Photography Laws in Germany | Hacker News Reader

Photography Laws in Germany

allaboutberlin.com

74 pointsTomte82 comments

> Can I film the police in Germany?

> There is no exception for police officers. The same rules apply when you take photos or videos of the police.

In comparison, people in the US have a First Amendment right to film police without permission [1].

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/you-have-first-amendme...

You have the right to take photos of an officer without permission when they're arresting someone etc. So contrary to the article, there is effectively an exception for the police.

Whether or not officers in either country are aware of those laws, or willing to subject themselves to them is another question entirely.

https://www.prigge-recht.de/wann-polizisten-fotografiert-und...

You are always allowed to film any public service person on the job.

Including a proctologist?

Is that generally a “public” service for you? ;p

Yes. The public health system is free and my tax helps pays for the service. The employees work for the government.

That is still incorrect though. You paying taxes does not void their right to privacy. At least that's how it works in Germany.

And it shouldn’t void a right to privacy.

I’m was pointing out that just because they are a government employee it doesn’t mean they should lose that right.

I'm from germany but visited US many times.

In US, you wouldn't expect any privacy if you are in a public area. You can take pictures/video and you most likely are being filmed yourself by security cameras.

I like this rule (edit: first amendment right) because it's really easy to understand for everyone, you dont need a blog post to describe the nuances of it.

In Germany, even the use of dashcams is legally controversial. In Bavaria, passing on video footage recorded with a dashcam to the police or insurance company could result in a fine.

On Wikimedia Commons there's a large list of the legality of taking pictures of buildings in different countries [1], and an article about taking pictures of people [2]. Both contain a useful table organized by country.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panora...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_id...

> For example, North Korea has a suitable freedom of panorama law, while South Korea's law, limited to non-commercial uses, is not sufficient for Commons. As a result of the practice of applying the more lenient law, we would generally retain photos taken from North Korea of buildings in South Korea (e.g., File:Joint Security Area from North Korea.jpg) as well as photos taken from South Korea of buildings in North Korea (e.g., File:070401 Panmunjeom3.jpg).

Fascinating that North Korea has the more-free law in this case!

This is interesting, but isn't particularly surprising either, as this kind of freedom:

1. Don't affect the interests of the State

2. Goes against the interest of private actors (who want to have control over how a picture of their building can be monetized, and ideally get their share of it)

So we're typically in the (narrow) domain where you have more freedom in a communist country.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they simply ignore the law if something comes up that the ruling family doesn't like. Then you're spy and executed.

It’s not like they have rule of law or anything.

But other counties do, and that means respecting the laws of foreign countries. So even though it offers no real protection in DPRK, it does in many other places.

I enjoy the irony.

We value DPRK laws more than the tyrants who run it do.

In DPRK the law is whatever the fat man says it is.

He's not fat, the law says he's divine.

Good to know my North Korea photos on Wikipedia are legal!

North Korea is best Korea!

For pictures of public buildings, at least in Germany, "The exception generally applies only to works on permanent public display" does a lot of heavy lifting imho. So much so that I find the table headed "Freedom of panorama by country (Must include commercial use)" to be misleading and should highlight that any public use, including on social media, may require a license.

My Christmas lights are temporary. I demand a licensing fee from street view and all social media uses where my house is visible.

A lot of you are taking the laws too literal. I guess it’s down to the cultural differences between the EU and the US. We have a lot of privacy laws in place regarding photography and other things in Europe (I guess it should be the full length since the Brits are in on it), but it’s to protect people from abuse more than it’s to limit your rights.

I take pictures of my children casually in public, and I always try to not include strangers. Technically it’s illegal for me to take the pictures if a stranger is on the photo, but I’m trying to avoid it because I don’t want strangers in my picture. I never think about the law while I’m doing it. Similarly if you’re taking a photo of some cultural/historical place you’re not going to want to focus on strangers in it, unless you’re the kind of weirdo the laws are there to target.

The only non-creep people these laws really impact are the photographers who actually do want to take pictures of unaware strangers for artsy reasons. I’m not entirely sure how they handle it, my guess would be that they break the law and then ask for permission afterwards and delete the photos if denied, but it’s just a guess.

