To be shocked to discover

[Junipercrumble]

Apparently, it is NOT illegal for a stranger to take photographs or video clips of people, including their children in a public place. 😵

I, like many of my friends are astonished if this is true.

I wonder how many people are aware of this?

There is no expectation of privacy when you're in public, and hence no violation of a person's privacy.

Your only option is never to go out in public. Otherwise, yes, you and your children can be photographed.

But realistically, a post on SM that may or may not be true (and if it is, certainly doesn't feel like the whole story) has got you wound up. You're better off ignoring social media if this is the effect it's going to have.

Surely it is a flagrant breach of our privacy?

What privacy?

Who has privacy in a public place?

This is too weird

How could you not know this!?

PS but you'll be delighted to hear that when they get to school you do actually have to give your permission for their image otherwise it won't be used.

(That does of course mean that if they're in a successful sports team, they won't be pictured in it.)

The more you write though I'm starting to think I also maybe didn't know it was legal either

I knew media coverage like I exampled in my pp is legal but you're talking about someone intentionally taking a picture of your child. Not by accident and not in the background but going over and taking a photo - I don't think I knew that was allowed
It's really not ok and if I phoned the police to report someone doing this to my ds would they just laugh at me and say they can't help? Not come to take a statement or anything??

I'm surprised anyone doesn't know this.

I’m really confused about why this is such a big deal. So what if someone has a photo with your child in the background - or even the foreground? I have countless photos from when my kids were small with other peoples kids in them also. What’s the problem?

Exactly!
Inadvertently capturing someone in a photo you are taking of someone you know is not quite the same as deliberately taking a picture or worse, a video clip of someone you dont know, without permission, must be breaking some law regarding privacy?

I'm surprised that people think otherwise to be honest, you have no expectation of privacy when in public.

I also find it odd when people get all twitchy about someone taking a photo with a number plate in it, the car and number plate are in public all the time so it's hardly confidential info

What do you think anyone is going to do with a random photo of you? It doesn’t steal your soul and if they put a curse on you, you’re not going to know about it. It’s no different than people looking at you in public and daring to remember you if it remains for personal, non commercial use and there are restrictions around uses beyond that

This is weird.

I'm sure op has appeared in the background of many photos (and even videos) when they themselves were a child.

What actual harm is it doing?

It's common knowledge that legally, there's no expectation of privacy while you are in public.

I am probably in the photos of people who opted to buy one when on a ride at a theme park.
Can't get worked up about it.

Responding to the questions in your 2nd post, OP:

Nope

and

Nope

Hope that helps.

you know you can go read law if you want. It’s published online

but in short: data protection laws govern the commercial/corporate/organised use of personal data meaning not domestic use. Paparazzi are governed by GDPR because they sell identifiable personal data. It sometimes comes down to expectation of privacy and the age of someone photographed which is why children are often blurred out in paparazzi photos.

GDPR does not cover domestic use, but if a photo is taken for commercial gain you have some rights.there’s also the human rights act to take into consideration which does talk about right to privacy

Also photos are not automatically personal data just because you are in it, there’s a basic test that data protection officers use and it’s along the lines of - can I use this photo to learn something about you and in what context

Well no, and how could that possibly work? No pictures of your family if there’s anyone in the background? No selfies at a festival, no crowd shots in a stadium?

I’m really surprised that anyone thought that there was a law against taking pictures outdoors.

On your paparazzi point, did you just assume that the law said that it’s fine if the person has been in Hollyoaks, but not otherwise?

Privacy? You are in public, you have no right to, or expectation of, privacy when you are out in public.

You and your child have no rights whatsoever in this regard. And of course you have no right to privacy in a public playground!

I hope you haven't seen the pictures of Bournemouth beach in the press then. Thousands of adults and children having their picture taken expressly to print online.

It's one thing being in the background of someone's landscape photo to having a stranger specifically decide they're recording or taking your photos with the intent of uploading you to social media for people to comment on whatever the person with the camera wants you to. I've seen people have some stranger shove a camera in their face as they're getting on the night bus home and they're live streamed to thousands of people. Or someone is minding their own business trying to work out at a gym and you've got someone recording them and uploading to their followers to mock someone who might be on the larger side or who dares walk in front of a camera..

I've an extended family member (who I don't see it have contact with) who live streams every night out, zooming in on people she thinks looks pissed and can't stand up, or slags off the clothes other women wear and if anyone asks her to stop recording them she gets very aggressive and says it's a free country and they're "choosing" to be out of their home.

Dds college used to have someone who made videos of girls eating their lunch in the park outside, he'd sit on the college wall, wait for a girl to sit on the grass and he'd zoom in and comment and what's in her lunchbox, what order he'll think she'd eat it, make rude comments if it was something like a banana and guess if she's straight or not, laugh at her clothing if he didn't like it. He'd also zoom in to see what they where browsing on their phone screens sometimes. I know dd and her friends avoided eating their lunch in certain places because they didn't want to end up on tik tok with strangers guessing her sexuality and they never found out who it was because everyone was on their phones. He just stopped, not sure why because nothing was done in the months people were complaining about it.

I don't think that type of stuff should be ok and there's some people who use the "it's a public place" to just record people they know would say no if they walked up and asked, like if they said "I'm just gonna record you sitting there eating your lunch so my followers can guess if you're straight" They know they'd be told no.

It's very different to someone taking a photo of a landmark or of their own family going down a slide and catching someone else's child in the background, because the stranger isn't the feature of the photo in those contexts.

That’s actually not quite true as bizarre as it sounds. For instance, you can breastfeed in a public place and expect a degree of privacy. You’ll never find it detailed specifically in law, some of that’s governed by the human rights act and it’s the test cases that direct us.

We had someone who had their photo taken on a train argue their human rights had been violated, and they won!

Do you have a case reference for that? It’s a very unusual,result, and I suspect there was something more to it than just being in a photograph.

It’s right that there are protections around things like breastfeeding, and people taking pictures up someone’s skirt, but a picture with a person in who’s just sitting around in public is generally fine,

Most people's children are not so attractive or distinctive or so undressed that random paedophiles are going to be snapping their pictures at the park. Even identifying small children can be difficult because they change so much and so many of them have the same facial proportions - like proportionally bigger eyes and little noses and so on. My youngest son looked liked like a blue eyed Anglo Saxon with straight light brown hair. I had trouble picking him up in the playground at after school care because the place was full of small boys most of whom looked a lot like him and were dressed a lot like him. My dark eyed dark haired son who stood out in that group but would look like any other number of children in other groups.

Maybe somebody took a photograph of one of my sons when they were younger. Maybe somebody is lusting over it right now. And you know what, I don't know and I don't care and neither would they.