Street Photography, the Internet and the Right to Privacy

nightfly said:
I complete disagree.

My take is that if you are in public, you are fair game at least according to my understanding of US law on this.

People willingly give up so much personal data on the internet with tools such as Facebook which they know is being aggregated and sold to advertisers (or should know based on Facebook's valuation) that I simply can't take seriously anyone's privacy concerns over a street photo from an unknown photographer (me) which will likely never be seen by any sort of mass audience.

If ever confronted and asked to refrain from using a photograph, I would decide to comply on a case by case basis, knowing the law is on my side but would certainly take into account any serious concerns.

Shoot first, ask questions later.
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I wholeheartedly agree. And, I sometimes take years to publish a photo. People sometimes don't even recognize themselves in the shot.

My take on this: Shoot 'em all, let Facebook sort 'em out. 😛

BTW, deleting EXIFs sounds like a tedious job. I'm glad I shoot film, even more now...!
 
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buzzardkid said:
And, I sometimes take years to publish a photo. People sometimes don't even recognize themselves in the shot.
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The facial features used for 'faceprint' calculation do not change as the person is aging. People may not recognize their own faces on older photographs - computers do. But publishing with a time delay does indeed make sense, because correlating any contextual info out of those picturs will become more difficult - especially when the date the picture was taken remains unclear.

buzzardkid said:
BTW, deleting EXIFs sounds like a tedious job. I'm glad I shoot film, even more now...!
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Photoshop even has a specific Tiff-to-JPG conversion command: 'Save for web' (or similar), which automatically wipes out all EXIF data. Apart from that, when using e.g. Capture NX2 to 'develop" NEF (RAW) files and save them as TIFF for subsequent processing in Photoshop, all EXIF data are deleted as well.
 
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nightfly said:
People willingly give up so much personal data on the internet with tools such as Facebook which they know is being aggregated and sold to advertisers (or should know based on Facebook's valuation) that I simply can't take seriously anyone's privacy concerns over a street photo from an unknown photographer (me) which will likely never be seen by any sort of mass audience.
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But it's a false assumption to make a logical deduction from masses of data given by internet users to the privacy concerns of a single person on the street. This person on the street is probably doing everything to not be present on the internet, having no facebook account, not participating in electronic payment etc. And now I am uploading the face of that person to the internet. I'm thinking about this sometimes but upload it anyway. Shame on me :angel:

We should distinguish between data that is publicly visible like information on facebook or photos on flickr and data that different companys and authorities have. The data in different places is still not publicly visible and when it comes to light then because of a criminal act.
 
Reading for the second time all the post here I think that the problem Arjay is enhancing is one of the reason for which people on the streets of our "modern civilized" word do not like having their pictures taken by unknown photographers. Let us call it a collateral effect. Ina few cases I ask people if I could take a photo of them and the answer was yes. Than I ask them if they allow me to post the picture in the in the net and the answer was NO . People are afraid of a misuse of their images and data collecting as explain by Arjay is part of this. View in this way I can understand these kind of reaction even if I do not like it.
robert
 
I apologize for not reading the whole 4 pages of posts, but anybody who wants to make street photography in Germany should first read the laws to get an idea (It is not all that many $ after all an they are surprisingly short !)

As a non-layer person I found following interview with Phillip Dorowski (in german) very helpful. He is photographer AND a layer. The interview not only "translates" the laws to a more readable form but also links to paragraphs concerned.

In short - as was posted in post Nr. 10 by ndnik the "right for your own image" pretty much rules out street photography as such and in particular those images where a person is the main subject. You need a written permit BEFORE you take the image. OR the person must be unrecognizable (by close relatives). Invisible face usually does not suffice if the situation ends up in the court (read the interview linked above).

There are few exceptions:
- if group of people attend some event like concert or demonstration - in other words where the people grouped for a common reason (swimming pool is NOT it). Even then the faces (people) in the photograph may not be the main subject, but just a background.
- if the person is of public interest and importance (actors, politicians, etc)
- if the person that after realizing that it is being photographed acts such that it obviously provokes the photographer the take a photo of him/her.

There is one more rule (law) that goes in the same way often called "panoramic freedom" which pretty much says that as long as you are standing with both feet on public place you are allowed to photograph the buildings and permanent installations without permit - and even use them for your profit. Again - there are exceptions that complicate this.

I would add that the "panoramic freedom" type of law has different implementations across the europe - most of which are more restrictive across the Europe than they are in Germany. See the Wikipedia for more. Link is to english version, but German has more details.