Anyway, I don’t think it really enters the mind of any regular person taking pictures. But it’s nice to know that if someone is breaking these laws then you can call the cops on them instead of having to make them stop taking unwanted photographs. Which is really what happened before these laws, you’d have some creep taking pictures of high school girls at their last-exam-party (day where they all go drinking in various parks - very Scandinavian), and the creeps would get beaten up by a bunch of high schoolers. Now the cops can simply arrest people taking photos, and I know some of you may think this means they arrest a lot of high schoolers, but our police officers aren’t… well… assholes.

Ah yes, the civilized legal system where everyone is breaking the law all the time, so the law gets selectively enforced and used as a weapon on people the police don’t like. But the police are never ever assholes so there’s no problems?

Pretty much. Same in for example the Netherlands. Weed is technically illegal. But nobody cares. Police won’t stop you, unless you’re being a dick. That’s precisely the point.

But your cops can already do this as well, they’ll just name it disorderly conduct instead.

You could of course always choose to not break the law to begin with.

It's largely selectively enforced because the executive doesn't enforce it unprompted.

I.e. in practice it gives everyone the right to have their right to their own likeness enforced. Which most of the time isn't taken too serious, but is an important feature at times.

It has its own share of issues, but I’d argue that we have a lot fewer issues than most places. It’s part of our legal system though, that our police officers have a lot of discretion. I’d argue that strictly enforcing the photography laws would be a huuuuuge waste of police resources though. I mean, how would you really police it? They do in London due to anti-terrorist reasons, but only if you’re taking photos of thing some people might want to blow up.

Of course it has issues though. Not so much in the way you seem suggest here though.

They do occasionally do coordinated operations on usually enforced laws. Like set up control points at universities and check if all bikes passing by are legal. But they won’t regularly pull you over if you’re missing a reflex or similar, unless your bike is extremely unsafe.

I'm sorry that you have issues with the police or other groups where you're from. Where I live in the EU I personally never had any issues with these groups and the people I know that had issues were able to sort them out without any major consequences to their lives.

Not saying that it's a perfect system, there will always be problems because there's not such thing as a perfect law, just a less imperfect one.

The difference between the EU and the US is the people. The mindset is different, that's why things can be so lax and still work.

FYI all continents and societies around the world are simultaneously burning and blooming with success. What changes is the bubble you're on. If you go on YouTube you can find an equal amount of videos and people saying that the US/EU is horrible/amazing. It all depends on the person and the person's values. I'm happy here and I completely understand those that are not, same for the the people in the US.

You mock it, but implementations that allow people to do things if they're not a problem isn't awful if the police are fair, reasonable people who want the best for their community.

I'd sooner have that than people being a pain in the arse because they're explicitly allowed to exercise rights at the cost of society.

Both concepts cut both ways.

> You mock it, but implementations that allow people to do things if they're not a problem isn't awful if the police are fair, reasonable people

Seems like the smarter thing to do would be to outlaw "the problem" and not leave every single person's safety/freedom entirely up to the whims and benevolence of police.

that doesn't work because you can't define "the problem". creating a long list of cases where photography should be allowed and where it shouldn't would require the photographed person to prove that their photo falls into the cases that are a problem. that puts to much burden on them, and makes it more difficult to protect themselves.

each person has a different feeling in how they are comfortable with having their pictures published. therefore the only sane thing to do is to give each individual the right to control that.

it's like copyright. by default all rights are reserved, but i can give permission to copy if i wish.

>The only non-creep people these laws really impact are the photographers who actually do want to take pictures of unaware strangers for artsy reasons.

That just isn't true. Imagine any kind of event where you want to take photos and publish them. Now you have to get an agreement from people on who is allowed to be photographed and who's photos you are allowed to publish, assuming that not all people agreed you now have to go through every single photo figuring out which one you are allowed to use and which one you aren't. This isn't a hypothetical, I have agreed with many, many such waivers for many different kind of events.

To say that this law only affects creeps is plainly false. Even if you are just planning a wedding this will affect you.

> I have agreed with many, many such waivers for many different kind of events.

Note that no one you want to invite to your wedding is going to disagree with such a waiver.

Most likely yes, but People get drunk at weddings. And if you are organizing any kind of corporate event it might very well be the case that someone disagrees, not asking simply isn't an option.

