Photos and Privacy, Duty of Care

You often see comments for and against taking photo and respecting privacy. As a keen amateur (unpaid) and professional (paid) photographer, I have seen arguments for and against.  Here are the arguments for and against. I am stating both sides of the argument, although I shall make it clear which side and support and when.

Here are my experiences and reactions. Please do not take my word for legality, as laws may have changed in your country or by the time you read this. Check local laws. If challenged be polite. If necessary produce a typed document or photo on your phone showing the regulations.

1 You should not photograph people in public places.

2 You should not photograph people without their permission.

3 You should not photograph public buildings and faces.

4 You need permission to publish photos of people

5 You should not publish phone numbers.

6 You should not publish the names of victims, those accused of crime, minors, relatives of minors.

7 You should not photograph victims instead

8 You should go to the aid of victims

9 You should attempt to deter attackers

10 You should not photograph the injured or dead.

11 Even if the victim gives permission you should not inflict such horrors on the reader.

12 Reporting crimes encourages copycat crimes.

13 You should not publish pictures of private homes.

14 You should not publish pictures of the rich and their possessions because jealous people will try to steal or cause damage.

15 You should not show the poor and unfortunate because that makes them ashamed and embarrassed and makes other troll and write rude remarks and brings them into disrepute.

16 You should not report crimes before a trial because that prejudices the trial.

17 People who do wrong (accidentally or when drunk) should apologize.

The opposing arguments include:

1 In some place beggars demand money if you take close up or even distant photos. They may pose and then demand money. You might think that giving money is ok or want to negotiate the price.

Sometimes they have no camera or a hone which does not take good photos. They would like the photo. Are you prepared to give strangers your email? Could you carry a teeny printer and give them a copy of themselves as payment?

Two small children in a remote Nepalese village ran up out of curiosity when campers were cleaning their teeth. The children were thrilled to be given a tiny tube of toothpaste and an airline toothbrush and to be photographed cleaning their teeth. The kids danced around, stayed still when asked to do so, posed by a signboard, and were excited to see photos of themselves on the camera.

 The solution is to photograph a family member with the local person in the far distance (to blow up later).  It is forbidden in South Africa to deter crime. It is permitted in the UK where the argument is that if you were to forbid crowd and public places nobody could ever photograph themselves in public places and monuments for fear that somebody else is int he picture. You could no photograph events but many people want photos. It is impossible to police. And in any case a witness is often useful.

2 Data protection in the UK, USA and Singapore is now increasingly making it a requirement to inform people that they are being photographed and to ask their permission.
In the old days this was so that the event organizer could make a profit on their investment. Now it is for privacy reasons.

3
(More later. This is growing increasingly long and complicated.)

17 Your insurance, especially car insurance, may forbid you to say anything, on the grounds it may prejudice your case by implying your guilt and invalidate your insurance.

Any admission of guilt might encourage the other party to demand money or an out of court payment. The apparent accident could be a scam.  You may need photo of the vehicles position in road and damage to cars before moving vehicles.The other party might not want themselves or their wife and children or friends who are drivers or passengers or bystanders to be photographed. My view is that a useful tip is to take a surreptitious photo of the people from a distance, then several of the cars from a distance then close up. You want to photograph the front and sides and rear of all the cars, plus any damage to the road and private or public property. If asked to show what I have taken I show the car pictures. I later delete the family photos out of respect, but have them if the driver does a runner.

Animals and Roadkill
If an animals ran across the road or was hit in the road, you need a photo of that too. "Why are you photographing a dead ..., Mum. That's disgusting!"  Because in some countries you have to report that you have killed a cat or dog (the owner will want to know why their beloved pet is missing - or could be liable for damages to your car). Killing deer which are protected could be a reportable incident in Scandinavian countries or places where animals are protected. Or you might wish to join a group which wants evidence that animals are causing accident in order to gt roads fences or animals moved to remote areas or fenced areas. You may also need to note the location so recovery vehicles can collect your car or debris in the road or a dead animal which could cause subsequent accidents.

Snakes Alive!
Wow. There's a snake in the road. You are alone and afraid, don't know if it is dangerous or protected. What do I do?

Call local people. In some countries, snakes are a local food. The Chinese, the saying goes, 'eat anything that moves, and anything with four legs except the table.'

Just take a photo, keep an eye on the snake to be sure it is not getting nearer your car. Call local people from another car or working on a nearby construction site. They may have shovels or other equipment to move the snake. They may be totally unafraid, curious and keen to see it and thrilled to get a free dinner.

The rules vary from country

More information from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_of_care

Photos and Privacy: Are You Followed As Photographer And Your Subjects Safe?

Photo Problem

What does your photo reveal?

How Data Can Help You - Locate You In Emergency

I have looked at lots of photos on Wikipedia which show the type of camera and place. They get the place from a GPS reading built into the camera of smart phone. That's really handy. If you are floating out to sea and need help, lost in a snowstorm, trapped by an abductor, in a car which rolled off a road into a gully, your photo will tell anybody you send it to where you are.