Oh, and one more important note:
- if you have taken street shots outside Germany (where the "public privacy" or the mentioned "right for your image" does not exist), but you want to use (publish) the photos in Germany, you must comply with the german laws - and have those necessary (written) permits.


ALL of the above is only to give an idea how street photography is regulated in Germany - it is not a law transcription, so go ahead and read the paragraphs. No liability from my side.

______
The decision to read a bit on the topic was triggered as I was verbally attacked by a very aggressive middle-age lady (according to her accent not native german) that I photographed her dog which she left waiting in front of a shop. Later study showed that I indeed was allowed to photograph her dog on a public place 🙄 .. But for me - I was not too much into street photography and I will probably stay away from it.

The point is: read before you shoot. You may get a bad luck and get sued by some "sensitive" person. Check all the issues Google guys have with the street view across the world.
 
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This is precisely what's offensive in this whole debate, suggesting that if you don't have "some code of ethics" (which implicitly is YOUR CODE OF ETHICS) to protect the good reputation of street photographers in public, that you are stupid (or have "half a brain").

I consider my brain largely intact and find your concerns at best quaint and at worst paranoid. So I don't include them in my "code of ethics".

Given perfect face recognition technology and correlation with sophisticated data mining, I think the incremental information provided by inclusion of a face as part of a street photo doesn't represent any meaningful threat to an individual.

You may disagree with this without me thinking you have half a brain or that you are somehow effecting the reputation of street photographers the world over, who incidentally I don't think have such a great reputation to start with. However I think we are mostly considered gnats at best, mildly annoying and unworthy of much consideration.

You are showering strangers with more consideration than most people show to their friends and family when they post photos on Facebook where they can be tagged by name, searched and the person in the photo has no right to do anything except request that their name be removed.

Arjay said:
That's also why I still maintain that every photographer who has at least half a brain should follow some code of ethics in order to counteract the uneasiness and protect our (the street photographers') good reputation in the public.
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nightfly said:
This is precisely what's offensive in this whole debate, suggesting that if you don't have "some code of ethics" (which implicitly is YOUR CODE OF ETHICS) to protect the good reputation of street photographers in public, that you are stupid (or have "half a brain").

I consider my brain largely intact and find your concerns at best quaint and at worst paranoid. So I don't include them in my "code of ethics".
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Now we're getting somewhere. Since I started this thread, I had been wondering about the fierce reactions to my initial article - reactions that from my point of view seemed to be beside the point.

I am far from telling you which code of ethics you should follow. It's no coincidence that I wrote of 'SOME code of ethics', not 'MY code of ethics'.

Ethics are always subjective and tied to the culture someone grew up with. That's perfectly allright - as long as someone does indeed follow ANY code of ethics.
 
Now that Matus has explained the German state of affairs on this very clearly, I cannot help but wonder what the position of street photographers is in England, The Netherlands, or France? Or other countries?

I'm initially interested in England because of its 'tradition' of misguided policemen when it comes to photography, in the Netherlands because I live and work there and in France because I seem to recall that its legal implications there are similar to those in Germany.

Anyone?
 
It was inevitable for this discussion to turn into a cultural clash, but I think we can still save it and avoid making further generalized comments.


Arjay, your emphasis on a code of ethics which sounds more like a Kantian categorical imperative, a universal thou-shall-not that every street photographer must follow is completely out of place and contrary to the very spirit of street photography. It would have been at least worth considering had there been concrete evidence in your arguments about data gathering by face recognition and its possible misuse.

The most ethical decision that a photographer can make before going out to photograph is 'am I harming anyone by taking their photos?' Once they have the answer, they should either go out or stay home.
 
I'm not sure it's logically possible to argue for "some code of ethics". How do you know that my code of ethics isn't diametrically opposed to yours? You are assuming that all codes of ethics share something common that you endorse.

If nothing else this thread should dissuade you of that notion.

You can only argue for your own code of ethics and I think this is implicitly what this thread is about and why it has continued.

Personally, I don't know that I consider ethics at all when shooting. My concerns are primarily aesthetic and any ethical consideration occurs secondarily if at all.

If I examine some of my own aesthetic "rules" that appear to have an ethical sheen (not photographing say homeless people or children) I find that they are really driven by the fact that I find them both too facile as subjects and that they tend to provoke very predictable emotions and create essentially boring photographs to my eyes. And that I break my own rules occasionally.

I wouldn't say, speaking for my photography, that is bound by a code of ethics at all. However I'm aware that there are probably some deep ethical notions below the surface, probably so deeply ingrained that I don't question them any longer. For example I was here in New York on 9/11 and I didn't run down to ground zero to shoot and I'm sure there was some ethical considerations regarding taking advantage of tragedy for arts sake that restrained me. However, I certainly appreciate and admire much of the photography that came from there, I'm thinking specifically of the Magum 9/11 exhibit and don't find it morally offensive in the least.

