UKC

Should it be acceptable to film people in a public space, and to publish such film online, or should it be banned/regulated?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68826423

Did you read your own link?  The police are looking for the person doing the filming because it's causing distress and harassment and therefore they're already treating it as an offence.

It's a bit moot whether something is banned/regulated or not if enforcement is impossible in practice though, so here's another question:

Is it ok for this footage to be put up on social media anonymously and stay there, even if it's causing distress to to the people in the footage?  Is it ok for Meta/Tiktok/whoever to ignore complaints about it and not bother having any kind of effective moderation when such films begin to attract & encourage misogynistic comments?

It depends why you are filming people. If someone filmed a busy street full of people to say, wow, look how busy this street is, then there's no issue in my mind with that.

If you are filming something, and people just happen to be captured in the background or foreground then I can't see an issue with this either.

If you are filming to harass people or as a deliberate invasion of privacy then that's a different matter. 

Where is may be really tricky from a legal standpoint is I don't believe you can expect a level of privacy on a public street so whilst it's morally wrong, I doubt they can do anything to the filmers other than politely ask them to take the videos down.

If they were filmed in their own back garden then there's an absolute expectation of privacy so filming would be a clear invasion of privacy.

I think there would be a lot of unintended consequences of outright banning filming in public and posting it online.

You mean the state should regulate journalism? 

You asked the question.  What's your opinion?

T.

I think it's creepy what these guys are doing, but ultimately it shouldn't be a crime. At the end of the day, you should not expect privacy in public. 

Public and private, are diametrically opposed concepts. 

And if we were to say that filming people in public can cause them distress and constitute harassment, and that means there's a crime committed.. Well where does that lead exactly?

I film a pissed up MP on the streets of Manchester, saying all sorts of politically disadvantageous things.. Should he be able to threaten me with the police for harassing him?

I think what they are doing should be a crime. Not the filming in public, you can't stop that, but the publishing of images of someone with the intention to harass them, that should be. Social media has given the power to publish to absolutely everyone. In the old days the only people who could publish images were media companies, who were obligated to behave in a civilised fashion. Now that anyone can publish media, there needs to be rules in place to ensure they behave.

If you are distressed or angry by being filmed whilst on a night out, spewing up, showing your knickers, perhaps doing it in a public place isn't a good idea.

Aren't we on the slippery slope to the Morality Police if we start down that route though?

You can't ban or regulate it but, as others have said, I find men expressly filming women a very creepy and pervy behaviour. Let's be honest, it doesn't happen the other way round. 

I've seen it at a local Parkrun with blokes ostensibly sitting in their fishing chairs with their phones covertly filming the women and girl runners. I reported it to the organisers and they said they'd notify the police but I guess there's no crime being committed?

I disagree with the comment (paraphrased) that if you don't want to be filmed you shouldn't go out in shorts. 

Sorry, I posted in my lunch break and only just got back in front of a PC. I tend to agree with GripperMoustache above, that just filming people in a public place (and making that footage public) shouldn't be illegal. Sure, filming 'pretty girls' is creepy, but so far it's not illegal.

If footage attracts offensive/abusive comments then sure, it should get taken down or the comments removed, but it's the comments which are offensive/illegal, not the footage itself. I note, however, that the article suggests the Police are looking for the person who filmed it, not the people who made the offensive comments. Are we going to go down the line to where everyone visible in any photo/video needs to give permission first? That's going to make showing football matches on TV hard!

Personally, I wouldn't like to be filmed in public without my permission or have such footage published online without my knowledge. But hey ho, the wider general public do have an appetite for such things. Obviously they're not interested in me, but they do think they're entitled to peer into the privacy of celebs, royalty and such like. Anyway, if the camera swivels round to them, they squeal. As would you I imagine.

Crimes of harassment are very much in the eyes of the beholder.  If those being filmed tell the police they felt harassed, and the police then notify those doing the filming that their actions are being taken as harassment, then if they return to do the filming again there is a legal route to prosecute them.  But events have to happen in the correct sequence which means the first instance is not actionable.

