It's all part of the new Zero-tolerance policies that have been enacted in recent years; it enables authorities to NOT have to think through their decisions or pass judgments. And you can thank litigation-mad attorneys and a public who views the justice system as lottery.
Upset at the actions of the photolab
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I don't know about the environment in Australia. Here in the US, I would say the photolab employee could have been guarding himself against the political correctness environment we have. "Zero tolerance" is an expression that blithers from the lips of the political class. Humorously, the following short clip may very well illustrate the best policy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFTH7u6YGS8
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ag4nkSh7Q
Ultimately, this is where digital has always been the winner. Privacy. The photo lab, nobody, sees any images we don't wish to share. Nobody ever wanted a middleman, especially not a prying middlemen, but somebody had to do the dirty work of developing and printing.
Makes ya wonder though. With middlemen (of all sorts, from photo labs to schoolteachers to bus drivers) "blowing the whistle" on everything they see or hear (or rather think they saw, or heard) how does any child abuse ever happen? I think too often it happens spontaneously, in anger, and there was no warning. All these prying eyes and well meaning folk never see any signs. When they DO see "signs" they go all gaga and say YES WE GOT ONE and of course it turns out to be nothing of the sort. Just some wasted policeman's time and salary. I'd REALLY REALLY like to know how many times REAL abusers are caught by these practices. If it's 1 out of a hundred, great, but I'm betting one would be hard to find.
Makes ya wonder though. With middlemen (of all sorts, from photo labs to schoolteachers to bus drivers) "blowing the whistle" on everything they see or hear (or rather think they saw, or heard) how does any child abuse ever happen? I think too often it happens spontaneously, in anger, and there was no warning. All these prying eyes and well meaning folk never see any signs. When they DO see "signs" they go all gaga and say YES WE GOT ONE and of course it turns out to be nothing of the sort. Just some wasted policeman's time and salary. I'd REALLY REALLY like to know how many times REAL abusers are caught by these practices. If it's 1 out of a hundred, great, but I'm betting one would be hard to find.
MattKing
Moderator
Sorry, I cannot agree with some of the posts above. It is not political correctness, it is the result of horrendous behavior by many individuals.
There are people out there with libraries of pictures of naked children who also engage in horrible physical and sexual abuse of children.
The "zero tolerance" rules are there to take the discretion out of the hands of people like store clerks and lab employees.
The discretion and judgment is quite rightly transferred to people who are knowledgeable about the scourge of child abuse.
The problem with the OP's situation isn't with the lab, it is with the police, who followed up, determined that there was no problem, but confiscated the entirely innocent slide anyways.
The police may have been forced to confiscate the slide, due to the rules they are required to enforce. If so, those rules need reviewing.
There are people out there with libraries of pictures of naked children who also engage in horrible physical and sexual abuse of children.
The "zero tolerance" rules are there to take the discretion out of the hands of people like store clerks and lab employees.
The discretion and judgment is quite rightly transferred to people who are knowledgeable about the scourge of child abuse.
The problem with the OP's situation isn't with the lab, it is with the police, who followed up, determined that there was no problem, but confiscated the entirely innocent slide anyways.
The police may have been forced to confiscate the slide, due to the rules they are required to enforce. If so, those rules need reviewing.
+1
There was a case here in Minnesota (US) where a father had taken a cell phone video of his kids running around naked. It was his employer provided phone and, when he brought it in for some technical reason, the video was found and police involved. He was charged and only after a while were charges dropped. He was certainly guilty of very poor judgement, but nothing else. None the less, those who found the video and notified police did the right thing.
At least in the US, labs have language stating "Submitting any tangible or electronic media, image, ... constitutes an agreement that any loss or damage to it by our company, subsidiary, or agents, even though by our negligence or other fault, will only entitle you to replacement with an equivalent quantity/size of unexposed photographic film or electronic media." Seems to me that their turning it over to the police caused you loss of this single image. You should demand that the lab give you an equivalent amount of unexposed transparency film. Since they can't give you a single shot, you should demand an entire roll, and since only 36-exp. rolls are still manufactured, you end up with 36 shots of transparency film for the cost of one single image.
So... How much money did you USED TO spend at that establishment?
Do you think the owner ought to be made aware of that?
Regardless of what the law might be, I think it's funny that people who aren't legal professionals, who don't have degrees in psychology or who aren't sworn officers of the law would take it upon themselves to make judgements that they are clearly not qualified to make.
What would you say if you took your car to the auto mechanic and he threatened to call the cops because he thought your vision wasn't good enough to drive? What if your doctor said you couldn't leave his office until you fixed the headlights on your car? You'd tell them to go to hell. Unless there is a clear danger, those people people have no business making those kinds of demands. A photo lab operator is just as unqualified to make such a decision.
