Private use and social media

Phil V said:
You made the blatantly stupid statement that you could shoot inside my house without breaking any laws.:police:

You know you were wrong, because there’s many things that may be illegal, now you’re blustering.
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I have never stated that I could shoot inside your house without breaking any laws. Since when have I stated that I wanted to take photo’s inside your house? I’ve always been talking about standing on the public highway and taking photo’s of a house, not being inside the said house. Don’t twist my words, you’re blustering
 
Andrew Smith said:
I have never stated that I could shoot inside your house without breaking any laws.
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And yet bizarrely I keep quoting you posting exactly that.
(You’ll note you can click the link to return to where you posted it)

Andrew Smith said:
I can stand on the pavement and take photo’s of someone’s house. Anyone can. If that includes the windows it includes the windows and whatever you can see through them.
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Feel free to keep denying it though. Because it’s amusing lots of us and it might make a difference to the odd person who thought you might have known what you were talking about.
 
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Andrew Smith said:
I can stand on the pavement and take photo’s of someone’s house. Anyone can. If that includes the windows it includes the windows and whatever you can see through them. Bye.
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Andrew Smith said:
I have never stated that I could shoot inside your house without breaking any laws. Since when have I stated that I wanted to take photo’s inside your house? I’ve always been talking about standing on the public highway and taking photo’s of a house, not being inside the said house. Don’t twist my words, you’re blustering
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What did you mean, and Phil referred to it was in the first quoted post above, when you make explicit reference to revealing the contents/goings on within because your perfectly legal picture innocently (?) included said view.........so what did you mean by that part of your statement?

Incidentally/accidental inclusion IMO would require you to act responsibly and delete as appropriate. Any other use or publication of said images is where you would be at risk of breaking one or more laws. Again I say context is all........especially (again I repeat) if your intention was to reveal the interior of the house that is where your legal action becomes illegal.

So do please do explain why you mentioned windows and house interior visible???
 
Phil V said:
And yet bizarrely I keep quoting you posting exactly that.
(You’ll note you can click the link to return to where you posted it)

Feel free to keep denying it though. Because it’s amusing lots of us and it might make a difference to the odd person who thought you might have known what you were talking about.
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Actually he's right in one way. Unless he is stalking/harassing the subject and hasn't taken extraordinary measures to get the shot (ladders, cherry pickers etc) then he can take the photo.

HOWEVER - he can't do anything with it because of the privacy breach. The image cannot be published. For clarity, that means posting to social media, your own website, making a physical print and having it on display to anyone other than yourself etc etc.

I pointed that out a page or two ago.

Classic example - the day after IDS's resignation from the cabinet in 2016 we had an absolute corker of a shot (from a public road) of him in his kitchen, on the phone, waving to the photographer. The papers wouldn't touch it as it breached his Art 8 HRA 1998 rights.
 
Phil V said:
And yet bizarrely I keep quoting you posting exactly that.
(You’ll note you can click the link to return to where you posted it)



Feel free to keep denying it though. Because it’s amusing lots of us and it might make a difference to the odd person who thought you might have known what you were talking about.
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Yes that’s exactly what I said. If I am standing on the public highway and I take a picture of your house it will include anything that is visible through the windows - if anything is visible. Your quote was talking about me taking photo’s inside your house. I have been talking about capturing whatever I can see from the public highway, not taking pictures stood in your lounge which you are talking about. Get it straight.
 
Andrew Smith said:
Yes that’s exactly what I said. If I am standing on the public highway and I take a picture of your house it will include anything that is visible through the windows - if anything is visible. Your quote was talking about me taking photo’s inside your house. I have been talking about capturing whatever I can see from the public highway, not taking pictures stood in your lounge which you are talking about. Get it straight.
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He is getting it straight. You're the one prevaricating and flapping around like a loose jib.
 
Andrew Smith said:
Yes that’s exactly what I said. If I am standing on the public highway and I take a picture of your house it will include anything that is visible through the windows - if anything is visible. Your quote was talking about me taking photo’s inside your house. I have been talking about capturing whatever I can see from the public highway, not taking pictures stood in your lounge which you are talking about. Get it straight.
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You are being pedantic in an effort to defend your stance and in regard to that stance i.e. your statement about what is visible within (as seen though the windows) hence inside the house.

But in so doing have yet to answer or acknowledge that that stated recording of the inside contents and how that photographic recording could get you in trouble with the law.

Your continued refusal to expand & answer the questions about it doesn't do you any credit ~ it saddens me that on what should have been a discussion of insight and education, has because of your obfuscation, sunk into you seeming to try to defend the indefensible.
 
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Box Brownie said:
You are being pedantic in an effort to defend your stance and in regard to that stance i.e. your statement about what is visible within (as seen though the windows) hence inside the house.

