We're Americans. If we practiced DBAD, pretty much everything would be different.
Of all our American flaws, "It's not illegal for me to be a dick and therefore I am going to be on" is perhaps the one we're proudest of. (Followed, perhaps, by "It's illegal for me to be a dick but you can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and that's as good as legal" and "It's illegal for me to be a dick but nobody is going to bother prosecuting therefore it's as good as legal.")
It would be great if we all practiced Don't Be A Dick. But for those who are most harmed by people being dicks, we need to figure out ways to protect them legally, because otherwise people will be a dick to them as hard as they possibly can. And every time you try, people will say "Nobody is being a dick to me therefore nobody needs to be protected."
This actually pretty accurately and succinctly describes the difference between American and Canadian culture.
As a Canadian in the US I'm often asked the difference, and I've mostly held my tongue from saying "You're all pretty damn rude, and have fragile egos" but I think I might steal your description because it makes sense.
> Sure, it’s legal to film people in public in the US without their consent. But it’s also shitty.
I don’t think that it’s always shitty to film people in public without their consent. This is not a black and white issue.
Do you feel that consent should be obtained from everyone who is visible in any video taken outdoors, regardless of whether those people are the intended subject of the video? Do you have a consent problem with surveillance videos? How about videos captured on car dash cameras?
Let’s say you are at a tourist attraction, capturing a video of the attraction. Another visitor asks that you stop filming, because they don’t want to be in your video. Dickish to continue? I’m not so sure.
It’s easy to say “don’t be a dick,” but that statement sidesteps the reality that reasonable people can (and do) disagree about what that means.
> Do you feel that consent should be obtained from everyone who is visible in any video taken outdoors
It's a spectrum.
When someone is the subject of your video, like the AC/DC person in the article, then YES, you are a shitty person if you post that for the world to see without their permission.
I don't think the point is "family video." I think the point is "viral tik tok video." And it seems like we've been here before. Monetized entertainment is monetized entertainment.
> Do you have a consent problem with surveillance videos?
Ubiquitous CCTV cameras certainly bring issues of privacy, as well as what they should be used for.
One example is Smart Streetlights, which were initially promoted as energy saving lights that would help to measure and manage traffic and pollution, but quickly turned into dragnet police surveillance systems, initially for solving violent crimes but ultimately including property crimes such as vandalism, illegal dumping, and destruction of city property[1], and for protest surveillance [2].
License plate cameras tend to have similar mission creep - they start out for parking enforcement or for red light tickets and turn into a system for tracking citizens whenever and wherever they drive.
In Japan, it’s been common practice to blur out the faces of anyone who hasn’t given consent in a photo/video. This applies to crowds as well. This can be an easy way to always avoid being a dick.
The biggest problem I have with those tiktokers is that they will ruin filming in public for the rest of us, as people will demand some kind of radical law prohibiting it.
I am totally fine with the distinction that is enshrined in law in many places around the world: you can record everything in public, but you cannot publish what you recorded without consent.
The issue is that we have two extremes (as it often happens) that either react to the camera as if it's the devil eating their souls and freak out, or we have the tiktokers basically ignoring the second part (no publication without consent).
I find that when people present these ethical gray areas about a given behavior, they always conclude that it's best to allow the behavior to continue, the (false) premise being that doing so is the ethically neutral position to take. It's a neat little rhetorical trick used to rationalize all kinds of things.
I didn't say it was a black and white issue. I said it was an ethical issue, and like all ethical issues, there is a very wide spectrum of what fits, what doesn't, and what's grey area.
I can think of reasons why one might record a stranger in public, or a stranger might end up in a recording, but I thought it was pretty clear from the article that we're not talking about that—we're talking about content creators (any person making content) filming strangers without consent so they can create content using those strangers. These other things you're talking about are irrelevant to that conversation.
If things end up online (and everything recorded by a modern cam will end up online at least at one of Google, Apple, FB, or MS) this is not OK. You can't control what those companies do with the data. If you don't like your life ending up in the cloud nobody may film you without your consent. There is not much room for discussion. (Maybe if the recordings would be done with offline devices and you would get written guaranties that the recording never gets onto an networked computer, but who could promise this in today's world?)
It's interesting as this is one area where Japanese law is significantly different from American law. It's really easy to sue people in Japan and win for people using your image without your permission. This is why you see so many videos from Japan when news agencies film on the streets they'll blur people's faces.
Since just before 2016 and enforced by the pandemic, it's pretty obvious if you are going through life relying on people not to take advantage of the fact that "being a dick" is a loophole while everyone else is polite or obeys the law, you are going to get run over or killed.
