when they are in a public place.

The second is what is then done with that picture.

Most of us accept we will be photographed without our direct permission many times in our lives, by security cameras, incidentally as tourists take pictures of places where we may be and so on, and that is just part and parcel of life in the 21st century. We also expect that if we photograph something of interest to us we won't get arrested / prosecuted / sued if someone is accidentally or incidentally captured in the same image.

Most of us would be at least a little uneasy if these pictures were then broadcast or made available ( on noes!!! think of teh children!!!111!!!!11!!!!eleventy-one!!) or even worse used in a program in a way to make us look bad in some manner. Especially when there is no real need to identify individuals as faces can be obscured or just missed out.

(untitled)

IMO this is an interesting question, morally. (Sod the law, it never seems to get awkward decisino right.) My first reaction, that one has no privacy in a public place, seems flawed on further consideration. I suggest that one relevant factor is whether one has been insulted, or otherwise abused, as well as whether one is identifiable and whether one's image is passed around for public view. It sounds like one of those situations where each case should be considered on its own merits.

Privacy is not a Yes/No status

Privacy is a relative item, not absolute, going along a street with say a dozen people seeing you is not the same as having your picture shown to thousands or millions or people and residing in long term archives etc!

re: Being in public is not consent to remove privacy

"i.e. using footpaths does not entitle TV companies to use your fat image. "

No, and that is the common decency aspect: a civilised society would have them ask before the image can be used on TV if they are the reason FOR the image.

That isn't a privacy thing, it's defamation (if the context given for your image is bad, i.e. look at lardy). It's an insult. And insulting someone is or can be illegal.

So ask.

But if your wide load is traversing a landmark someone is filming for TV, it isn't insulting. Unless they say "Jeez, that' guys arse is nearly blocking the view!!!!"). The image is of the landmark, not your butt.

We need balanced reporting

Every time the media want to show a fatty, they should be compelled to show a skinny. For balance - like wot nu labour always say, it's a matter of social justice.

like so many here say

this sounds very like transferrence; she's upset about being called a tubster or the very implication of such and this is what she objects to....however does not realise (in her whatever-the-local-equivalent-of-the-Daily-Mail-is mind) that being doing this she will be exposing herself to even more ridicule and having her face all over that cover of her selfsame favourite example of the gutter press..will she try to sue them for doing that too??

This is just another example of why we need some kind of global natural catastrophe and soon, a lot of the human race could do with being wiped out! We're turning into self-deluding, obsessive and greedy, grasping people and this can only get worse. Also the whole "you can't call me fat" thing annoys the heck out of me, I used to be fat myself (to use the very un-PC term) and staying thin takes a lot of effort and willpower but I manage, why can't these people? Viz, tis no-one's fault but their own!

I hope they countersue and take away all her biscuit money!

In a public place...

In the UK you have no right to demand privacy if you are in a public place. If someone takes a picture of you, that's perfectly legal.

What they do not have the right to do is to publish or use that photograph in a "defamatory" way and, had the women mentioned in the article been in the UK they could have sued on this basis.

Had the face been blurred out or the figure only shot from the neck down they would not have been identifiable and so there wouldn't have been a problem.

PS @Help me here, please. "Can I deny a police officers demands to stop/desist and/or handover the pictures as making them available to others may prejudice a possible prosecution? Just asking..."

As far as I understand the law, yes, you can, see http://www.sirimo.co.uk/ukpr.php and http://www.urban75.org/photos/photographers-rights-and-the-law.html for more information.

it's not about being photographed

i accept that i am being photographed constantly in public places, its the publication of those images for commercial purposes that needs to be restricted.

If someone takes my photo, i don't really care, i don't even care if they post it up for people, as long as it's not malicious, but if someone then goes on to use a photo of me to make money, they should not be allowed without my explicit permission, (which, yes, would involve an agreement for me to get a share of the money and sod the paparazzi)

On dignity

It is about the fact that society itself should show dignity, not that she deserves it preserved for her.

Because it is our treatment of others we show our humanity.

But that doesn't mean we have a right to DEMAND that dignity be afforded, since that isn't asking that society be nice to others, that's demanding treatment. That way lies a world where you can't give someone an honest opinion and must lie or avoid the question.

If your arse IS fat, then yes, your bum DOES look big in that.

But society should not go around offering the unsolicited opinion about the size of the hindquarters because that's not nice.

If she demands from others then she should apply herself to the aid likewise. Exercise. Eat less. Be healthier. You'll live longer and when older will still be healthy rather than worn before your time. If you DEMAND that people stop calling you fat, try to work towards, oh, I dunno, not being fat?

And me? If I'd seen her picture on the TV and knew that she hadn't been asked for its use, I would have told the TV producer off. But she demands dignity from others in the face of truth, and that's a different matter.

@Graham Marsden

"In the UK you have no right to demand privacy if you are in a public place. If someone takes a picture of you, that's perfectly legal.

What they do not have the right to do is to publish or use that photograph in a "defamatory" way and, had the women mentioned in the article been in the UK they could have sued on this basis."

Absolutely agree with the first three-quarters of your statement above. Though you can't defame someone by stating the truth. If she is clinically obese, then calling her obese is not defamatory. (Similarly, if she is anorexic, then calling her anorexic would't be defamatory). Calling someone "ugly" or a "drug addict" or even "fat" when there is no evidence that any of those claims is true would be defamatory, but if someone is clearly overweight you can't defame them by stating that when it would be plainly obvious to anyone.

You could invade someone's privacy by releasing true information about them which is of no concern to the public. As a different example, if you show a picture of someone in the street (not taking drugs...) and put a caption saying they're a "drug addict" when they are not, that could be libel, because you're claiming something that is not true. If they are in fact a drug addict, but that's not already clear from the photo, then the caption isn't libellous, but it could be considred invasion of their privacy. If they are pictured in a public place clearly taking drugs, then you could call them a "drug user" without being either libellous or invading their privacy (though maybe calling them an "addict" could be either libel or invasion of privacy, as you can't tell someone's addiction status from a photograph...)

@Mark

"That isn't a privacy thing, it's defamation (if the context given for your image is bad, i.e. look at lardy). It's an insult. And insulting someone is or can be illegal."

Defamation is a false accusation or a misrepresentation of somebody's motives, actions, morals or similar to their disadvantage. Insults are only defamatory if they are grossly untrue. Calling (or implying) somebody is fat when they are is not defamation. Calling John Prescott both fat and a fathead is neither defamatory (as the first accusation is true) or defamatory as the second part comes under fair comment and there's plenty of evidence for it. Well I suppose he might try and sue somebody for it but even on the UK's ridiculous libel laws he won't get far. Insults can also be illegal (in UK law) if they are liable to cause a breach of the peace and there are some grounds - race, religion, sexuality and so on which can get you into hot water if they are deemed likely to lead to hatred.

However, calling somebody fat when they are is neither insulting or defamatory in any legal sense.

That's not to say that picking on somebody off the street at random to humiliate or poke fun at should be considered acceptable behaviour. I feel this ought to be the role of standards bodies rather than the sledge-hammer of the law. I'm suspicious of privacy laws when they stray into (literally) public areas or severely impinge freedom of speech. Unfortunately the press (in the UK at least) have hardly shown themselves to be responsive in the way that they tend to treat the press complaints commission as little more than a minor nuisance.