Street Photography, the Internet and the Right to Privacy
- Thread starter Arjay
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 160
- Views 12K
Look on the bright side.
When face-recognition works with images uploaded to the Internet, suddenly govenments everywhere will start promoting Street Photography. Millions of mobile surveillance cameras for free.
Until they do that, assume it is not an issue.
When face-recognition works with images uploaded to the Internet, suddenly govenments everywhere will start promoting Street Photography. Millions of mobile surveillance cameras for free.
Until they do that, assume it is not an issue.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
This thread is exactly relevant to street photography, and not 'off topic' at all. The vague, nameless dread that someone, somewhere will do something terrible to us or our loved ones (or even to perfect strangers) on the strength of our street photography is, to me, risible; or would be if it weren't so pitiful.
As many have pointed out, we are all photographed frequently by surveillance cameras, and there's plenty of other information rapidly (and often freely) available about us and everyone else. The extent to which street photography adds to this is trivial.
Of course it's conceivable that someone sees a picture of a little girl on a web site and conceives a perverted passion for her, but the real question is, how likely is it as compared with seeing another little girl in the playground of his local school?
Still more important, what is he going to do about it? It would need to be a very determined (and quite wealthy) pervert that flew from one country to another, went to a city he didn't know, found the school, and tried to abduct her. The fact that the abduction of little girls (or indeed little boys) generally makes headline news is a strong clue that it doesn't happen very often.
My limited understanding (based mainly on the criminology I studied many years ago) is that victims of sexual crimes are in any case objectified, i.e.treated as objects, not personalities: one child (or one prostitute, or one person of a particular race) is, within very broad limits, interchangeable with any other, in the mind of the perpetrator. Thus, although we may (or may not) worry about girls of any age who are 'provocatively dressed' and may (or may not) deprecate the publication of such pictures, the risk to any particular girl in any particular photograph is the same as for any other roughly similar looking girl.
I have chosen sexual crimes because they create the most shock and horror (and becase my criminal law lecturer seemed to be obsessed with them and used them as illustrations wherever possible). But by the time we get to life in general, I have to ask exactly what people are worried about. One gave the (highly culturally specific) example of medical insurance, and that was pretty far-fetched and contingent. What are the others?
Cheers,
R.
As many have pointed out, we are all photographed frequently by surveillance cameras, and there's plenty of other information rapidly (and often freely) available about us and everyone else. The extent to which street photography adds to this is trivial.
Of course it's conceivable that someone sees a picture of a little girl on a web site and conceives a perverted passion for her, but the real question is, how likely is it as compared with seeing another little girl in the playground of his local school?
Still more important, what is he going to do about it? It would need to be a very determined (and quite wealthy) pervert that flew from one country to another, went to a city he didn't know, found the school, and tried to abduct her. The fact that the abduction of little girls (or indeed little boys) generally makes headline news is a strong clue that it doesn't happen very often.
My limited understanding (based mainly on the criminology I studied many years ago) is that victims of sexual crimes are in any case objectified, i.e.treated as objects, not personalities: one child (or one prostitute, or one person of a particular race) is, within very broad limits, interchangeable with any other, in the mind of the perpetrator. Thus, although we may (or may not) worry about girls of any age who are 'provocatively dressed' and may (or may not) deprecate the publication of such pictures, the risk to any particular girl in any particular photograph is the same as for any other roughly similar looking girl.
I have chosen sexual crimes because they create the most shock and horror (and becase my criminal law lecturer seemed to be obsessed with them and used them as illustrations wherever possible). But by the time we get to life in general, I have to ask exactly what people are worried about. One gave the (highly culturally specific) example of medical insurance, and that was pretty far-fetched and contingent. What are the others?
Cheers,
R.
Last edited by a moderator:
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Brian,
Even without face recognition, I've twice promoted this idea in my AP column, suggesting a government sponsored competition with monthly and annual prizes. Why not? We might as well get some benefit out of it. And it would stop the cops and jobsworths who try to stop photographers going about their legitimate business. Never mind 'surveillance': this could be genuinely useful in the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity, and it would make people more aware of what was around them if they knew there was a £10,000/$15,000 prize every month and a £50,000/$75,000 annual prize.
Judge the pics as photographs, because the odds are it's the spares, overs and rejects that will contain the useful information -- and if someone lets off a bomb somewhere, I'm quite happy to send my pics in freely to help catch them.
Cheers,
R.
Last edited:
Roger Hicks
Veteran
But, how much is this to do with our street photographs?
No-one denies that face recognition can be and almost certainly has been used for 'totalitarian' purposes, along with all kinds of other data gathering technologies. But your original question, as I understood it, was about street photography (which is why, like you, I disagree passionately with its being labelled 'off topic') and how this can be used for such purposes; and I still maintain that the good it does is far greater than any potential harm.
Cheers,
R.
No-one denies that face recognition can be and almost certainly has been used for 'totalitarian' purposes, along with all kinds of other data gathering technologies. But your original question, as I understood it, was about street photography (which is why, like you, I disagree passionately with its being labelled 'off topic') and how this can be used for such purposes; and I still maintain that the good it does is far greater than any potential harm.
