Hacker News Reader

Comment by snowpid | Hacker News Reader

In Germany filming strangers without consent is forbidden.

Here in Norway filming or photographing in public space is in most cases perfectly legal. It's publishing it that's restricted. You walking randomly in the background of a wide street shot you have to accept, but if you're the main focus of the video it can't be published without your approval.

Unless it has some kind of "allmenn interesse", aka "general interest", where it's better for society that it's published vs your right for privacy. For instance if you're a public figure doing something bad in public and getting video taped, you can't stop that from getting out by not "approving" it.

That’s how it is in Germany as well.

At least here in Austria it is also legal to publish (without consent) if the people appear in a crowd (many individuals) or if the person (so even just one) acts as a prop in the image/video szene. Another exception is when the created image/szene is considered as "art". In all three cases you loose your rights on your own picture.

By civil law only. A criminal act it is not. That means unless the person takes it into their own hands to sue, nothing will happen. Still, you take on quite a legal risk if you publish footage that shows strangers, because you’ll never know when they will turn up and sue you for damages. It could happen 10 years down the line, and the amount of damages they can claim will be even higher the longer the footage has been published.

It is not criminal to _shoot/film_, however it is a criminal act to _publish_ videos/photos with people when they have not consented. There are many exceptions though (famous persons, people accidentally in the picture not being the focus, public demonstrations and other events — maybe not the best translations, just to give some ideas)

However as has been said, even without intent to publish there might be civil damages involved.

Yet how many millions of Europeans in countries with laws of this sort have appeared on Instagram, Flickr, TikTok, etc.? It may be technically the case but essentially no one worries about it--especially those who aren't going to shove a camera in someone's face.

what do you mean? I doubt this law in Germany is broken very much. Entities care a lot about it.

Entities, i.e. companies, are pretty careful everywhere about publishing photos of people for marketing purposes (which any website is) without permission of some sort. Whether it's in the terms of attending an event or it's a stock photo which presumably has a release form. I doubt individuals in Germany are much less indiscriminate about sharing on Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, and elsewhere than they are most places. And German law has very little teeth if the people doing the sharing aren't German.

Wouldn't the statute of limitations for this be 3 years? At least according to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_limitations

That starts to run only after the injured person has knowledge of the infraction.

As explained in the topmost comment, this is a simplification but mostly true (thank god). Lines get fuzzy when you are in the background of some personal video or on surveillance camera footage.

I happen to know a few German street photographers, like Siegfried Hansen[1], for example. Now, I wonder, how do they publish their works and organize exhibitions then? Is it possible that there are some exceptions in the law?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Hansen_(photographer...

In GDPR there are some kind of exemptions for art and journalism.

How do security cameras, dash cams etc get used?

Security cameras: You are only allowed to use them to film private land.

Dash cam: The footage can not be published with faces and/or license plates legible (anything that can be linked to a person really). You are allowed to keep the footage for private purposes unedited.

Sounds like a good system to me.

Certainly a lot of security cameras must face a public street?

“Certainly” not, as it’s against the law

I know stores for sure that have cameras facing the street (at least I assume from the position of the entrance which is to observe).

I think there is a law regulating where and if such a camera is allowed to be positioned and how you are allowed to process the imagery.

It is also not forbidden to film out of my doorway, is it?

Law is certainly complex in this case.

Storing close-up videos of strangers indefinitely is hopefully forbidden, but not filming a street per se.

> It is also not forbidden to film out of my doorway, is it?

It is if you're looking at the public road out of your door. Cameras need to be angled so that they do not film public spaces. There was a case a few years back about police stations in Baden-Württemberg needing to shut down their cameras because one complaint found them to surveil too much of the sidewalk.

Thanks to both of you for correcting my misconception.

Privacy law can become pretty complicated.

Very interesting. This would inhibit an enormous number of private security cameras if implemented in the US, particularly in cities without much of a setback from the building to the sidewalk.

Is there an exception for ATMs?

