Street Photography, the Internet and the Right to Privacy

[andersju]

I am infinitely more worried about the EU Data Retention Directive and similar laws being passed or about to be passed that give our governments the right to monitor all our communication (both Internet and mobile phones) whether we like it or not. The data retention directive is especially nasty; an EU directive is something that every member state is forced to implement in law. From a right to privacy perspective, publishing pictures of strangers on the Internet is an interesting debate, but I feel it's very much a miniscule issue in comparison with what our lawmakers are forcing upon us.

 

[sparrow6224]

What the law, and older people such as most of us, have not internalized yet is that privacy as we understand the term is over. Indeed, as we debate, the entire self-understood concept of the individual is disintegrating. It is enough we follow the law or common custom, take our pictures, post them in our groups, etc. Some day face recognition software will be able to sift the net and find nearly every recognizable picture of a person that has ever appeared anywhere; it will instantly mine the data and combine it with credit card records, EZ Pass records, transit card records, CCTV data, and that person's history will be almost fully knowable and searchable. What is most important is that while we have not CONSCIOUSLY internalized this knowledge, we have UNCONSCIOUSLY taken it in sufficiently that we now, in the developed nations anyway, live in a time of breathtaking conformity and overwhelming, unidentified, unconfronted fear. This is the new Panopticon.

But I like the motto of the State of New Hampshire: Live Free or Die. So let's take our pictures when we wish, where we wish, and try to respect and elevate each other in the process.

 

[ndnik]

Clearly, in my mind at least, the question deserves some serious thought.

I fully agree. Currently, as far as I know, no country places any restrictions on what online services are allowed to do with the data on their users they collect (nor on how they collect and share that data). I find this very disconcerting.

 

[nightfly]

Thank you for all your replies!Assuming that the aggregate sum of these data (images with attributed names, biographic data, and - say - citations of those folks from internet forum discussions about events of present-day history, such as political opinions e.g. about what happened in Tucson Arizona) can constitute a fairly telling profile of a person, don't we as photographers have a certain responsibility to not act as blind purveyors of data for someone else's purposes?
So, I'm not talking about legitimacy - I'm talking about ethics.

I think this is the crux of your argument and my reply would be simply no.

I don't think it's my responsibility as a photographer to protect unknown people's anonymity in public spaces because there may in the future be some data aggregation technology that may be able to make use of this image in a possibly nefarious way.

That seems like a tremendous amount of responsibility to place upon someone and far beyond what we generally consider our responsibility in day to day life in either a legal or moral context.

We are not knowingly placing that unknown person in any danger and we can only speculate as to both the feasibility of this future technology, the use to which it could possibly be put and the desire for someone to do this.

Privacy is certainly eroding due to technology but I would say the vast majority is being done consensually (if unknowingly) with things like Facebook. The non-consensual stuff that I worry about is being debated in the courts now with regards to how governments can subpoena data from the internet and why an email should be so much easier to get access to than a letter in your file cabinet. To me this is where the action is. The other concern from a marketing perspective is meta cookies that let retailers see what you do AFTER YOU LEAVE THEIR SITE. It would be as if someone tailed you out of a store to see what you do next. Again this is being debated now at least in the US.

But privacy cuts both ways, see what happens with things like Wikki Leaks where the government looses control of it's secrets. They don't like it when people treat their data so cavalierly but there's really not much that they can do either.

As a friend of mine used to say "open yourself to the panopticon".

 

[paulfish4570]

well said, sparrow6224.

 

[Tompas]

Street photography is, by this [German] law, illegal, even if the images are never published.

Sad, but true. We Germans really have strong tendencies toward extremism -- privacy in public, who else would have come up with something like that?

In effect, street photography is the 'Entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art) of our time.

Ok, I apologize; that's exaggerated. It's just that it makes me mad sometimes. I really would like to show some of my pictures.

 

[ndnik]

Ok, I apologize; that's exaggerated. It's just that it makes me mad sometimes. I really would like to show some of my pictures.

Go ahead and show them. You already broke the law taking the images. Showing them at least makes that worth while 😉. This law is insane and ignoring it is the best we can do. If you get sued for street photography, the defense is freedom of the arts (guaranteed by the constitution), which courts so far have always recognized.

- N.

 

[anthony_semone]

Privacy in Public

Privacy in Public

Sad, but true. We Germans really have strong tendencies toward extremism -- privacy in public, who else would have come up with something like that?

In effect, street photography is the 'Entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art) of our time.

Ok, I apologize; that's exaggerated. It's just that it makes me mad sometimes. I really would like to show some of my pictures.

Simple to show them: encrypt them via software and send them to whomever you would like to share them with who also has the software installed that will allow them to be decrypted. I can install software in 10 minutes that will allow "pretty good privacy." In fact, I'm enjoying at the moment mucking up the "cookie-mongers" from tracing this session, before, during and after, by the simple expedient of rotating IP's through a VPN.