But in so doing have yet to answer or acknowledge that that stated recording of the inside contents and how that photographic recording could get you in trouble with the law.

Your continued refusal to expand & answer the questions about it doesn't do you any credit ~ it saddens me that on what should have been a discussion of insight and education, has because of your obfuscation, sunk into you seeming to try to defend the indefensible.
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I am not being pedantic. I am stating fact. I have never posted about taking photo’s whilst inside someone’s house.
 
I think to address the OPs question there’s one persons view that anything taken anywhere from a public place is fair game, and a few persons have cited whilst on the whole this applies however there are legislative caveats that you need to be aware of where the blanket fair game does not apply.
 
Andrew Smith said:
I am not being pedantic. I am stating fact. I have never posted about taking photo’s whilst inside someone’s house.
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Less pedantic, more obtuse.
 
Goodness, this is getting argumentative. Can we try to cool things down before the name-calling starts?

Here's the key claim:
Andrew Smith said:
I can stand on the pavement and take photo’s of someone’s house. Anyone can. If that includes the windows it includes the windows and whatever you can see through them.
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Can you take such a photo? Yes. It is physically possible.

Can you do it legally? Yes. As @DemiLion pointed out, so long as you're not taking extraordinarily measures to take the photo, and you're not harassing the occupants, then it can be legal.

Can you publish it? Yes. It is physically possible.

Can you publish it legally? No, not if there is a person in the photo, because of the expectation of - and therefore the right to - privacy.

Does anybody disagree with any of that? If so, which bit, and why?
 
StewartR said:
Goodness, this is getting argumentative. Can we try to cool things down before the name-calling starts?

Here's the key claim:


Can you take such a photo? Yes. It is physically possible.

Can you do it legally? Yes. As @DemiLion pointed out, so long as you're not taking extraordinarily measures to take the photo, and you're not harassing the occupants, then it can be legal.

Can you publish it? Yes. It is physically possible.

Can you publish it legally? No, not if there is a person in the photo, because of the expectation of - and therefore the right to - privacy.

Does anybody disagree with any of that? If so, which bit, and why?
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Nope, think that’s pretty much spot on. I think the question extends though to non-domestic properties ranging all the way to those in the realms of national security and critical national infrastructure.
 
Box Brownie said:
AFAIK and as Phil said taking a picture of the house is not acting illegally but (and I await those with insight to post as needed) then it comes down to context ~ i.e. why are you taking the picture, was your intent to capture the occupants and/or the contents and what is your history i.e. is this the first time or one of many times that you have taken pictures of 'this' house. Are there not laws against voyeurism, harrassment, intimidation.....???

AFAIK UK law is based on case law i.e. prior precedent....................is the reason you are taking the picture covered by such case law???

Waiting to learn!

Edit ~ re Google Streeview ~ their intent is mapping and guidance not access to personal 'data'. I thought the obfuscation of faces & car number plates was done by computer (i.e. way too much for all manual intervention) and if they inadvertently miss something, once advised, they will act to obscure it ~ so the fact that you can see inside your own house..............if that concerns you for whatever reason tell them to 'correct the view'! Do not use their automated systems as a reason for you to cover your 'interpretation' of UK law or the lack of it.
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One of the students on my course had an interesting project on the relationship between trees in the street and the houses (leafy tree lined roads in the suburbs where she lived). Possibly more of interest now with Sheffield council cutting down thousands of trees
 
Andrew Smith said:
I am not being pedantic. I am stating fact. I have never posted about taking photo’s whilst inside someone’s house.
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No and no one said you did. (That’s your pedantry)
You said you were free to take photos of the inside if a house though; no matter what was there. And they’re youre incorrect.
The following might help your stunted imagination:
  • A view up my wife’s skirt
  • One of my teenage children enjoying themselves watching porn
  • The security guard you photographed and p***ed off earlier and who’d been to the police about your harassment of him.
  • Any regular behaviour that might be considered a breach of my human rights
And as Mark has been saying from the start, the ‘taking of a photograph’ is rarely an offence, it’s all about what happens next (but what’s the point of taking a picture you’re doing nothing with).
You simply can’t shoot anything you like, that’s the stupid line from the forum idiots.
 
Giblets said:
Magna Carta probably does! :ROFLMAO:
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There are only three clauses still on the statute, the freedom of the English Church, the "ancient liberties" of the City of London (clause 13 in the 1215 charter, clause 9 in the 1297 statute), and a right to due legal process (clauses 39 and 40 in the 1215 charter, clause 29 in the 1297 statute).

I can't see anything about photography ;) :D
 
StewartR said:
Can you publish it legally? No, not if there is a person in the photo, because of the expectation of - and therefore the right to - privacy.

