Ian Jelf wrote:

In message , Chris Tolley
writes
Well, since as noted there is not a general right not to be
photographed, the question doesn't immediately arise in that vanilla
case. However, suppose you take a picture of Warwick Castle, and there
are some people in the foreground, one of whom is wearing a green jacket
and whose features may be recognisable, You might publish the picture
with a caption "Warwick Castle" and be okay.
This gives rise to a particular issue, that is to say what you *do* with
a picture after it's been taken.

If you keep it for your own use, then I suspect that there really is
*nothing* that someone featured in it can do (?), whereas publishing it
*might* give rise to other issues.

Precisely. In the general case, that is. The only cases where you might
get into trouble for simply taking a picture (which might mean, to be
technical, not even having something visible but merely a latent image
on film) is if there is a prohibition on taking pictures in a particular
place or circumstance. If you see a sign, for instance, that says, "This
is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Act", then...

However uncomfortable this might make some people feel, it might
therefore be legal (or at any rate not illegal) for someone to go out,
take photographs of strangers' children in the street and then keep them
on your own computer at home.

ITYM "his computer". I'm not making mine available for any of that sort
of thing. ;-)

Now I for one don't feel comfortable about *that* scenario but I would
find it difficult to actually draft any legislation to prohibit it. At
what point does someone cease to appear in a photograph and become the
subject of that photograph. It's (no pun intended, really!) all rather
subjective.

It may be context- or caption- dependent, as indicated in my example.

But if you published the
picture with a caption saying "here is X.... Y..... (wearing the green
jacket), the well-known paedophile, stalking children at Warwick
Castle", then you can expect X.... Y.....'s legal representatives to be
in touch in short order.
I'm playing Devil's advocate here but would this situation be affected
by whether or not the said allegation was true or not?

There are several bits to the allegation, and each one of them could be
regarded as the kind of thing which interfered with XY's human rights,
whether true or not.

See http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html, which is the fons et origo,
specifically article 12.

Even if XY has previously been convicted of a relevant offence against a
minor, he might nevertheless not regard himself as, or might not
actually *be* a paedophile, so that bit is potentially dodgy, and the
suggestion that he is captured in the act of stalking children might
easily be completely untrue, even if the person taking the picture
genuinely suspected that was what he was doing. And even if those
statements are true, XY might be able to argue that the publication of a
statement that identifies him to people who would otherwise not have
known who he was is "an arbitrary interference with his privacy".

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p11938603.html
(47 511 at Reading, 3 Mar 1980)