Arjay said:
I am far from telling you which code of ethics you should follow. It's no coincidence that I wrote of 'SOME code of ethics', not 'MY code of ethics'.

Ethics are always subjective and tied to the culture someone grew up with. That's perfectly allright - as long as someone does indeed follow ANY code of ethics.
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GSNfan said:
It was inevitable for this discussion to turn into a cultural clash, but I think we can still save it and avoid making further generalized comments.


Arjay, your emphasis on a code of ethics which sounds more like a Kantian categorical imperative, a universal thou-shall-not that every street photographer must follow is completely out of place and contrary to the very spirit of street photography. It would have been at least worth considering had there been concrete evidence in your arguments about data gathering by face recognition and its possible misuse.

The most ethical decision that a photographer can make before going out to photograph is 'am I harming anyone by taking their photos?' Once they have the answer, they should either go out or stay home.
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Or possibly a better question is, "Will I do more harm or more good?" No action has absolutely no adverse effects, e.g. if I continue to eat I am depriving someone else of that food and using oil in transporting it, but equally, I am supporting the farmer and enabling myself to my wife.

In my view, the 'good' of people knowing what the world is like outside their own village and their own time far outweighs hypothetical data-harvesting 'evils'. Of course, others may feel differently.

Cheers,

R.
 
Jamie123 said:
That's why I think we should keep legal and ethical issues apart. To make an example, I personally believe in free speech and I think there should be no law against denying the Holocaust or using racial slurs. That does not mean that I find it morally permissible to do so. I think it's important that, in a free society, we constantly debate and discuss the ethics of our own and others' actions. I think the most dangerous thing is when we just say 'to each their own'. This is a skewed kind of moral relativism.
Sure, we all bring our own moral beliefs to the table but we should always be open to engage in a discussion about them. This is where I disagree with a lot of the people who post here. The OP raised a question about the ethics of street photography and wanted to start a discussion about it. I see no reason why we shouldn't take this seriously.
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That sounds reasonable to me.
 
GSNfan said:
Arjay, your emphasis on a code of ethics which sounds more like a Kantian categorical imperative, a universal thou-shall-not that every street photographer must follow is completely out of place and contrary to the very spirit of street photography. It would have been at least worth considering had there been concrete evidence in your arguments about data gathering by face recognition and its possible misuse.
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Thank you for your imperative answer.

I don't know your spirit of street photography, and it may very well differ from mine - but if you're a good photographer, your pictures will be good. What you do with your pictures is a completely different matter.

As for evidence of face recognition actually being done - Der Spiegel (one of the most highly reputed news magazines in Germany) is reporting that Facebook has a face recognition ready for deployment in its drawers, and I also know that German law enforcement agencies are currently conducting a field study in this technology that is already in a pre-deployment stage. In a fiirst field study, the entire public in Frankfurt's central railway station had been scanned over several months in a live process using a large number of surveillance cameras. The project was somewhat less of a success due to insufficient computing power - but that problem is one that can be solved given sufficient funding.

So, I'm not phantasizing.

nightfly said:
I'm not sure it's logically possible to argue for "some code of ethics". How do you know that my code of ethics isn't diametrically opposed to yours? You are assuming that all codes of ethics share something common that you endorse.

If nothing else this thread should dissuade you of that notion.

You can only argue for your own code of ethics and I think this is implicitly what this thread is about and why it has continued.
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It's a pretty manichaic, religious view that there can only be one code of ethics. We are living in a fairly big and diverse world, so all we can do is to start a discussion about how to find a common ground.

Based on the fact that you voiced your opinion, I assume that you are interested in a discussion. And while you are discussing, you might learn that there's more than just on truth in the world.

I think I have given you enough details of my rationale for ethical behavior in my contributions to this thread, why not read them instead of ignoring them?
 
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"a candid shot of a couple holding hands on the beach and it was their first date and now they are married for 30 years,"

Doisneau did something like that and had to spend his last years having lawsuits with people, who claimed to have been the famous kissing cople on a Paris street. This trouble did not stop even when he admitted having used hired models
 
nightfly said:
I'm not sure it's logically possible to argue for "some code of ethics". How do you know that my code of ethics isn't diametrically opposed to yours? You are assuming that all codes of ethics share something common that you endorse.

If nothing else this thread should dissuade you of that notion.

You can only argue for your own code of ethics and I think this is implicitly what this thread is about and why it has continued.