[edit] just to clarify, I said "certainly" because the idea of public space being unsurveilled is such a foreign concept to me these days. I do think there are valid safety use cases for private cameras on the street - cash machines being high on my list. Government cameras (or those accessible by government without a warrant) I think should require a much higher standard to be met. But for private use, for instance, my front door camera covers the area of sidewalk directly in front of my house. Where I live, I am liable for accidents that occur on that piece of sidewalk and the curb, should I not shovel my snow or someone slips on autumn leaves or if a tree limb falls on someone's car. I don't like the idea of the police accessing that camera, but I do like the idea of having a record of what takes place in a public area I'm personally liable for maintaining.

I'm not sure about ATMs, many banks in Germany have them inside a foyer you access with your cards. I assume outside ATMs a) angle cameras upwards so they film the person in front of it but will hardly capture someone that's walking by half a meter behind them, b) only film during a transaction, and aren't "surveilling" the area by being always-on.

I don't know though.

In Germany, you're also partially liable for accidents that happen due to side-walk maintenance (which is a stupid idea imho because many people just don't care, so you end up with lots of icy sidewalks in winter). But Germany is generally cheap on damages, so if someone falls in front of your house and breaks their wrist and cannot work fully, you'd pay a few thousand Euros at most. Since you'd need to actually prove damages in court, and would need to actually break your bones etc, I haven't heard of scams in that regard. Might happen occasionally, but it's not a common thing.

> It is also not forbidden to film out of my doorway, is it?

AFAIK, smart doorbell like Ring have breached UK private laws/GDPR

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/amazon-asks-...

It doesn't matter if it's your door, it matters if it records public space.

I learned that you have to request a permit from the local authorities stating purpose, duration, retention/processing... Not doing so might incur some pretty hefty fines if reported.

You also must have a good reason as well!

Security cameras in public spaces in Germany are mostly combined with sign indicating camera surveillance.

In public spaces it's probably somewhat regulated, but it might be a small sign.

On private property with video surveillance there also always seems to be some signage, clearly visible.

The purpose of that is for sure also to prevent crime from happening in the first place.

Example sign: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41WuyzXzgPL._AC_SY580_Dp...

Just curious - what about wearable cameras? Like a bodycam.

Kinda like a dashcam, but worn by a person rather than a vehicle.

They're regulated. Not German nor a lawyer but my understanding is that security cameras should only film private property (or as much as possible) and constantly running dashcams aren't allowed. It seems you're only allowed to record when something is happening but a dashcam which deletes the records unless you save them seem to be fair game

In some countries they don't. In Portugal for example they are not allowed and you can get fined for having one. You also cannot have a camera filming the street without specific authorization from a public entity for data protection, and you most likely will get denied unless you are a business and are filming only inside your premises, if you point your camera to the street you likely are getting denied. Ring cameras would be illegal there too.

Image rights and rights for privacy are up there just below right to life, so for example in a court case, video evidence is only accepted if it's a murder or attempted murder case. If you film me stealing your stuff it's not admissible.

Main reason being that the constitution considers your right to go about your business in any place with whoever you want to not be disclosed without your consent.

This looks far better than Brazil. We have the LGPD but nobody cares.

Switzerland for example forbids private cameras from filming public areas like the street. You either have to block those areas in camera or put the camera somewhere else. Door cameras are difficult because they sometimes point towards the street.

Public cameras must adhear to strict data retention rules and signs must be posted. Additionally in cities like Zürich doing face recognition on public ground is forbidden and will most likely be nationwide soon.

Dashcams are a gray zone. What is for sure is that the footage can not be used in court unless it's a very serious case and you can not publish footage without anonymiezing it. What Tesla does with storing footage in a Dutch DC is probably illegal but so far the authorities have not done anything against it.

Are TikTokers respecting it?

Not sure, but I've not had any problem with obnoxious people recording videos in public in the past 10 years.

I think so. I'm less familiar with TikTok but livestreamers in Germany do tend to respect it and you'll find relatively few prank or "stranger filmed in subway/gym" style German content on the internet. People will also usually turn cameras off/down when going into businesses, facing windows, etc.

Culturally it definitely still works which is arguably the function of the law to begin with.

I'm glad no one heeded this for techno-viking.

Technoviking successfully sued the video's creator: https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/technoviking-matthias-frits...

In Dubai it is criminally illegal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com