When I worked in film/tv production we were perpetually getting signed releases from people who were in the shot. Is this just not a thing now? Or is the downside so low that nobody cares?
The downside is proportional to pocket size. If you’re a rando Tik Toker or YouTuber, you have nothing to take (or so little, you can round down to zero). A production company has assets or capitalization at risk, hence the legal dance around releases.
Signing the releases isn't in the videos you make right? Institutional knowledge isn't transferred to people on tiktok. They replicate what they see, which is the walking up to people part. All the stuff behind the scenes is only known by people working in the industry.
The legal situation is different if the intended use of the footage is commercial (film/tv in your case) or not. Getting releases is still very much a thing in all the shoots I've been on recently.
Did the release signing come after the intrusiveness? Or do all the “man on the street” segments feature people who were asked off-camera for permission?
in my experience growing up in LA in the 90s, hanging around where "reality" tv was being shot on the street, you usually get approached with a release by producers after they've already gotten you in a shot.
In documentaries I worked on we would tell people what we were doing and ask them if we could talk to them and then get a release afterwards. Not sure about other types of shows.
It's my understanding that tv and film people do the signed releases because they don't want to be sued, not because they necessarily wouldn't eventually win an expensive legal battle if they were sued.
I've watched some Japanese video creators on YouTube and so often when they film streets they frame their shot so as to cut off the faces of those in public (whether by tilting the camera, or shooting a crowd where everyone is walking away). It's so polite, so considerate <3
> “It isn’t a criminal offense to photograph people’s faces in public, but it can be a civil offense if the person who has been photographed finds their likeness published anywhere. They can make a case against the photographer on the grounds of breach of privacy,” says Tia. “The threat of being identified in a creative’s work and suffering consequences for it is all the victim needs to prove in court.”
> That’s why on most Japanese blogs, YouTube videos, and television programs, the faces of bystanders are blurred, an arduous and artistically painful process for any passionate creative. Tia says it best: “As an artist, mosaics and bars over the face can be such an ugly mark on one’s work.”
So, I love japanese photography and their street photography is very lively and rooted in decades of tradition. A couple of years ago a famous photographer got some backlash for being "inconsiderate" but only lost his partnership with a famous camera manufacturer.
How does this law fit with the very alive and active community of publishing street photographers?
I wonder how this works in the case of identical twins, in which a person could independently contract to distribute a likeness that was indistinguishable from that of the other person.
There are quite a few east Asian students in the city where I live, and especially the girls like to do photo shoots around town. They go to lengths to get shots without other people in, but I always got the impression they're doing it for aesthetics primarily above consideration for others
I'm not sure what it's called, but I've seen a product which is a database of the time/location of US car license plate sightings. As I understand it, these are OCR'd from a combination of private, and public footage. I wonder if something similar exists for faces, and if some company is performing facial recognition on publicly uploaded footage. It sounds quite paranoid, however we know for a fact that such technology exists, and that there's a motivation for it.
I don't _think_ yet, publicly -- as far as time/location of sighting records. I would assume that national security police forces have it though... perhaps still secretly in the US? It is known that Chinese security police have it.
But facial recognition on public data, yes, there are commercial facial recognition databases, but i dont' think they (yet?) have timestamped geocoded sightings.
> Australia and U.S.-based face biometrics provider VerifyFaces has unveiled its consumer-facing facial recognition service which can be used for background checks. Unlike image-only searches such as PimEyes, VerifyFaces combines facial recognition and text searches.
> From $11, individual users can conduct a search on the company’s website in four ways: by photo or video, name and birthday, phone number, and home address.
Here is a Vice article [1] on how the repo industry leverages a private database from ALPR [2] cameras mounted on cars, businesses, etc. It tracks everyone, not just those delinquent on their payments.
Here in Norway filming or photographing in public space is in most cases perfectly legal. It's publishing it that's restricted. You walking randomly in the background of a wide street shot you have to accept, but if you're the main focus of the video it can't be published without your approval.
Unless it has some kind of "allmenn interesse", aka "general interest", where it's better for society that it's published vs your right for privacy. For instance if you're a public figure doing something bad in public and getting video taped, you can't stop that from getting out by not "approving" it.
At least here in Austria it is also legal to publish (without consent) if the people appear in a crowd (many individuals) or if the person (so even just one) acts as a prop in the image/video szene. Another exception is when the created image/szene is considered as "art". In all three cases you loose your rights on your own picture.
By civil law only. A criminal act it is not. That means unless the person takes it into their own hands to sue, nothing will happen. Still, you take on quite a legal risk if you publish footage that shows strangers, because you’ll never know when they will turn up and sue you for damages. It could happen 10 years down the line, and the amount of damages they can claim will be even higher the longer the footage has been published.