Cheers,
R.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ranchu
Veteran
I guess for me it just makes it difficult to actually do street photography anymore, a few years ago it wasn't a big deal. But now people are aware of how potentially exposed a candid by a stranger makes them. I'm sympathetic, I'm completely uncomfortable being the perceived tool of the internet's voracious maw. I don't want to BE surveillance of any kind, I don't want to be a threat. The only option I can come up with is not to participate, if that means no street photography for me I can live with that. It sucks, but I wont play that role. Even if it's only a paranoia on someones part.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Jamie123
Veteran
But I don't think anyone would suggest that street photography is the issue here. I think the issue is how we deal with and add to the proliferation of personal information (our own and others') in the internet age. Street photography is just a part of it and so are any kind of tourist or casual candid pictures on flickr or facebook etc. etc..
The question I think we should ask ourselves is not whether or not we should photograph people on the streets but whether or not we should take a more prudent approach to uploading pictures on the internet.
And it's not really about protecting children from perverts. This card gets played way too much these days and I think it's getting old. People like to bring up topics like child abuse or terrorism as examples to stir up fear and paranoia when in fact those issues concern a rather small part of the population directly. The much bigger problems are those that concern us all. They might seem more banal but when concidering the scale they are much more worrying.
Last edited by a moderator:
Ranchu
Veteran
Just exposed. It's not really about specifics, like the article I linked says, it's a culture of fear that is being promulgated. People want control of their image, the perception is that it could be used against them, and the internet lives forever.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Jamie,
The only thing I would argue about in your post is the first sentence. Street photography is exactly what the OP was talking about, which is why this shouldn't be in 'off topic'. Everything else you say is indisputable.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
From Cath Milne's song, 'Or sometimes you do' (c. 1978):
Oh it's pananoia time in the town
Yes it's paranoia time in the town
They've taken what you've said and they've turned it around
With their dogs and their devices to track you down, track you down, track you down...
You never know-oh-oh
You never know-oh-oh
You never know
Or sometimes you do.
Anything you do
Anything you say
Anything you think
Anything you feel
May be held against you....
You never know-oh-oh
You never know-oh-oh
You never know
Or sometimes you do.
Cheers,
R.
Oh it's pananoia time in the town
Yes it's paranoia time in the town
They've taken what you've said and they've turned it around
With their dogs and their devices to track you down, track you down, track you down...
You never know-oh-oh
You never know-oh-oh
You never know
Or sometimes you do.
Anything you do
Anything you say
Anything you think
Anything you feel
May be held against you....
You never know-oh-oh
You never know-oh-oh
You never know
Or sometimes you do.
Cheers,
R.
Arjay
Time Traveller
Since you personally addressed me and I have a lot of respect for you, I'll chime in again:
It has a lot to do with street photography, because we're the first to be subject to a change in public opinion.
Over the years, I have experienced a number of assaults by strangers on the street - interestingly not by any of my potential subjects (practically all of them didn't care or mind), but clearly by self-appointed vigilantes. And of course, I would refrain from taking pictures or delete or bar from publishing any picture I took if asked so by any of my subjects.
For several times, I have (voluntarily as well as involuntarily) engaged in discussions on the street with people who felt that taking pictures in public ought to be banned for reasons of data aggregation. There's a real climate of fear out there, no matter if it is justified or not.
This is why I started this discussion, because it is up to us - the photographers - to do something so that public opinion does not turn against us any more than it does today.
By no means do I intend to impose my opinion on anybody, but I am appalled by the fact that a number of people who participated in this thread's discussion go as far as denying me the right to bring this topic up for discussion. I am very well aware that some of their reasoning is founded in a clash between English-speaking and non-English speaking cultures, but that in itself should rather be cause for self-reflection than simple dogmatism.
OT: What aggavated me even further was the fact that the structure of these peoples' reasoning is not just a problem of individuals, but also stands for the antagonism that has become apparent in international politics, e.g. in the US' reluctance to participate in finding internationaly binding regulations about data privacy or environmental protection.
Last edited:
Ranchu
Veteran
I wouldn't conflate those two things, there's people's opinions of this or that.
Last edited by a moderator:
Jamie123
Veteran
I know but street photography is only part of it. The issue concerns street photography on the internet because it concerns photographs of strangers on the internet in general.
We can probably all agree that what we call street photography makes up for only a tiny part of pictures of strangers on the internet. But that doesn't make it irrelevant or negligable.
Last edited by a moderator:
tic
Established
I feel this is a highly relevant and intersting thread.
Last edited by a moderator:
dfoo
Well-known
I don't think that is the case at all. I take photographs in public all the time of adults, children, buildings and whatever else I choose in many different countries. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually had any sort of issue with anyone.
ampguy
Veteran
I just got the info. below from a friend of a friend of a friend, who read it in Der Toiliette, a French magazine that is always true. Can anyone verify it? If it's true, I'm definitely getting off fb!
WARNING!!! As of tomorrow, Facebook will creep into your bathroom when you're in the shower, fondle your butt, and pinch you in uncomfortable places. To change this option, go to Privacy Settings > Personal Settings > Bathroom > Settings > Fondling & Pinching Settings, and UN-check the Shenanigans box. Facebook kept this one quiet. Copy & paste on your status to alert the unaware.
WARNING!!! As of tomorrow, Facebook will creep into your bathroom when you're in the shower, fondle your butt, and pinch you in uncomfortable places. To change this option, go to Privacy Settings > Personal Settings > Bathroom > Settings > Fondling & Pinching Settings, and UN-check the Shenanigans box. Facebook kept this one quiet. Copy & paste on your status to alert the unaware.
Arjay
Time Traveller
Nice try. (10 chars.)
oftheherd
Veteran
Hey oftheamp ( 😀 ),
Is there a bedroom setting and do we get to choose the attributes of the avatar that visits us?
😀 😀
Chris101
summicronia
I'm gonna go sign up for facebook now.