Does anybody disagree with any of that? If so, which bit, and why?
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There are always exceptions - not that I feel comfortable with this, although these were in the US and claimed artistic work

Arne Svenson - the neighbours
http://arnesvenson.com/theneighbors.html

Got taken to court and won his case under the first amendment
https://www.theguardian.com/artandd.../art-peeping-photography-privacy-arne-svenson

Gail Albert Halaban - Out my Windows
https://mymodernmet.com/gail-albert-halaban-paris-views/

I knew that art degree course would come in handy one day :D
 
Andrew Smith said:
I am not being pedantic. I am stating fact. I have never posted about taking photo’s whilst inside someone’s house.
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The reason I said pedantic was because Phil said this "........shoot inside my house ......" and maybe should have said ".......shoot the inside of my house......." but you took that to suggest he meant that you were physically inside the house. But he yet again qualifed it by quoting your original statement, in regard to which you have still to expand and explain your intentions for any revealed interior details.
 
Byker28i said:
I knew that art degree course would come in handy one day :D
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Fascinating!

Gail Albert Halaban had the subjects' permission, so that's not relevant here.

Arne Svenson didn't. But as you said, he was in the USA, and the court ruling was that his First Amendment rights to free speech, particularly as an artist, trumped the subjects' rights to privacy. I imagine that in the UK courts it would be the other way round.... Has there ever been a relevant case over here?
 
StewartR said:
Fascinating!

Gail Albert Halaban had the subjects' permission, so that's not relevant here.

Arne Svenson didn't. But as you said, he was in the USA, and the court ruling was that his First Amendment rights to free speech, particularly as an artist, trumped the subjects' rights to privacy. I imagine that in the UK courts it would be the other way round.... Has there ever been a relevant case over here?
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Not that I can think of, the complete opposite, thinking of the Paul Weller case.

Closest I can think of an artists work in the UK is Nick Turpins work Through a glass darkly, of Bus passengers, almost like intimate paintings because of the condensation on the windows
https://nickturpin.com/winter-bus/
 
A genuine question about the Sarah Lee and Tom Wood books mentioned above (so let's not fall out with each other about answering it!):

Would a public omnibus be classed as a public place where an individual wouldn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy? If so, would a person on a privately chartered coach (hired exclusively by a group of friends/family or a club or other such organisation) have a right to privacy?

And no badger points for anyone mentioning 'the man on the Clapham omnibus' as part of their answer! ;)
 
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I guess that also falls into street photography. I mean we're not taking Bruce Gildren in your face, but long lens?

Joel Meyerowitz says of his images that he is capturing moments in life that are otherwise unseen and unconsidered, “is made up out of life, but its invisible, all present, but invisible, only the camera makes it visible”

Steve McCurry calls it "that unguarded moment"

Susan Sontag starts her book, on photography, with “To collect photographs is to collect the world” and “Photographs really are experienced captured and the camera is the ideal arm of conciousness in its acquisitive mood.” although she later states that “to photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they have never seen themselves”

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I don't think it's the same voyeurism of Arne Svenson, which is probably why that went to court and Turpins work wasn't, but it's an often challenged point of street photography that you're imposing on privacy, but these moments are usually what makes the image, the natural state. People tend to pose when they see a camera, or certainly to react to it, change their behaviour.

Robert Franks said that we “learn something new about ourselves by looking inherently at the hidden lives of others” and his work can have influences on us when we are out and about
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I shot a whole series of work on the london tube, how people reacted to the surroundings. My personal aim was not to publish anything that was unflattering, but to capture those unguarded moments
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Richard Gray won awards in 2014 shooting travellers on his mobile phone
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Have things changed now with the rise of mobile phone photography, it's more accepted now that people will be taking photos. Is this why we see challenges for DSLR's but not mobiles?
 
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Setting aside different legal jurisdictions.

Pictures taken of people (from outside) of them whilst in their homes are questionable as regards to invasion of privacy but street photography has a history almost since photography began.

I do not do much people photography but have shot some street photography and shop windows as well. These afaik have never knowingly broken rules/laws? NB nor being inconsiderate of those folks feelings. Yes, some have been candids but not of anyone in an embarrassing situation.
 
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Box Brownie said:
Setting aside different legal jurisdictions.

Pictures taken of people (from outside) of them whilst in their homes are questionable as regards to invasion of privacy but street photography has a history almost since photography began.

I do not do much people photography but have shot some street photography and shop windows as well. These afaik have never knowingly broken rules/laws? NB nor being inconsiderate of those folks feelings. Yes, some have been candids but not of anyone in an embarrassing situation.
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As per many situations there's the balance of legal vs considerate. lack of the latter is what ends up having all photographers tarred with the same brush. It would seem that some on here don't seem to be bothered by that, just as long as they get what they want.
 
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