New EU Data Protection Law Could Affect People Who Take Pictures

slackercrurster · May 24, 2018

The European Union's new data protection law is intended to strengthen privacy rights and stop abuses by social media giants. But the law also forbids people from posting anyone's picture online without their permission — and that includes tourist vacation photos.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/24/6141...fect-people-who-take-pictures-with-their-phon

...sounds bad for street photogs in the EU.

AgX · May 24, 2018

In Germany for instance there is a law on photographic privacy so to say since 1907 ! Quite advanced thus. The same time there have been reasonable vast exclusions on this. This all is about publication of photographs. And offense is even a crime since then.

In the last years however there is a trend here to even restrict mere taking of photographs, even by some court decision. Nonwithstanding above legislation. All this in the context of privacy protection.
Recently even mere taking photographs has been criminalized in certain situations by a new law.
This was added by a data-protection law, which, on some people's interpretation, prohibited private, constant filming of public places, like dash cams.*
The same time there is constant misinformation in the media on the legal aspect.

This all can even lead to absurd situations: As the voluntary pixellating of each and everyone on Google Street View, even the voluntary cancellation of photography for this this service after protests, yet the same time Google goes on with aerial photographing private areas behind facades with their Maps service... and no one protests ... though it is illegal.

*Last week the Federal Superior Court rejected such misinterpretation.

MartinCrabtree · May 24, 2018

You abandon all expectation of privacy when you leave your home. At least that's how it should be. Of course abuse of this principle is why we have this discussion.

removed account4 · May 24, 2018

MartinCrabtree said:
You abandon all expectation of privacy when you leave your home.

and in your home too, seeing the online devices keep track, are passive microphones televisions passive video cameras ( phones as well ) and
i make it a point to drape my microwave with a beach towel because it is a camera ( kellyA knows ). i usually wear either a richard nixon mask
or a ronald regan mask in and outside of my house.
its gonna make street work as difficult as installing ductwork in brazil.

Theo Sulphate · May 24, 2018

Ah, technology.

Facebook want people (viz. women) to send in their nude and naughty photos, ostensibly (wink wink) to combat "revenge porn":

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/facebook-revenge-porn-nude-photos

In other news, a private chat between husband and wife was recorded by Alexa and voicemailed to the husband's co-worker.

grahamp · May 24, 2018

Maybe we will have to settle for showing our travel snaps to the family at Christmas... I am sure there will be demands to be removed from pictures made on another continent!

Never mind CCTV and dash cams.

I can't see that it is workable.

MartinCrabtree · May 24, 2018

jnanian said:
and in your home too, seeing the online devices keep track, are passive microphones televisions passive video cameras ( phones as well ) and
i make it a point to drape my microwave with a beach towel because it is a camera ( kellyA knows ). i usually wear either a richard nixon mask
or a ronald regan mask in and outside of my house.
its gonna make street work as difficult as installing ductwork in brazil.

I just parade around nekkid. Nobody can take that for long.

AgX · May 25, 2018

The wood not seeing for the trees.

This is the actual problem.
A lot of regulations have emerged, even seemingly contradictory, put in new bundles of laws, whereas there already have been specific ones that could have been added.

The "new" EU regulation on data protection came out two years ago. Now that national law is going to apply on that, people are getting into havoc as they have no idea what applies on them and what not. There are contradictory statements by experts and authorities, the same time the fears of severe fines are rising.
This is another problem. A mess.

However, in dense Europe, with a lot of interaction, the idea of a generic rules on certain issues is to be welcomed.

removed account4 · May 25, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Ah, technology.

Facebook want people (viz. women) to send in their nude and naughty photos, ostensibly (wink wink) to combat "revenge porn":

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/07/facebook-revenge-porn-nude-photos

In other news, a private chat between husband and wife was recorded by Alexa and voicemailed to the husband's co-worker.

after the russia troll farm affair they said they were becoming a dating service right ? makes perfect sense that it becomes ( if it hasn't already )
the worlds largest repository of amateur ƒorn. what a genius move by the lawyers.
i think alexia ( and her cousins ) have more than emails on their minds ...
https://arstechnica.com/information...e-gateboxs-ai-powered-holographic-home-robot/

MartinCrabtree said:
I just parade around nekkid. Nobody can take that for long.

you never know! might be lurking in the ether !
you did see the episode of seinfeld where george and the
mini lab operator ...

Sean · May 25, 2018

Our dev environment is almost patched and good to go, for accommodating these new laws and I hope to roll out the final changes this weekend. We basically follow these rules anyway, but the changes put more system options to the enduser. 65% of websites are not compliant yet, most have no idea they need to be. It sounds unenforceable to me but we'll play it safe and do as they ask.

NJH · May 25, 2018

Doing street photography is a small fry niche compared to some of the other areas caught under GDPR. Consider for example all the private and semi-public places that use CCTV, its millions of cameras in our country.

grahamp · May 25, 2018

We are having to address this at work, even though our main sign-ups are from California. We do get some EU nationals - comes from being a university town - but they have to be at least temporarily resident to participate in a program. On the other hand, our gift store will ship globally...

Then it gets interesting with US resident EU nationals. We are probably going to have to track, or at least ask, origin, which we never have, or cared, before!

AgX · May 25, 2018

NJH said:
Doing street photography is a small fry niche compared to some of the other areas caught under GDPR. Consider for example all the private and semi-public places that use CCTV, its millions of cameras in our country.

