UK photographers: the law and your rights: discussion

And this was recently? As in the coppers tried to bully you into deleting the photos by implying that it would give the impression that you were a paedophile, and this happened since the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi?

What force was this? They sound like right geniuses.

 

Paul and Hannah Weller are pushing for a new law to prevent the publication of any photograph of a child without parental consent.

Paul Weller and his wife call for child press protection (BBC)

This follows their court case against the Daily Mail where they have just been awarded £10,000 damages after photos were taken of their kids by a paparazzo in California.

The fact that they won their case makes me think that the law is working OK as it is. Can you imagine the nightmare if the law was changed. It would mean that a photo like this (taken at the Streatham Kite Festival) would be illegal as it would probably be impossible to get permission from the parents of all of the children in the photo.


Princess Kite by RoyReed, on Flickr

 

Nah, it'd only be a law for the famous.

Who have not, of course, thought through how it'd work for civilians, or civilian's children.

Howzabout a law that jailed a pap for taking a pic of a civilian kid while under the impression they were famous, but let off a civilian who took a pic of a famous kid under the impression they were a fellow-civilian?

 

Hi all, it seems that the police don't quite get the public place thing...
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/1141...d_claims_____Police_humiliated_me___/?ref=rss

 

Read about this when it was first published. I wonder who made the complaint? And would a complaint have been made if say, it was a much "younger" photographer taking the photos?

 

Illegal tripods on Hampstead heath.....wtf.........
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ht-the-law-today-the-law-won?CMP=share_btn_tw

 

Yep ...read that ....new one on me !

 

wtf

 

I was just coming in to post this.

Although I wouldn't have thought it would warrant a caution, who's Hampstead Heath owned by?

 

lcc by-laws surely a dead letter unless incorporated in successor authority by-laws, as lcc dead since 1965

 

I haven't checked recently, but the bylaw signs were changed at the abolition of the GLC to refer to the wonderfully-titled "London Residuary Body". Worthy of Pratchett.

I have no idea how this relates to my dim memory that the Heath was a creature of the City of London Corporation.

 

apparently still in force: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/thin...d-heath/Documents/hampstead-heath-byelaws.pdf but interestingly this pdf states they're enforced by hampstead heath constabulary, ie not met or city of london.

 

As Rusbridger (or more likely one of his sub-editors on his behalf) says. Interesting review of the Constabulary, including its engagement with nocturnal visitors to the West Heath, here.

 

i like the millions of pms of support

 

I took my bridge camera with some macro lenses into my local park this morning to take some closeups of flowers and whatever plants and bugs looked interesting. I was busy taking some closeups of bumblebees and a ladybird on a leaf in a tree when two police officers appear and ask me what I'm doing. I'm taking pictures of a bug in the tree officer. Then they tell me they have a report of a person in the park matching my description with a camera taking pictures...and there are children playing in the park sir!! I was a bit shocked so immediately offered them a look at my photos which they obviously saw were harmless. I said I understand them checking it out and they left, but afterwards I really started to feel uncomfortable and it totally spoiled my day. I started to think who in their right mind would call the police to report someone who had a camera...and the police then following it up. If the idiot who had called the police had actually looked to see where I pointed my camera they would hopefully have realised that I was not a flippin' pedophile...but thank you so very much for calling the police and making me feel like one!!

I'm actually very offended and and embarrased. After the police left I just felt despondent to take any more pictures...so I'm glad I found this forum to vent a bit and share my story. I know I did nothing wrong, so I feel like the police should instead have observed what I was doing and then left me alone, instead of approaching me and implying that taking photographs in a public place is somehow wrong because there are children in the vicinity. Crazy world we live in.

 

a FW and I were threatened physically by a 6ft 16yrd old whose mum was suggesting the person i was with was a paedo as he had a camera and had started filming yesterday!
we were on an anti workfare action and giving out leaflets, the police were called and he was made to delete the photos as was not on public land and was in the car park of the store we were leafleting. more police came and tried to get our details but i refused, almost got arrested for BoP but as we were already leaving they let us go.

 

yes we thought so
we had the woman and kid shouting and some old bloke who was yelling about the "real world" and about 6 plod to deal with!

thanks, will pass that info on

 

As editor said this is illegal. Deleting the photos is deleting evidence and can't be done by anyone without a court order. You should report this incident to the chief constable of your local division. I hope you managed to get a note of the police officers numbers.

If this ever happens again and you do delete any images, take the memory card out straight away and make sure no further writes are made to the card and you should be able to retrieve any deleted images using Recuva (free version) or any of the other recovery programmes that are available.

There's a free PDF to download and print on this site which you could keep with you in case of any future incidents:
http://www.sirimo.co.uk/2009/05/14/uk-photographers-rights-v2/

(BTW editor the links on your info page to the Met Police photography page get a 404. This appears to be the current link: http://content.met.police.uk/Site/photographyadvice)

 

Photography is not a crime. Tell them to fuck off

 

Cheers Mr Bishie. After reading this forum, next time I will (tell them to fuck off), although a bit more politely at first.

I doubt very much that anything would have happened if I was using a mobile phone, but it does seem that whenever you use a half decent camera with a chunky looking lens then people get suspicious of what you're up to. It's very frustrating. RoyReed's post of the ACPO guidance to officers is pretty clear that they can't stop you from taking pictures in public. But by approaching and questioning you just because you have a semi-pro camera is bordering on harassment in my opinion, and in effect they are intimidating you to not even be there with a camera in the first place.

 

It says they must not access text messages, voicemails or emails? Im guessing this doesn't count on confiscated things though?

 

IF the images were taken for a journalistic purpose - or indeed if they form part of communication with a lawyer - before they can confiscate things they need an order from a court.

PACE 1984 Part II

 

maybe diamond could have a use after all

 

Sorry, should have written something like "professional communication with a lawyer".

 

Agency takes down pictures after Network Rail complains:

What's going on? Network Rail demand Alamy photo removal