My point is that even a normal person with completely benign motives has to consider this. Contrary to what the other poster claimed it isn't a law which only "creeps" have to care about.

I can confirm from experience.

In a few German events, the organisers asked for my permission to take/share photos, and I refused. Not a single picture of me was shared. I never had to justify why, and it never felt abnormal.

That is correct. A good example is if you are hosting a meetup, and want to share pictures of the people who presented on stage.

I like the solution with the beatin' up more.

>> To take a photo of someone, you usually need their permission.

Still ambiguous. What level of permission do you need? Verbal permission? "Verba volant", they might change their mind and claim later that they didn't agree to the photo?

Signed permission? "Hey, mister, could you please sign this document that states you agree with me taking a picture of you?". That's a private contract, only slightly more useful than a verbal agreement because it can be contested in court.

Formal contract signed by both parties and ratified by a public notary? That's the strongest form of agreement but how practical is it for taking a picture on a bus?

Seems to me that like many laws, this one too is more for intimidation than practicality. I forgot how these are called (if they even have a name), these ambiguous laws that specify something fuzzy without a clear way of enforcing it and vague penalties. Reminds me of the (Hacker News?) story of the guy in Japan who refused to pay the TV tax (can't find it of course, or I'd have posted it here) and was threatened by "penalty", only problem is it says nowhere what the penalty is and who collects it.

You shouldn't draw conclusions about the law from a blog post that only aims to provide a convenient overview.

Laws such as these will be selectively applied on people law enforcement will not like.

There is a whole section of the article that explains how permission works.

Ambiguity is not a bug; it's a feature. Every case is different, and once you read a few of those legal cases, you really see that. I wrote that guide, so I read a lot of cases. They were all tricky, but none of them could be understood as an intimidation tactic.

At least over there the situation is clear. In the UK there's a myriad of bylaws regulating photography on private land, as every owner can write their own. Not all bylaws are published, but you are still required to obey them.

In the US, private property is probably one of the grayer areas. In practice, posting pictures from a private party is pretty normal--so long as no one says "please don't" which almost no one does in my experience. Obviously there are embarrassing/very private/etc. situations where it's pretty much inappropriate.

But in the US, shooting a casual photo of you in a public park for non-commercial (i.e. not marketing/advertising) purposes is pretty much fair game, especially if I'm not stalking you.

In the US, private property isn't very grey. With a few exceptions like ag gag laws (which probably won't hold up to first amendment challenges) or invasion of privacy, you can photograph whatever you want on private property and the only recourse the person who controls that property has is to trespass you.

You mention one thing. Are they trespassing? It probably varies by state anyway, but a photo from public property is almost certainly OK perhaps absent big telephotos peering through windows--though, if you're a celebrity, leaving your shades open in probably on you I would guess.

But, yes, in general, a lot of things in this vein are OK in the US that at least theoretically aren't in some European countries.

I used "trespass" as a transitive verb. It's a remedy, not something the hypothetical photographer is doing. It's when a person who controls a property can demand you leave and not return under penalty of arrest. It's not linked to photography specifically—a person who controls a property can trespass you for virtually any reason or no reason at all. They can't make you delete your photos or anything else. The hypothetical photographer is only trespassing when they've been given notice that they need to leave (i.e. the person who controls the property has trespassed them) and they refuse to do so.

Again, this is not a grey area at all.

In the UK, a lot of publicly accessible places are owned by local, regional, or national authorities who can draft their own bylaws, see https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/about-us/photogr... And they do go after photographers https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/wedding-photographer... making it difficult for photographers to produce and make a living off their photos.

You go to the beach at Coney Island, New York and there’s NYPD notices listing about 50 things you’re not allowed to do on the beach. It’s a while since I was there so I might be misremembering some but in amongst things like BBQs, ball games, cycling and swimming when there’s no lifeguard I think maybe taking photos was one of them? I’m sure there’s good reasons why they’ve banned all these things due to people acting like anti social idiots on what must be a very crowded beach in the height of summer but I felt a lot less free on that beach than any other I had been to. Is that notice in violation of the constitution? I’m guessing the NYPD legal department has written this so probably not?

> Is that notice in violation of the constitution? I’m guessing the NYPD legal department has written this so probably not?

