I mean it seems pretty obvious. Because a private person could potentially do anything from stalking you, to using your image in some political campaign or advertisement or whatever else.
Potentially much worse and intrusive than being filmed by a parking lot camera. Here in Germany it even is illegal unless consent is given.
You can't legally use someone's image in an advertisement without their consent. But that's different than having the right to film in public. If I'm filming and you walk in front of my camera, you don't have the right to force me to stop filming. You don't own public space.
to clarify this is legal here as well. Places or people of public interest are excluded from this. So crimes, public figures, monuments, public buildings and so on you can photograph as much as you want. The law protects private individuals, say someone taking your picture specifically on a train, in a gym or what have you.
>You don't own public space
That is true but the idea is that the public space should not become a voyeuristic zoo. Photographing spaces is fine, but individuals should not lose their privacy entirely just because they leave their home.
How does the law differentiate between public places and individuals? For example, if you're sitting in a park and I want to take a photo of the park, how would the law differentiate between me taking a photo of you versus taking a photo of the park?
This already happens with photos and filming despite the general presumption of legality. Adding a bunch of nuanced exceptions would make it much worse.
Understand that the way this works is that officers can stop you from filming at any time. Then later you might get a judge to say, “the officer had no legal right to stop you.” The officer goes “oops” and that’s it. Obviously you cannot go back in time and get the moment that you missed.
A clear, simple, well-known presumption of legality makes it a lot harder for a misbehaving officer to appeal to the concept of a “judgment call.” And it makes it easier for a judge to say “you should have known” and impose consequences on the officer.
Ostensibly, the officer is open to a US 42 1983 color of law violation since there are court decisions affirming the right to record police in public.
Is looking at other people in public voyeuristic? Or is using a camera for watching it back later what makes it voyeuristic?
I mean, I get it -- we don't think they are likely to. Because that's not the purpose of the camera. Because we figure businesses are run by people "in charge" who have certain interests. We think we understand the purpose and intention of the cameras in the stores, and we don't understand the purpose or intention of the guy standing in the street, so imagine the worst. Plus the cameras in stores are often hidden so we avoid thinking about them entirely.
But... we're on so many cameras, which just random employees at random stores have access to... or random homeowners with cameras pointing out their windows... it seems reasonable to me to be more worried about that then most people are. And I'm not sure I've meaniningfully given any kind of consent to any of it.
However, last few years have shown here in Europe that it is possible to at least regulate what businesses do with the footage and personal data collected. GDPR - It doesn’t mean that an employee won’t do anything, but at least the legal entity for which he/she works is accountable and responsible for how this material is handled. And this employee can be fired.
This means that inside a business or organization it isn’t advisable to even talk about doing things with the data/footage. And it means there are legal methods of properly handling and disposing of it. And that is pretty neat, although it has been criticized and berated by anti-EU sentiments because it adds paperwork.
I’ve never been really worried about being observed or recorded, but after those 3D scanner things have popped up for passport checks I’ve become irritated. It’s obvious that there is unnecessary AI technology that’s sucking up all the available footage and extracting detailed information about me - beyond what is necessary for standard airport security. It’s not hard to imagine how an ML algo can be using this base somewhere out there to get all sorts of Minority Report style details.
I actually have no idea what laws (which probably vary from state to state) would control what is done with private surveillance footage -- I think it's possible almost no laws would. (My guess is that in states with two-party consent laws, you have "consented" to be videotaped by virtue of some sign posted at the entrance that says by entering you consent, and that once you have, they can do almost anything with it -- but I'm just guessing).
I actually haven't read much about how GPDR applies to private surveillance video which I believe is as pervasive in most of Europe as it is here, if not more. Because it's never been as professional relevant to me as website/internet/software stuff. But now I'm curious to read more about that.
(I believe "Surveillance Camera Man" was mostly or entirely in the USA, for what it's worth).
To elaborate: filming people (or taking pictures of them) in Germany requires consent, with some exceptions. Surveillance cameras are legal as long as their presence is clearly indicated with visible signage and they record only private property (e.g. pointing a surveillance camera outside your property is usually illegal).
I think dashcams currently still occupy a legal gray area but they were inadmissible for the longest time. Walking up to random strangers and deliberately recording them without consent is 100% illegal and I would even argue that it constitutes harassment, especially if asked not to.
The stronger argument would be one that you alluded to with the 'stalking you' part -- a person with a camera can choose to follow you or frame the shot a certain way. A CCTV camera is a fixed installation that can't individually be used to really follow you, and can be somewhat trivially avoided. In effect, a person with a camera can function as a _network_ of CCTV cameras, and I think that's what raises some heckles.