I don't think that the law reads that every bare bum must be scrutinized. I think the people in that shop stepped way over the limit. I don't think that business should be rewarded with a portion of your hard-earned income for being so stupid.
Do you think the owner ought to be made aware of that?
Regardless of what the law might be, I think it's funny that people who aren't legal professionals, who don't have degrees in psychology or who aren't sworn officers of the law would take it upon themselves to make judgements that they are clearly not qualified to make.
What would you say if you took your car to the auto mechanic and he threatened to call the cops because he thought your vision wasn't good enough to drive? What if your doctor said you couldn't leave his office until you fixed the headlights on your car? You'd tell them to go to hell. Unless there is a clear danger, those people people have no business making those kinds of demands. A photo lab operator is just as unqualified to make such a decision.
I don't think that the law reads that every bare bum must be scrutinized. I think the people in that shop stepped way over the limit. I don't think that business should be rewarded with a portion of your hard-earned income for being so stupid.
On the heels of the NSA revelations welcome to 1984 where the governments uses their citizens to spy on others.
The funny thing is that I suspect people who produce pornography have been using digital cameras for some years to avoid a problem such as this. There is an obvious solution, process you own film.
The funny thing is that I suspect people who produce pornography have been using digital cameras for some years to avoid a problem such as this. There is an obvious solution, process you own film.
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My contention exactly.
Maybe the image should be posted here and we can help determine if it is naughty or nice. 
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Remember those old naked baby portraits on bear skin rugs? Is that porn?
Lowly ! Just let everybody know the details of the photolab (name, address). Should i come down under i will simply avoid it....
That only applies to erroneous acting of the lab (losing, mis-processing etc. film). In this case they may have acted rightly.
I am a lab owner and have worked in very large labs my whole career.
I would say this is a very grey area. But in Canada we are not obligated by Law to report what comes through our lab.
Personally I have never came across the situation where I had to make this kind of decision, I have many clients who photograph their children and have never seen issue.
I have had photographers warn me of subject matter before I process and print. I am given the opportunity to decide. Also since I control my shop I can make sure who handles the work.
But in a very large lab, its another can of worms. You have no idea who is working the floor and one is opening themselves up for scrutiny or poor decision making. If a technician complains and refuses to work on the subject matter there is nothing the Lab Owner can do but comply.
At BGM Colour Labs in Toronto , I remember the RCMP bringing in days and days of processing of their investigations.
The whole processing area was secluded, the film processer operator was given the film , and the film was loaded onto the processor and an RCMP officer would stand at
the end of the Refrema processor and sleeve the film... Nobody from the lab, was allowed to see the film , even the film operator.
I would say this is a very grey area. But in Canada we are not obligated by Law to report what comes through our lab.
Personally I have never came across the situation where I had to make this kind of decision, I have many clients who photograph their children and have never seen issue.
I have had photographers warn me of subject matter before I process and print. I am given the opportunity to decide. Also since I control my shop I can make sure who handles the work.
But in a very large lab, its another can of worms. You have no idea who is working the floor and one is opening themselves up for scrutiny or poor decision making. If a technician complains and refuses to work on the subject matter there is nothing the Lab Owner can do but comply.
At BGM Colour Labs in Toronto , I remember the RCMP bringing in days and days of processing of their investigations.
The whole processing area was secluded, the film processer operator was given the film , and the film was loaded onto the processor and an RCMP officer would stand at
the end of the Refrema processor and sleeve the film... Nobody from the lab, was allowed to see the film , even the film operator.
I can't sell you a hot dog without taking a course on food safety and undergoing health inspections. I have to have licenses and pay fees for all of this.
But, who trained the employees of that business in pornography detection?
How were these employees informed that they were responsible for detecting and reporting pornography? Did some government official send them a letter? Did they get a visit from the police? Did they just read about it in the newspaper? Who told them to interpret photographs in order to report them?
Who taught them the legal standards for judging photographs as pornography? Don't give me the, "I know it when I see it," argument. This is different. A man's liberty and property are at stake. It's not just a case of freedom of speech.
Which employees took a seminar in pornography detection? Are they lawyers? Are they criminal psychologists? Where are their degrees? Where are their certificates? Who paid the fees and secured the licenses? How can untrained, unlicensed and uneducated store employees be expected to know the law and act correctly? We're talking about the possibility of sending a man to jail, here!
If a store owner hired a security guard to look out for shoplifters, that person would have to be trained in civil liability, the legal standards for shoplifting as well as the proper methods of confronting potential shoplifters. I know. I have taken those courses.