I wouldn't count on that. The NYPD was caught with signs that prohibited photography in the lobby of their police stations which violated the law. Someone actually had to take them to court before they'd change the policy and they still fought it.

Quite ok, but the problem is, if you ask the permission before, the moment/photo is already ruined. Usually if you carry around a camera and see a good situation, you have to act swiftly and in a candid way, because when people see that you are photographing them they will throw the fake face which again, ruins the photo.

So, you can ask their permission after you've taken the shot. And if it's a very good photo and the person says no, well, you can still have that photo for yourself.

I don't think anyone will file a model form in public after you have taken their photos.

How does this affect the police in Germany and their ability to record / photograph? What about security cameras, or doorbell cameras - are they illegal, or is consent applied by someone approaching them?

I'm assuming it's the main role that they have: they can get your data and record/photograph you for evidence of commiting something(steal, murder, etc.)

Also: AFAIK, they can't access the records unless it's requested from someone or if there is a case and the records would help solve the case.

any cameras on your property must not reach areas beyond property borders. so doorbell cameras would have to be above the door facing down or be mounted on the side facing the door if you do not have a sufficiently large front yard.

In addition to what the other person said, I think it's legal to watch a camera live that goes beyond property borders. But you can't record that while not watching live .. or something like that.

Just like you could look out of your windows, but you could not watch out of your window 24/7 :D

Interesting; is that the same for banks / building security? That sounds like it disallows dash cams too?

edit: did some digging on dash-cams, seems like they're legal if they're recording on a loop, and save permanently with some user-interaction.

Security cameras must have signs, and not cover outside your property. Storage is (suggested? allowed?) for 24-48 hours. You can request footage of yourself from anyone (even private?), but they have 1 month to reply to a request - so seems practically pointless given the recording storage length.

Those two public gathering photos seem utterly indistinguishable to me. Yes, one is a bit more zoomed in but they both have clearly identifiable people in them.

More broadly, I'm pretty sure many thousands, if not millions, of photos are shared every day on social media and in other forms that have clearly identifiable people in them. The vast vast majority of which the subject is blissfully unaware.

I haven't actually spent a lot of time in Germany specifically--relatively speaking. But I'm sure I have a very great many photos online that violate one or more of these rules.

>Those two public gathering photos seem utterly indistinguishable to me.

The difference is that the first two public gatherings show a historical landmark (the Brandenburg Gate) and a political protest. The last photo is just a few people gathering.

In practice the difference is usually pretty clear. If there's something of public interest in the photo it's fine, but you can't just take a snapshot of a bunch of people having a picnic in a park or just sitting on the subway without consent.

The last photo looks to be some sort of public gathering or protest as well although the nature of it isn't immediately clear from just the photo.

In any case, any of those photos would be absolutely allowable in the US. Wouldn't even be a grey area.

> You don’t need their permission if… the people in the picture are participating in a public gathering, parade or similar event, and they are not the focus of the photo

The third picture focuses on an individual.

That seems to be a subjective artistic interpretation. You could crop the un-focused one in a way that would be presumably focused. Is the cropping illegal? Is the photo retroactively illegal? I'm surprised that these laws exist because they seem so ambiguous to me. Sometimes I don't even know the focus of my own photos.

if you take photos for your own use and don't share them online then you will be fine. if you want to share them, making sure that people can't be recognized, like blurring the faces, should probably be enough. but IANAL

>don't share them online

ROFL. I suspect a lot of these laws/rules predate ubiquitous smartphone cameras and perhaps even widespread digital photography. Not that I do much in the way of "street photography" as such I'm pretty sure I have hundreds of photos online, including from Germany, that violate one or more of these rules.

right, and for the most part that's fine too. i am not going to bother about my face showing up in your family album, whether you asked me or not. if you had asked, i'd probably have said yes anyways. however, the point of the law is that anyone downloading your album and exploiting it in some form is violating my rights just as much as you did if you didn't ask, and even more so if they make money off it, or defame my person, and so the law gives me the right to not only ask you to take the photo down, but sue those exploiters for damages. i am not going to sue you, because you didn't profit from the image. yours was an innocent mistake, and simply taking down the image will be enough for you. but if you had the legal right to take and publish my face without my permission, then i would not have the law on my side to stop anyone who is actively exploiting that.

