Freedom to Photograph in Public under Attack
Digital photography together with the potential to easily publish on a global scale has got the authorities in a spin. A recent Code of Practice issued by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has left the way open to protect people's privacy with a ban on publishing photographs showing anybody without their express permission. Quite where this is going to leave the press is another thing. There are some who will tell you that this rule is only for professional photographers, but this presents a problem. Can you post a picture if you don't get paid for it? This would make you an amateur but you could still be "invading" someone's privacy. What makes the whole thing even more incredible is that here in Britain we've sleep-walked into a surveillance society with up to 4.2 million cctv cameras in Britain, about one for every 14 people! So, as long as you are a Government Agency or a commercial business you're perfectly entitled to record their activities whether they know it or not. This initiative is not entirely without worth. I can't imagine it's much fun to have you or your family's every move visually documented by unsympathetic Paparazzi, but trying to eliminate this by the banning of public photography seems a big price to pay by the majority of people to protect a minority of the rich and famous from embarrassment.