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Comment by brayhite | Hacker News Reader

I’m not comfortable being liable to being sued because my cousin decided to let us know after the fact he didn’t want to be in any of the pictures uploaded to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/tumblr/Flickr/etc.

I admittedly didn’t read the article, so maybe your comment’s sentiment isn’t meant to include these scenarios.

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What if your cousin is doing something frowned upon by society (wearing blackface, spouting racial epithets, etc)? What if it's not frowned upon now, but is at a later date? What if you don't find anything objectionable, but they wouldn't want it shown, and their concerns are borne out later? What if it's completely benign but out of context appears problematic (goofing around with a good friend of a different race and it comes across as something different when only a portion of it is represented)? What if they just have a personal objection to having heir picture posted?

There are many reasons why it's a good idea to at least check that the person is comfortable with it. You shouldn't be liable if they've said it's okay.

Absolutely. Good UX would be the subject receiving a notification that a photo of them has been uploaded, requesting whether they should be scrubbed/blurred from the photo or not before it’s made public. It’s about consent and agency.

I’d argue the tech to support this would require much more to be known about me by another entity and system than likely any picture taken by someone would share. No thanks.

And all those tourists in the background of your selfie at the Statue of Liberty. Need their permission, too?

If it’s out in public and non commercial, no. If commercial, a release form is required. Assumes US law as-is today.

https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/photography/photo-...

Your link says:

"If someone is in a public space, like a park, beach, or sidewalk, it is legal to photograph them. They shouldn’t expect privacy laws to prevent them from being photographed. That means a street photographer can publish candids taken in public spaces, as long as those images are only being used for editorial purposes."

It'd be impossible to photograph a protest, rally, sporting event, or basically any long shot of a public area if you had to get individual consent from every person in the frame.

I suspect there's a bit of nuance there which hasn't been identified here yet. Perhaps to do with whether people are background or immediately identifiable, or and active part of of what's going on. I know consent forms are a part of television recording when talking to people on the street (otherwise they blur faces), but I don't think they bother to get everyone in the background to sign.

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