It is not criminal to _shoot/film_, however it is a criminal act to _publish_ videos/photos with people when they have not consented. There are many exceptions though (famous persons, people accidentally in the picture not being the focus, public demonstrations and other events — maybe not the best translations, just to give some ideas)
Yet how many millions of Europeans in countries with laws of this sort have appeared on Instagram, Flickr, TikTok, etc.? It may be technically the case but essentially no one worries about it--especially those who aren't going to shove a camera in someone's face.
As explained in the topmost comment, this is a simplification but mostly true (thank god). Lines get fuzzy when you are in the background of some personal video or on surveillance camera footage.
I happen to know a few German street photographers, like Siegfried Hansen[1], for example. Now, I wonder, how do they publish their works and organize exhibitions then? Is it possible that there are some exceptions in the law?
Security cameras: You are only allowed to use them to film private land.
Dash cam: The footage can not be published with faces and/or license plates legible (anything that can be linked to a person really). You are allowed to keep the footage for private purposes unedited.
In some countries they don't. In Portugal for example they are not allowed and you can get fined for having one. You also cannot have a camera filming the street without specific authorization from a public entity for data protection, and you most likely will get denied unless you are a business and are filming only inside your premises, if you point your camera to the street you likely are getting denied. Ring cameras would be illegal there too.
Image rights and rights for privacy are up there just below right to life, so for example in a court case, video evidence is only accepted if it's a murder or attempted murder case. If you film me stealing your stuff it's not admissible.
Main reason being that the constitution considers your right to go about your business in any place with whoever you want to not be disclosed without your consent.
They're regulated. Not German nor a lawyer but my understanding is that security cameras should only film private property (or as much as possible) and constantly running dashcams aren't allowed. It seems you're only allowed to record when something is happening but a dashcam which deletes the records unless you save them seem to be fair game
Switzerland for example forbids private cameras from filming public areas like the street. You either have to block those areas in camera or put the camera somewhere else. Door cameras are difficult because they sometimes point towards the street.
Public cameras must adhear to strict data retention rules and signs must be posted. Additionally in cities like Zürich doing face recognition on public ground is forbidden and will most likely be nationwide soon.
Dashcams are a gray zone. What is for sure is that the footage can not be used in court unless it's a very serious case and you can not publish footage without anonymiezing it. What Tesla does with storing footage in a Dutch DC is probably illegal but so far the authorities have not done anything against it.
I think so. I'm less familiar with TikTok but livestreamers in Germany do tend to respect it and you'll find relatively few prank or "stranger filmed in subway/gym" style German content on the internet. People will also usually turn cameras off/down when going into businesses, facing windows, etc.
Culturally it definitely still works which is arguably the function of the law to begin with.
Unless laws are passed to make filming others in public, this is unlikely to ever stop. Chances are, such laws will not get passed as it will intrude on civil liberties and free expression of many. I also recommend against swatting away, as the author in the Verge concludes he/she will do, at someone's phone if they don't consent to being recorded. You run the risk of breaking someone's phone that way, giving potential rise to increased conflict or a small claims suit. Best response is to walk away or ignore.
Absolutely not. People who take advantage of social mores to force interactions for commercial purposes are not entitled to the same grace and kindness you'd extend to a normal person.
This is why it's entirely okay to just shut the door on salesmen, or just hang up on cold callers. Indeed, that is actually the BEST way, because anything you say or do besides that will be used, by a skilled salesperson, to try and pry open a longer interaction.
These people are operating in bad faith, and should be treated accordingly.
Encouraging rudeness is not polite, no matter what words you use. You've made yourself feel better, and made it easier for the intrusive human being to continue to rudely intrude on others.
Ignoring them is best, responding with swear words is second best, and pretending it's a normal human interaction is far, far down the list.
The correct response is "fuck off cunt" because then they're going to have to spend a bunch of time bleeping you before any advertising-friendly platform will let you become a meme for their own profit.
Given " civil liberties and free expression of many", OP is likely speaking in a United States context, where photography in public is always allowed and only some states have 'wiretap' laws that prohibit recording conversations without the consent of all parties. Speaking in a US context and not a global context is a fairly common theme on HN~
That's a First Amendment issue in the US. What California does is to prohibit commercialization of the result without payment, which is constitutionally OK.
They're sticking objects into your personal space without consent, possibly constituting harassment or invasion of privacy/eavesdropping in some jurisdictions. I highly doubt the court costs for 99% of their sweatshop-made electronics are worth the hassle, including convincing a jury. I'm not saying you should grab their stuff and stomp it into the dirt, but a swat isn't gonna hurt these clowns.