In Germany doing classic street photography and publishing such is basically illegal since 1907, the same for publishing found photos. Hinting at this for years I have been ridiculed...
The same time a case needed a plaintiff. So no photographer bothered.
Whether EU-based regulation does extend on the old german law is discussed over here. Differennt ministries seem to give contrary interpretations.
Most likely of greater importance is the chance for lawyers to check photographers' sites for offences and urging fees within the german concept of pre-court jurisdiction.

Arthurwg · May 25, 2018

I understand that for many years, people in France had and still have an absolute right to their image. I have heard stories that individuals have jumped into a news event so they could sue for damages after publication. Really nothing new here.

ReginaldSMith · May 25, 2018

I consider Google and Facebook to be socially destructuve institutions, and anything done to reign them in by law, or better yet cultural demand, is beneficial to society. In the USA, photography (or videography) in public will very soon become so restricted as to be functionally illegal. Already, and for many years now, police in every city I've lived "pretend" that public photography is illegal. For example, I've been stopped and held for ID check and questioning no less than 5 times while photographing public buildings. It happened enough that I began to carry the law on a small postcard to give to police to read (not that The Law stops them from harrassing you). Everyday in America you can find posted videos of police telling people they can't take videos of police or fire actions, or airports or jails or city halls and so on. So, regardless of the law, in practice, the police will make it very dangerous for people to use cameras in public. They of course have no interest in protecting the public, they are simply trying to avoid wrong doing caught on film.

faberryman · May 25, 2018

Given the prevalence of omnipresent surveillance cameras in the EU, I find these new "privacy" rules disengenuous. I cant' engage in street photography but the state can surveil me 24/7. What privacy are we talking about exactly? I think the person's expectation of privacy in public ship has sailed.

Frank53 · May 25, 2018

There has been a lot of discussion here about this new law over the last few months, but not only once about the effect it will have on photography. I expect nothing changes on this subject. Everybody is taking pictures and putting them on Instagram and Facebook all the time and nobody really cares.
Regards,
Frank

Lachlan Young · May 25, 2018

AgX said:
In Germany doing classic street photography and publishing such is basically illegal since 1907, the same for publishing found photos. Hinting at this for years I have been ridiculed...
The same time a case needed a plaintiff. So no photographer bothered.
Whether EU-based regulation does extend on the old german law is discussed over here. Differennt ministries seem to give contrary interpretations.
Most likely of greater importance is the chance for lawyers to check photographers' sites for offences and urging fees within the german concept of pre-court jurisdiction.

Possibly because Article 5 of the Grundgesetz would have to be violated to bring a prosecution under that law & the BVerfG would consequently intervene?

AgX · May 25, 2018

No, that article on freedom of expression and of press does not overun that right on ones own image.
Exception are persons of general or acute interest (which typically concerns the press) and a photograph that forms a work of art (which concerns personal expression).

Sirius Glass · May 25, 2018

I usually wait to take photographs without people mainly because clothes* and vehicles date the photograph.
I avoid posting any photographs.

I do not see this EU rule causing me a problem.

* I keep photographs of naked people off line too.

.

AgX · May 25, 2018

Well, this is off topic, but as I read such remark repeatedly: Why would one want exclude people to avoid dating a photograph? I mean, unless one photographs unharmed nature, most topics show signs of man's action and by that can be dated. Even farmland can be dated.

Sirius Glass · May 25, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
I usually wait to take photographs without people mainly because clothes* and vehicles date the photograph.

I avoid posting any photographs.

I do not see this EU rule causing me a problem.

* I keep photographs of naked people off line too.

AgX said:
Well, this is off topic, but as I read such remark repeatedly: Why would one want exclude people to avoid dating a photograph? I mean, unless one photographs unharmed nature, most topics show signs of man's action and by that can be dated. Even farmland can be dated.

You got it ===> Unharmed nature and sometimes architecture.

.

AgX · May 25, 2018

To me the real annoying thing is the application of two standards.

Over here we have a discussion on personality rights but we do not apply that on photographs taken abroad, especially in poor countries.
This may result in the absurd situation that taking photos inside a gallery is prohibited, due to personality rights of the visitors, who themselves stare at photos of people in distress never asked for permission to show them...

NJH · May 26, 2018

No to me the really annoying thing is lack of clarity. The reason we are having this discussion is because photographs have clearly been included in the scope of the GDPR. However the cases we are discussing are not photography in a private setting, or an organised setting (where a model release or equivalent clear form of consent was already necessary), but photographing someone in a public setting where they have made the decision to make their image publicly available. Unfortunately GDPR seems to capture that as well if one can identify from it a living individual rather than an anonymous silhouette, to me this seems to catch pretty much all photography done in a public place that has people in it (and uniquely it is irrelevant where on the planet the photograph is taken, only that it has EU citizens in it).

Honestly I don't intend to do anything different and we can't know for sure what the impact is on photography in a public setting until the ECJ has run through a case on this subject, that is unlikely to happen IMHO when all the focus is likely to stay on combinatorial processing of data for commercial gain for a long time.

blockend · May 26, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
I consider Google and Facebook to be socially destructuve institutions, and anything done to reign them in by law, or better yet cultural demand, is beneficial to society.

I agree. As nearly all social networking and sharing sites are owned by mega-corporations sharing information internally, everything we do online has a data trail of value to someone.

New EU Data Protection Law Could Affect People Who Take Pictures

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