If a store security guard confronted a customer who is not actually a shoplifter, he could very well be held liable for damages. He could be charged with false arrest and, himself, be thrown in jail. (If it is an egregious offense.) He and the shop owner who hired him could be held liable for (money) damages. It could easily be enough to ruin the business.
If I owned a store, I would instruct my employees to NOT confront shoplifters. I would simply tell them to follow the guy to the property line, get his description and write down the license number to his car if they can then call the police. My security cameras would have recorded the crime and would be evidence of guilt.
I don't care if this happened in Adelaide or Albuquerque. If I owned a photo lab, I would instruct my employees to NOT report any photographs to the police unless it was absolutely, crystal clear that something illegal was taking place in the pictures.
I don't think the business owner was right, in any sense of the word, to do what he did.
I make it a point to shop at my local camera shop whenever I can. Maybe I don't spend $1,000 every week but I am a regular customer. If I just need batteries for my TV remote control, I'll stop there if it's convenient. I'm pretty sure I spend $1,000 over the course of a year. I don't know any store owner who wouldn't be, at least, disappointed to know that he has just lost $1,000 per year for the foreseeable future.
If ten other people who read this and who might have gone to that shop also stop going there, that figure could easily rise to $10,000.
I don't know about you but I would be pretty pissed off to know that I had lost that much money.
Randy, we must live in the world as it is, not as we might like it to be ...
... but it is no more right or wrong than if one were to call the police to report screams coming from the home next door. As a citizen (or even as a human being) we are compelled to attempt to keep sanity in our society. Sometimes that involves reporting suspicions to those who are educated and chartered to discern the real danger of a situation. It is the role of the police to investigate, and the courts to arbitrate; assuming that one needs to be qualified in those roles just to have a reasonable suspicion of potential harm (or comply with an established reporting law, as may have been the case in this discussion) seems a bit of a stretch.
This is the world we live in and, not to seem harsh to the OP or anyone else... there has been enough of this stutation in the news over the years that one would have to be living under a rock to have not expected such a issue to be a realistic possibility. Sad... very sad... but this is our world, and has been for quite some time.
p.s. The destruction of the personally-owned materials is a different matter. Since no crime was involved those never should have been destroyed. That should be pursued in a civil complaint against the police agency since it could have been retaliatory behavior rather than a situation of accidental damage.
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hi randy
the same lab that called the police on the people that i knew
was known to have processed and print some of the most graphic porn
as well (from what i understand from a friend who used to work there) ..
no one was ever arrested, no one was ever reported to the police &c BUT the difference is
the graphic porn was created by consenting adults, and had nothing to do with children.
labs and society in general have had eyes wide open ( thankfully ) when it comes to kids, kiddieporn
child abuse and labs are required to report whenever anything that involves nudity and children arrives
at their doorstep. sometimes they get it wrong, and it is a parent goofing around
photographing their version of "the coppertone advertisement" or something naïve but sometimes they get it right
and nail a sick individual/s.
while i feel bad for the OP i am glad the lab owners were doing their job.
john
the same lab that called the police on the people that i knew
was known to have processed and print some of the most graphic porn
as well (from what i understand from a friend who used to work there) ..
no one was ever arrested, no one was ever reported to the police &c BUT the difference is
the graphic porn was created by consenting adults, and had nothing to do with children.
labs and society in general have had eyes wide open ( thankfully ) when it comes to kids, kiddieporn
child abuse and labs are required to report whenever anything that involves nudity and children arrives
at their doorstep. sometimes they get it wrong, and it is a parent goofing around
photographing their version of "the coppertone advertisement" or something naïve but sometimes they get it right
and nail a sick individual/s.
while i feel bad for the OP i am glad the lab owners were doing their job.
john
A photographer friend of mine has been doing a long term project of photographing a local park over many years (twenty so far). About ten years ago you suddenly notice that ther are no kids in the shots any more.
I asked him and he told me of a woman in the distance that shouted 'look at that pedofile over there taking kiddy pictures'
The people in question hardly registered on the photo.
After that he made sure there were no one in the shots.
Sick people need to be caught but when does it become to excess?
It's like the searches getting on a plane. If you want to be that sure then strip search everyone! Not going to happen!!!
Alan
I asked him and he told me of a woman in the distance that shouted 'look at that pedofile over there taking kiddy pictures'
The people in question hardly registered on the photo.
After that he made sure there were no one in the shots.
Sick people need to be caught but when does it become to excess?
It's like the searches getting on a plane. If you want to be that sure then strip search everyone! Not going to happen!!!
Alan
I must vigorously disagree. To do so reduces all of us to mindless sheep. We are reasoning beings with the power to change what we do not like.
I did not say that one must accept the status quo. One can work to change the status quo, but until it changes one must live with it.
MattKing
Moderator
Whereas the problem of child abuse and paedophilia is all too real.
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