Revealing Location Of Valuables
What about your own photos? Supposing a film star or a friend is showing their diamond engagemnt ring? You take a photo.

They change their mind and say, "I don't want my photo taken."

You agree not to put it on Facebook. Then you decide to just show the lovely ring but not the face which would reveal who it belongs to. The photo data might reveal the jewellery shop, the hotel, or the country.

Marketing Fusion and Ages

Marketing organisations use fusion. They piece together a mosaic of their customers. They know that elderly people buy walking sticks, that mothers buy nappies, that large families buy giant packs of rice. No surprises there. Older people read the Help The Aged magazines, whilst young mother are likely to read Mother and Baby or Parents. The readers of car magazines and bikers' magazines form another subgroup. Some categories overlap. Others are separate.

It doesn't happen every time. You could be buying goods or magazines for somebody else. But it happens more often than not.

Government Data

The UK government has already sold off your address to marketing companies. I once filled in a library car application. My name was mis-spelled, on their computer. My library card was printed with a C instead of an L. Years later I started getting information from companies spelling my name with a C.

Marketing Areas and Journals

The marketing people also know that the seafront in one remote resort has small bungalows; another area has opulent Hollywood mansions. They know that Irish people read Irish newspapers; Indians read newspapers in their language. Technical journals are read by people with Phds. By asking you two questions about yourself, they can guess another fact, or track it down from another survey.

Seasonal Buying

Sellers, insurers and burglars know that people buy gifts at Christmas time. The same applies to other national holidays. The same goes for weddings. Birthdays also attract advertisers. I am very a happy to be emailed by Café Rouge offering me free Champagne or sparkling white wine if I book a table for four or more, better still if the offer has no minimum persons requirement. Otherwise, if one person is ill with flu, we cancel the dinner, postpone it, find the voucher has expired and never go.

Hotel Customers

It is the same sort of piecing together information as is done by the shopkeeper who ask a tourist, 'which hotel are you staying in?' If you are staying in the five star hotel, he gets out his more expensive goods. If you are staying in a youth hostel, he find you something in your budget.

GPS

When my photos are stored on my computer, it's quite handy to have the rough location. Sometimes the location is wrong, off by a few miles. The GPS is at fault.

We were looking for a cemetery for a funeral in the car. The GPS was wrong. We were in the adjacent road, separated from the cemetery by a road of houses. The entrance was around the corner and down a side road.

Delay

However, I am getting increasingly wary about which photos I show. I often put up photos a week later, after I have changed location. I no longer feel guilty that my pictures are no longer news, that I have not shown a photo taken right this second. I am not into 'news'. I am into features.

Wikipedia warns about photos:

 A photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera can reveal the exact location and time it was taken, and the unique ID number of the device - this is all done by default - often without the user's knowledge. Many users may be unaware that their photos are tagged by default in this manner, or that specialist software may be required to remove the Exif tag before publishing. 

For example, a whistle-blower, journalist or political dissident relying on the protection of anonymity to allow them to report malfeasance by a corporate entity, criminal, or government may therefore find their safety compromised by this default data collection.

In December 2012, anti-virus programmer John McAfee was arrested in Guatemala while fleeing from alleged persecution^[15] in Belize, which shares a border. Vice magazine had published an exclusive interview on their website with McAfee "on the run"^[16] that included a photo of McAfee with a Vice reporter taken with a phone that had geotagged the image.^[17] The photo's metadata included GPS coordinates locating McAfee in Guatemala, and he was captured two days later.^[18]

According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA is targeting Exif information under the XKeyscoreprogram.^[19]

The privacy problem of Exif data can be avoided by removing the Exif data using a metadata removal tool.^[20]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5448389/Facebook-personal-data-files-Australia-inquiry.html

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Bistrot De Luxe - More Information And Amusement

We spent the first ten minutes of our lunch commenting on the restaurant name.  Galvin, to me sounds like a cross between Calvin (as in Calvin Klein American youth clothing company) and the boy's name Gavin. It's actually a family name or surname, of two brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin.


    How do I know that? Because I took a photo of a card in the restaurant and read it when I got home later.

   Bistrot de luxe is an oxymoron, Greek for two contradictory words. Bistrot, French for cheap and cheerful, de luxe, French for of luxury.

    On the way in I'd noticed the heritage plaque on the wall next door recalling that this area was HQ for the SOE, Special Operations Executive, a polite word for spying for our side, initials not to be confused with SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization, which means marketing websites, or making yours most likely to be found by search software used by the consumer searching online on their computer at the desk, laptop or phone.
   If you are speaking about something secret, such as spying for a country or company, winning the lottery by gambling, your divorce, ex or current affair, don't sit at the too close for comfort tables opposite the door but tell the staff that like Greta Garbo you want to be alone. (I can tell you word for word the business conversation of the people who sat on my left and at one point my companions complained that I wasn't giving them my full attention.) If you have better hearing on one side than the other, try to sit so you hear your table and not the next one.