The cropped or re-focused image isn't the same as the original, at best a derivative.

And yes, in general a photo of a larger gathering is fine, singling out any person is not. So the original would be fine, the derivative not.

True, but I think a fairly uncontroversial one.

The subject of the first photo is the Brandenburg Gate. The subject of the second photo is a climate change protest. The subject of the third is a man dancing.

> utterly indistinguishable to me

Utterly?

While somewhat harder, it looks like one is a protest and one is a photo of people dancing at an music event. Please don't take photos of people just enjoying themself (in Germany). Most people change their behavior when a camera is pointed at them.

Lukely some clubs have strict "no photo" rules and put little stickers on your phone camera. Can't do that in a street festival though.

> Please don't take photos of people just enjoying themself (in Germany).

This is absurd. Sorry, I enjoy taking photos of joy.

Yeah, me too. But please do it with consent.

As a german, I like that I don't have to potentially perform for some random strangers social media video by walking around in public.-- But in the end it's a cultural thing with people just respecting each others privacy a bit more, it would probably work without an explicit law.

> As a german, I like that I don't have to potentially perform for some random strangers social media video by walking around in public

I'm going to guess that these laws don't apply to security cameras though.

The laws regarding security cameras are also pretty strict. For example you can't have a camera on your house recording the public street in front of it.

I got a weird feeling reading that article: As an individual, I like the fact that, if I go to Germany, my privacy is protected.

But, it does make me uncomfortable using my camera phone to casually take photos. Does the activity (commercial / personal) of the photographer have any bearing?

There's a middle ground, and that middle ground is just in a different place.

In most cases, it just means that if you're pointing your camera at specific people, you should just ask first. The activity of the photographer has zero bearing on that.

I've been in Germany for many years. If someone points their camera at me, it would be perfectly normal for me to walk up to them and ask them what the hell they're doing. In this case, the law has very strong cultural backing.

Case in point: for another guide on the same website, I needed a photo of a convenience store. I took one, and the man inside walked out and asked me why I was taking photos, saying that I shouldn't be doing that and so on. This was well within Panoramarecht, but I still had to reassure him that I needed a photo of a standard Späti to explain what they are, that the photo would be published on this specific website, that they were not visible in the photo and so on.

Germans take privacy seriously.

I'm an American living in Berlin. I do a fair of amount of photography here and have some perspective to offer. An important part of the privacy laws is the prohibition on sharing on social media. Even if you can legally take a photo, sharing someone's likeness on Instagram is not allowed without permission and is actionable in court. Newspapers here take care to share different images on social media than they do on their own websites. It's common to see faces blurred on Twitter or Instagram if they even share it.

Even if it is legal, Germans are quick to confront people taking pictures. They will get in your face and yell at you about it and tell you to delete images. It rarely gets physical, if ever, but up to you if you want to deal with all that. This happened to me twice when I was taking photos of crowds, once at a flea market and the other outside a subway station on the street.

Don't even think of bringing a drone. They hate them and the restrictions are severe. I have all the required licensing and insurance and still can't fly in most of the city.

You also need to be aware of cultural differences within the international community. Berlin has a large Arab population and their tolerance of photography seems to be very different, especially if women or children are included. Also, some Slavs and Eastern Europeans are extremely suspicious of people taking pictures of strangers. Be warned.

Don't take pictures on the trains or subways, even selfies. I have seen some people get angry about that.

I can confirm all of this. People get confrontational when a camera is pointed at them, and uncomfortable when they're in the frame.

I took a photo in a Berlin McDonalds of their menu board, and got yelled at and kicked out.

Did you have the cashiers face in frame?

What if I am using Stabble Diffusion to recreate an image? Tall guy, cca 1,90m,30 years, dark hair, umbrella, standing near cross road...

Another reminder that other developed countries are not like US. On intellectual level and as a hobby street photographer these restrictions sound ridiculous to me. But I went to Japan recently and the place is so safe you can give kids some cash and take them to take subway anywhere they want / ask anyone for help if they get lost. I am sure this degree of safety comes with tradeoffs to many kinds of freedom, but at the same time it constitutes its own very important freedom.

Let different countries be and let them learn from each other's experience?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com