A group of concerned citizens standing between the tw*ts and the runners holding some bedsheets across the sight lines wouldn’t seem to be breaking any laws…

Thanks for adding your thoughts, it always annoys me when people say 'what do you think about this?' instead of saying 'here's a thing, what I think about this is'.

But we are long past the time when online activity needs regulation.  Yes, we have a right to freedom of speech and expression, but with that right comes the responsibility to use it appropriately and to be called to account for our actions should we fail to do so.  There's too much emphasis on the first, and scarcely any on the second and third.  And I too think that the companies that give a platform for this to happen are culpable; not the primary offenders, but offenders, and repeat offenders, nonetheless.

T.

When I want to sense check my opinion, I ask others what they think so I can get some statistical perspective.  For that to be valid the last thing I should do is front load the question with my opinion

Edit: in terms of the OP, existing harassment laws should go a long way to dealing with this, and YouTube should be open to challenge if the tw*t doing this is monetising it without all required model release forms. That being said, people should recognise that their public conduct is…. public, and if they don’t want others to see it, they need to do some hard thinking.  Now is not a good time to rely on the kindness of strangers, the surveillance state and social media.

I don't know what world you live in, but if you think 3 girls walking along Deansgate after a few drinks are 'spewing up, showing your knickers,' you must live an extremely sheltered life 🤣

I tend to follow the traditional legal test of, 'are they being a c*ck?'.

This one seems quite simple. 

As regards the actual law, as best I understand it (and I am rusty), under GDPR you can take photos in public which includes crowds of people in the background. Once they become identifiable, it is usually considered their personal data and so various obligations fall upon you, dependent on the legal basis on which you wish to process that data (which may not be consent). These obligations could include alerting them and providing an opt out. Photography on private land (eg within a club) is a separate matter (and there is specific guidance for CCTV, ie falling on the boundary of the two). The subject then has certain rights, eg you can object to your data being processed in certain circumstances. 

Personally I wouldn't take that to mean that if I go swimming Joe Bloggs has legal carte blanche to then photograph me in a swimsuit (if identifiable) and then do what he wants with that image, just because I went swimming in public. Legally or morally. 

I couldn't speak to the case law on how this actually tends to pan out.

But it still seems like we're quite stuck on the, 'should we be knobs to women on a night out?' test.

I'm surprised that I'm struggling to find a case for it. Has it not been tested yet? GDPR has created such a confusing situation. Cameras these days it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest even a photo of a crowd could allow somebody to be identified.

As far as I'm aware GDPR applies to individuals so if you followed that strictly then you can't take photos in public.

Whilst I agree with the principles of GDPR the execution of it was terrible with apparently very little effort to manage unintended (or maybe they were intended) consequences.

Up my way there’s a fairly successful YouTuber who’s oeuvre is based on filming crackheads in Manchester city centre and getting into arguments with them when they object. Similarly lots of “auditors” filming police stations and officers. Lots of interactions with coppers calmly conceding that you can film what you like in public.

You might want to let the entire tabloid industry, their lawyers and the photographers they’ve employed know. 

Absolutely not.

Id also prefer not to be filmed while working on vulnerable people in public places, but it happens and police on scene can only ask politely that they move on.

FTFY 🙂 See Babika's example above. It's not possible to legislate against all dirty old man behaviour, but it is important to do what we can and call it out where we see it.

How disappointing, I hoped we'd left that sort of attitude behind.

It strikes me as an odd approach to 'ask someone else to sort it'. When men start calling out other men on their creepy behaviour, things will change. If we let it go unchallenged, it will carry on. If it was your wife/daughter/mother, would you still not say anything, and expect 'someone else' to do something? A societal shift would be useful here.

Well said. Men calling out men is, sadly, always taken more seriously than women calling out men.

Until we make that seismic shift we're stuck with unpleasant behaviour forever. 