> They're sticking objects into your personal space without consent, possibly constituting harassment or invasion of privacy/eavesdropping in some jurisdictions
You don’t watch the news much do you? This is the MO of reporters at every news agency chasing a soundbyte. Nothing illegal in the slightest.
If it’s brought by someone who makes a living by being obnoxious harassing private citizens in public, how much sympathy would that get from the judge?
> Unless laws are passed to make filming others in public, this is unlikely to ever stop.
Assuming you mean the USA, the problem is you need people to enforce those laws or succeed with lawsuits (and dodge endless appeals or ascension to the SCOTUS). We can't even begin address gun violence in this country, I highly doubt we'll get consent-to-be-filmed-in-public-laws passed.
The point is that overt interference (sticking a microphone and camera in someones face) is very different to being incidentally captured by peoples security cameras, doorbells, dashcams, bodycams - that is, equipment which exists specifically to minimise interference in ones life.
Readit News
Sure, it’s legal to film people in public in the US without their consent. But it’s also shitty. Those two things can both be true.
Maybe we might all be better off practicing DBAD: Don’t Be A Dick.
Of all our American flaws, "It's not illegal for me to be a dick and therefore I am going to be on" is perhaps the one we're proudest of. (Followed, perhaps, by "It's illegal for me to be a dick but you can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and that's as good as legal" and "It's illegal for me to be a dick but nobody is going to bother prosecuting therefore it's as good as legal.")
It would be great if we all practiced Don't Be A Dick. But for those who are most harmed by people being dicks, we need to figure out ways to protect them legally, because otherwise people will be a dick to them as hard as they possibly can. And every time you try, people will say "Nobody is being a dick to me therefore nobody needs to be protected."
As a Canadian in the US I'm often asked the difference, and I've mostly held my tongue from saying "You're all pretty damn rude, and have fragile egos" but I think I might steal your description because it makes sense.
Dead Comment
I don’t think that it’s always shitty to film people in public without their consent. This is not a black and white issue.
Do you feel that consent should be obtained from everyone who is visible in any video taken outdoors, regardless of whether those people are the intended subject of the video? Do you have a consent problem with surveillance videos? How about videos captured on car dash cameras?
Let’s say you are at a tourist attraction, capturing a video of the attraction. Another visitor asks that you stop filming, because they don’t want to be in your video. Dickish to continue? I’m not so sure.
It’s easy to say “don’t be a dick,” but that statement sidesteps the reality that reasonable people can (and do) disagree about what that means.
It's a spectrum.
When someone is the subject of your video, like the AC/DC person in the article, then YES, you are a shitty person if you post that for the world to see without their permission.
https://www.quora.com/Do-you-have-to-sign-a-waiver-or-other-...
There's a reason that appearance releases are a thing.
Ubiquitous CCTV cameras certainly bring issues of privacy, as well as what they should be used for.
One example is Smart Streetlights, which were initially promoted as energy saving lights that would help to measure and manage traffic and pollution, but quickly turned into dragnet police surveillance systems, initially for solving violent crimes but ultimately including property crimes such as vandalism, illegal dumping, and destruction of city property[1], and for protest surveillance [2].
[1] https://voiceofsandiego.org/2020/02/03/the-mission-creep-of-...
[2] https://mashable.com/article/police-surveil-black-lives-matt...
License plate cameras tend to have similar mission creep - they start out for parking enforcement or for red light tickets and turn into a system for tracking citizens whenever and wherever they drive.
I am totally fine with the distinction that is enshrined in law in many places around the world: you can record everything in public, but you cannot publish what you recorded without consent.
The issue is that we have two extremes (as it often happens) that either react to the camera as if it's the devil eating their souls and freak out, or we have the tiktokers basically ignoring the second part (no publication without consent).
I can think of reasons why one might record a stranger in public, or a stranger might end up in a recording, but I thought it was pretty clear from the article that we're not talking about that—we're talking about content creators (any person making content) filming strangers without consent so they can create content using those strangers. These other things you're talking about are irrelevant to that conversation.
That is, you can film a crowd I'm part of; just keep it off google drive, whatsapp, tiktok, facebook, and youtube.
The reason so many conflate the two is because for most people they are not distinct activities.
Sometimes however pushing the boundary causes positive change.
I am a photography enthusiast and a lot of very impactful if not world-changing photography in the past has been called unethical in their times.