😀 For every governmental intervention, there is a counter, which of course at some point will be breached, which will then lead to a new counter, und so weiter.

tony

 

[Arjay]

What the law, and older people such as most of us, have not internalized yet is that privacy as we understand the term is over. Indeed, as we debate, the entire self-understood concept of the individual is disintegrating. It is enough we follow the law or common custom, take our pictures, post them in our groups, etc. Some day face recognition software will be able to sift the net and find nearly every recognizable picture of a person that has ever appeared anywhere; it will instantly mine the data and combine it with credit card records, EZ Pass records, transit card records, CCTV data, and that person's history will be almost fully knowable and searchable. ...

So let's take our pictures when we wish, where we wish, and try to respect and elevate each other in the process.

Exactly my opinion.

On the other hand, I have been using the Internet actively for 25 years, and would not like to miss most of its benefits. I do like street photography (even if I'm from Germany), and I am also showing my photography (which could be debated due to our legislation).

However, I do not want to harm anybody through my art, whether consciously or unknowingly. That's why I think we should have a debate about being responsible in the way we publish our images - not because some law does or does not force us to do so, but out of solidarity. It's a bit like protecting the environment, which also will work best if it is being done volontarily.

What are you doing to make data aggregation as difficult as possible for the data krakens?

 

[GSNfan]

There is nothing privet about public places. It logically follows then that there is nothing unethical about sharing what was already in full public view to the rest of the public on the internet. Especially if its a good photograph, people in it become part of the art itself.



My advice to German street photographers is quite straight forward, carry a portfolio of your work with you, and release forms. Talk to people, show them your portfolio, take their permission, or take their permission after you have taken the picture. In case you're going to work in a particular area get to know the locals, introduce yourself, go on the street with more than one camera to look like a serious photographer, get a press pass if you can and hang it around your neck... If there is a will there is a way.

 

[Roger Hicks]

The girls asked you to take their photograph? Surely that's an explict waiver of privacy rights (real or imagined).

Dear Andy,

Except that I don't know how old they were, i.e. had they the legal capacity to waive rights? And, of course, there is no right to privacy for them (or their parents/guardians) to waive...

Cheers,

R.

 

[paulfish4570]

"data krakens" - what a delightful epithet ...

 

[GSNfan]

Some day face recognition software will be able to sift the net and find nearly every recognizable picture of a person that has ever appeared anywhere; it will instantly mine the data and combine it with credit card records, EZ Pass records, transit card records, CCTV data, and that person's history will be almost fully knowable and searchable. What is most important is that while we have not CONSCIOUSLY internalized this knowledge, we have UNCONSCIOUSLY taken it in sufficiently that we now, in the developed nations anyway, live in a time of breathtaking conformity and overwhelming, unidentified, unconfronted fear. This is the new Panopticon.

Even if that was the case, so what?

Credit card numbers and their privacy are important due to fraud and credit card companies are more worried to safeguard that information than the user.

Face recognition by photos is really not a big deal. Most people when they post their picture, use their own name as the file name, sometimes unconsciously, but in fact they want people to know who they're, that is why they post their picture in the first place.

But even if there is a software that searches street photos for faces and puts a name on them, whats wrong with that? Its actually a cool feature. Steve McCurry went to find the Afghan girl so many years later... Face recognition software would have been much easier and cheaper.

The big brother prophecy came and passed. In fact it was not as scary as in the novel. After all who really cares about millions and millions of people and their photos and stories? No one. So what if google knows everything about me? Th best it could do is direct me to good deals on what I like, other than that I don't think it can do much else.

 

[Ranchu]

I don't have to think. I just don't post pics to the internet and avoid the whole contraversy.

Yup. I do this only for myself and people I know.

 

[sevo]

Sad, but true. We Germans really have strong tendencies toward extremism -- privacy in public, who else would have come up with something like that?

Well, that notion does not have quite such a wide application in German law as ndnik seems to assume. While the German law recently was indeed expanded to prohibit taking privacy violating pictures on/from public ground, this does not at all mean that the average pedestrian is private and hence may no be included in street scenes any more - all comments assume that the normal presence in public is indeed public and unaffected.

The notion that there is privacy in public is not as far fetched as you suppose. In the past, German law did not prohibit taking photographs of anything, anywhere - it was for example legal for a house owner to install a hidden camera in the bathroom to photograph his urinating guests, it was legal to photograph through other peoples' bedroom windows while standing on public ground, up womens skirts on a public sidewalk, of people having sex on public ground etc. As long as you did not publish, the subject could not do anything about any of that, unless it successfully sued for assault, sexual harassment (hard to do, as that requires proving intent) or managed to get a copyright angle into it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Exactly my opinion.