Personally, I don't know that I consider ethics at all when shooting. My concerns are primarily aesthetic and any ethical consideration occurs secondarily if at all.

If I examine some of my own aesthetic "rules" that appear to have an ethical sheen (not photographing say homeless people or children) I find that they are really driven by the fact that I find them both too facile as subjects and that they tend to provoke very predictable emotions and create essentially boring photographs to my eyes. And that I break my own rules occasionally.

I wouldn't say, speaking for my photography, that is bound by a code of ethics at all. However I'm aware that there are probably some deep ethical notions below the surface, probably so deeply ingrained that I don't question them any longer. For example I was here in New York on 9/11 and I didn't run down to ground zero to shoot and I'm sure there was some ethical considerations regarding taking advantage of tragedy for arts sake that restrained me. However, I certainly appreciate and admire much of the photography that came from there, I'm thinking specifically of the Magum 9/11 exhibit and don't find it morally offensive in the least.
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I think hardly any individual has a 'code of ethics'. A 'code of ethics' is usually something that a group or organization (e.g. a company) has. As individuals we usually have moral beliefs that we may or may not be able to articulate when asked about them but we usually don't have an explicit 'code'. I think what the OP suggested was that we discuss the issue of street photography and privacy in the internet age with the goal of setting a few 'ground rules' for ourselves that we all can agree on (which is probably not going to happen but I think that's what the OP meant). That means that everyone is free to express their own moral beliefs and argue for them.

What bugs me is this aversion to discussing moral questions. It's only through arguments and discourse that we can make our own ideas and beliefs clear. Many people even change their own actions or beliefs once they think about the ethical questions concerning them. For instance, some people become vegetarians after thinking about the ethics of industrial meat production. They might have had the moral beliefs this decision is grounded on all along but only upon reflection did they become clear to them.
Many people might do street photography without thinking about the questions brought up by the OP. However, had this become a fruitful discussion, some might've made the decision to change their own behaviour when photographing strangers. And some probably would keep doing what they're doing. There's no objective right and wrong here. That doesn't mean we should talk about it.
 
You totally missed what I was saying.

I'm not arguing for a "manichaic, religious view that there can only be one code of ethics". I'm saying that you can only ARGUE for your own code of ethics. ARGUING for "some code of ethics" is essentially meaningless unless you know what that code is.

If my code of ethics is that everyone should open themselves to the global penopticon, then our codes of ethics would be in conflict.

If anything I'm arguing against the notion of a code of ethics for street photography at all. You are arguing for a specific one involving protecting peoples privacy.

Also I'm sick of your patronizing tone frankly. I've read your arguments carefully and presented my own as to why I disagree.

You are arguing for YOUR CODE OF ETHICS however you are not owning up to this. You are claiming to argue for SOME CODE OF ETHICS that we should all be bound by or else be considered "half brained".

This "some code of ethics", is really your code of ethics in disguise. I have no problem with that, but you should own up to it.

That's the last I'll say on the matter.

Arjay said:
It's a pretty manichaic, religious view that there can only be one code of ethics. We are living in a fairly big and diverse world, so all we can do is to start a discussion about how to find a common ground.

Based on the fact that you voiced your opinion, I assume that you are interested in a discussion. And while you are discussing, you might learn that there's more than just on truth in the world.

I think I have given you enough details of my rationale for ethical behavior in my contributions to this thread, why not read them instead of ignoring them?
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Arjay said:
Thank you for your imperative answer.

I don't know your spirit of street photography, and it may very well differ from mine - but if you're a good photographer, your pictures will be good. What you do with your pictures is a completely different matter.

As for evidence of face recognition actually being done - Der Spiegel (one of the most highly reputed news magazines in Germany) is reporting that Facebook has a face recognition ready for deployment in its drawers, and I also know that German law enforcement agencies are currently conducting a field study in this technology that is already in a pre-deployment stage. In a fiirst field study, the entire public in Frankfurt's central railway station had been scanned. The project was somewhat less of a success due to insufficient computing power - but that problem is one that can be solved given sufficient funding.

So, I'm not phantasizing.
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The spirit of street photography is very simple to grasp and appreciate. Its about recording life as it happens and being part of it at the same time.

Now how is it possible to take part in such an activity when you're burdened with doubt and fear of inadvertently harming those people in some way and hence you must photograph in such way that faces are not shown or... Why take pictures at the first place? I mean isn't this what your argument eventually leads to? Of course we cannot stop corporations and face recognition technology, so what are we to do, stop ourselves?

I have to admit that I'm also beginning to have a visceral reaction to this thread as well.
 
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