Some examples are Robert Frank's "The Americans" (https://www.lensculture.com/articles/robert-frank-the-americ... https://www.nga.gov/features/robert-frank/the-americans-1955...), Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_Mother)" and Steve McCurry's "Afghan girl" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl) photos. All received harsh criticism, but also raised awareness of issues in transformative ways.
Deleted Comment
Social media stuff has relatively ephemeral value compared to movies and TV series, and way simpler distribution.
(so like the YouTuber can pull the whole video or just chop out the segment that the person appears in)
> “It isn’t a criminal offense to photograph people’s faces in public, but it can be a civil offense if the person who has been photographed finds their likeness published anywhere. They can make a case against the photographer on the grounds of breach of privacy,” says Tia. “The threat of being identified in a creative’s work and suffering consequences for it is all the victim needs to prove in court.”
> That’s why on most Japanese blogs, YouTube videos, and television programs, the faces of bystanders are blurred, an arduous and artistically painful process for any passionate creative. Tia says it best: “As an artist, mosaics and bars over the face can be such an ugly mark on one’s work.”
Connoisseurs of Japanese art will know that legally mandated mosaics are not limited to faces.
How does this law fit with the very alive and active community of publishing street photographers?
But facial recognition on public data, yes, there are commercial facial recognition databases, but i dont' think they (yet?) have timestamped geocoded sightings.
> Australia and U.S.-based face biometrics provider VerifyFaces has unveiled its consumer-facing facial recognition service which can be used for background checks. Unlike image-only searches such as PimEyes, VerifyFaces combines facial recognition and text searches.
> From $11, individual users can conduct a search on the company’s website in four ways: by photo or video, name and birthday, phone number, and home address.
https://www.biometricupdate.com/202212/verifyfaces-unveils-f...
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/ne879z/i-tracked-someone-wit... [2] https://drndata.com/repossession/
https://www.foxnews.com/auto/tesla-facial-recognition-camera...
Unless it has some kind of "allmenn interesse", aka "general interest", where it's better for society that it's published vs your right for privacy. For instance if you're a public figure doing something bad in public and getting video taped, you can't stop that from getting out by not "approving" it.
Deleted Comment
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Hansen_(photographer...
Deleted Comment
Dash cam: The footage can not be published with faces and/or license plates legible (anything that can be linked to a person really). You are allowed to keep the footage for private purposes unedited.
Image rights and rights for privacy are up there just below right to life, so for example in a court case, video evidence is only accepted if it's a murder or attempted murder case. If you film me stealing your stuff it's not admissible.
Main reason being that the constitution considers your right to go about your business in any place with whoever you want to not be disclosed without your consent.
Public cameras must adhear to strict data retention rules and signs must be posted. Additionally in cities like Zürich doing face recognition on public ground is forbidden and will most likely be nationwide soon.
Dashcams are a gray zone. What is for sure is that the footage can not be used in court unless it's a very serious case and you can not publish footage without anonymiezing it. What Tesla does with storing footage in a Dutch DC is probably illegal but so far the authorities have not done anything against it.
Culturally it definitely still works which is arguably the function of the law to begin with.
Deleted Comment
I think this is a good take, but I'd suggest the best response is to address the human being that is addressing you and say "no thanks".
This is why it's entirely okay to just shut the door on salesmen, or just hang up on cold callers. Indeed, that is actually the BEST way, because anything you say or do besides that will be used, by a skilled salesperson, to try and pry open a longer interaction.
These people are operating in bad faith, and should be treated accordingly.
Ignoring them is best, responding with swear words is second best, and pretending it's a normal human interaction is far, far down the list.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WalkableStreets/comments/u9jonf/for...
Edit: this may also be useful:
https://photographybay.com/photography-laws/
You don’t watch the news much do you? This is the MO of reporters at every news agency chasing a soundbyte. Nothing illegal in the slightest.
In Quebec, your image is yours.
If it’s brought by someone who makes a living by being obnoxious harassing private citizens in public, how much sympathy would that get from the judge?
From what I've seen they are pretty well defended by law, including when filming minor celebrities.
Assuming you mean the USA, the problem is you need people to enforce those laws or succeed with lawsuits (and dodge endless appeals or ascension to the SCOTUS). We can't even begin address gun violence in this country, I highly doubt we'll get consent-to-be-filmed-in-public-laws passed.
The law and courts need to acknowledge a third state beyond "in private" and "in public".
Call it "on stage" -- when large numbers of people can see you but you can't see them.
You can disseminate film of people on stage, but not in public.
It at one time criticizes the surveillance state and then also tries to connect it to the "man on the street" format.
Seems simply like a compilation of complaints by someone who doesn't like to be filmed in public.
https://www.tiktok.com/@surveillancecameraman