A long but interesting article about the law and photography - https://www.pauldavidsmith.co.uk/photographers-rights/

This relates to photos rather than video but its about the taking and use of images so I THINK it would apply to the subject of this thread and it is written by a photographer rather than a legal expert but its in line with what I have read from other sources.

It seems the videos could be examples of harassment. This is from The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 -

"The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 indicates that someone’s actions amount to harassment when they make the victim feel distressed, humiliated ......"

but it goes on to say -

"...... threatened or fearful of further violence. The main goal of harassment is to persuade victims either not to do something that they are entitled or required to do or to do something that they are not obliged to do."

The first part could apply in this case; seeing the videos online the subjects could have felt distressed and/or humiliated. However, the second part from the Act  doesn't apply as they were not threatened and apparently did not know the videos were being taken.

I don't know if the fact that they were unconcerned to be seen by, I'm guessing, quite a few members of the public at the time will have bearing whatever action might be taken.

Dave

If you're claiming your First Amendment rights, you're in the wrong country and should watch Tik Tok and YouTube a bit less.

It seems to me that the second part does apply - even if they're not aware of being filmed at the time, finding themselves suddenly part of a misogynist 'meme' on social media and attracting a lot of unwanted attention is likely to make them feel extremely vulnerable and have a strongly inhibiting effect preventing them from going out on the town again another time, which certainly qualifies as "something that they are entitled to do".

I don't think so, because I think all the discussion of 'expectation of privacy' and the law around taking photos and videos in a public place is moot.  Making the video isn't the problem in itself, it's that it's being made with the sole purpose of directing online abuse towards the subjects of the video later.

Talking about the right to take a photo in a public place in the context of these events is like talking about 'free speech' in the case of someone hanging out of the passenger window of a white van shouting sexist abuse at women walking along the pavement.

My apologies =- I wasn't referring to those particular girls.

Isn't much the same as driving a car like an idiot, or speeding, or doing anything stupid, funny or entertaining in a public place - then complaining if someone posts it on Facebook or U-tube?  (or if you are well known and you walk down the street you'll have people photo you all the time).

Depends on the context. 

I was once scrambling up Sharp Edge on a sunny autumn weekday morning. The rock was a little more slippery than I expected so I was having to take care whilst enjoying the peaceful atmosphere. Then as if out of nowhere I heard this piercing loud buzzzzzzzzz and then vroooom as this drone passed over my head. It made me jump out my skin and completely ruined the peace of the moment. This mechanical mosquito then proceeds to hover nearby as the pilot commences their ascent of the scramble. No doubt I ended up featuring on 'Dangerous Declan's' YouTube channel or something. Also what if I'd been trying to take a discreet waz behind a rock somewhere?  

So in this context, filming people with a drone, while scrambling, on a peaceful sunny morning absolutely should be banned. Offenders should be strung up by the gonads I say!!!

Just stand there and film them filming. They’ll soon stop…

Just stand there and film them filming. They’ll soon stop…
 

Unless you are accidentally outing on social media a proud grandad supporting his grand daughter as one of those “paediatricians”and thus becoming part of the infinite social media hate loop.

We should definitely calmly verbally challenge bad male behaviour preferably at the time. Not sure filming is the way unless you have clearly established dodgy behaviour.

CCTV??????

It's everywhere private and state, dash cams, temporary traffic lights, even bl**dy doorbells, how do you propose it will be stopped. 

Whole tv series are based on public filming, phones are just another easier access form. 

Agree, the stupid comments should be called out/prosecuted, but I think the courts would be swamped very quickly. 

I never mentioned “outing on social media”. The simple act of making them uncomfortable would normally be enough.

Yet, we have regular posts on here, about people taking pictures of other climbers, which seem to be accepted/encouraged

Ah I see, using the act of filming to intimidate an OAP into stopping something they are legally entitled to do.

I hope you see the irony in this?

I still think a quiet chat might be better.