On the other hand, I have been using the Internet actively for 25 years, and would not like to miss most of its benefits. I do like street photography (even if I'm from Germany), and I am also showing my photography (which could be debated due to our legislation).

However, I do not want to harm anybody through my art, whether consciously or unknowingly. That's why I think we should have a debate about being responsible in the way we publish our images - not because some law does or does not force us to do so, but out of solidarity. It's a bit like protecting the environment, which also will work best if it is being done volontarily.

What are you doing to make data aggregation as difficult as possible for the data krakens?

Sheer volume. Not on my own, of course, but assisted by FaceTube, YouBook and all the rest.

A friend of mine used to work for MI6 (he died in his late 90s). He pointed out that the biggest single argument against 24-hour surveillance is that it's too time-consuming and expensive.

Even with (hypothetical) full automation and automatic face recognition, SOMEONE has to try to make sense of it all, as well as weeding out the false positives.

Go to http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/photo school index.html and you'll find a picture of a girl on a water-slide at Igal in Hungary. That was two or three years ago. Do you think she still looks the same? Or that she has spent all her time since then at the spa? Or indeed that anyone gives a damn? And how is that picture going to help anyone, even if in later years she turned out to be a criminal or a victim?

The only thing to worry about IS a climate of fear. Sure, as someone else pointed out, the concept of 'privacy' as some people once knew it is gone. But equally, I'm sure that the kids in our village in the 21st century have a lot more privacy than their great-grandparents did 100 years ago, when everyone knew everyone else's business and few people went more than a few miles from the village.

It is in the nature of being a teenager to fear that 'everyone knows your business'. Then, when you grow up, you realize that (a) not many do and (b) of the few who do, almost no-one cares. Just your parents and a few busybodies. The current fear is essentially a childish reaction, unless you happen to be a major-league terrorist or criminal.

As for people trying to sell me stuff, I get plenty of that without (as far as I am aware) any special targeting, except perhaps the hearing-aid junk mail. It doesn't matter how targeted it is: it goes in the bin anyway. If it doesn't: well, maybe you deserve to be targeted.

Cheers,

R.

 

[zumbido]

The big brother prophecy came and passed. In fact it was not as scary as in the novel. After all who really cares about millions and millions of people and their photos and stories? No one. So what if google knows everything about me? The best it could do is direct me to good deals on what I like, other than that I don't think it can do much else.

So, you can't think of any time when silos of data on individuals have proven useful in nefarious endeavors?

 

[zumbido]

This discussion, in a way, resembles that currently going on in the U.S. on the subject of violence in political speech. The issue isn't whether there is a direct link between violent speech and violent acts; or whether this data means that everyone's privacy is being invaded all the time.

The issue is that creating such atmospheres aids and abets those who may have already been capable of something nasty but wouldn't have found themselves quite as motivated, or with such easily-available means. Neither "Big Brother" nor your local paranoid schizophrenic cares about you. But when one day that changes, for whatever reason ("it'll never happen to me, I have nothing to hide!"), then one may feel differently about some things.

 

[GSNfan]

So, you can't think of any time when silos of data on individuals have proven useful in nefarious endeavors?

The questions is also what sort of data? Pictures, buying habits, surfing habits, and every other habit, as long as its not nefarious in itself, i don't see it could be used against the individual.


In Orwell's 1984 the state watched every individual. Now we know that no state has the resources or is stupid enough to undertake such an activity... If someone wanted to dig in your past, they could do it without the internet. Privet investigators are a better option.

There is also the question of personal responsibility when sharing important information about yourself... Pictures of you on a street photograph should be the last of your worries if someone actually wanted to dig in your past.

 

[Roger Hicks]

This discussion, in a way, resembles that currently going on in the U.S. on the subject of violence in political speech. The issue isn't whether there is a direct link between violent speech and violent acts; or whether this data means that everyone's privacy is being invaded all the time.

The issue is that creating such atmospheres aids and abets those who may have already been capable of something nasty but wouldn't have found themselves quite as motivated, or with such easily-available means. Neither "Big Brother" nor your local paranoid schizophrenic cares about you. But when one day that changes, for whatever reason ("it'll never happen to me, I have nothing to hide!"), then one may feel differently about some things.

Dear Brian,

But you're assuming (a) that it can significantly change; (b) that it will significantly change; and (c) that there is anything whatsoever than can be done to reverse (a) and (b) if both happen.

The atmosphere of fear and suspicion that is created by worrying about (a) and (b) strikes me as a far greater risk to society than the (currently) remote possibilities of a universal database that are being discussed here.

On the other hand, if I start publishing pictures of named people with the cross-hairs of a rifle sight centred on them, or with their home address, with or without a suggestion that the Faithful (whoever the Faithful may be) have a duty to kill or injure them, then it strikes me as reasonable that I should be arrested and tried for incitement to disorderly conduct or even to murder. Even in such large matters as these, there are questions of degree.

Cheers,

R.