Random people of unknown motivations taking videos of others in public is obnoxious, more so than a quick snaphot or two taken by amateur photographers without permission.
My response would likely be the same as for surveillance in general - surveill 'em right back. Just whip out your phone and take a video of the videographer, including their car and license plate.
Depending on the location or context I might be distrusting or uncomfortable too.
Except I’m in a schlebby old girl.
Third form, you’re riding a handcycle. There are likely dozens of videos of me around here that I know of. No idea how many were actually kept after showing friends/family.
The thing is, from the videos that I’ve watched, they don’t care. They just laugh. They even have a name for it. They call it a “cam back”.
Good time to practice your one man play.
The only part of that video that could possibly qualify as a 1st amendment audit is when the cop shows up. Randomly filming people in public is NOT a 1st amendment audit, because the power restrictions in the Constitution don’t apply to private people. Mind you, a lot of idiots post videos under that tag that don’t qualify.
Do a search of 1st amendment audits on Youtube, and you’ll find videos like this one, where people film in and around government offices, to see if the government employees they encounter are willing to respect the Constitution.
You cant tape a phone call without consent of the other party, according to federal telecommunications law. I have not heard of that law being overturned. So it would seem that you can watch people in public place, but not record them on audio or video, subjecting them to playback which would infringe on rights to privacy.
As others - particularly @LSLGuy - have said, it really depends why the video is being taken. Like, I don’t really like (but have to accept) CCTV and security cameras everywhere, and ultimately the footage from them isn’t going to be used for anything except if there’s a serious incident. Most of it will just get archived and wiped without ever being seen, or if it is seen, by someone who’s not looking for “Martini buying a coffee” or “Martini taking his groceries to the car” or “Martini reading a book at the park”.
What I do have an issue with is the sort of stuff like what the OP describes, where the purpose of the filming is to get identifiable footage of individual people and then put it on the internet without the person’s consent for whatever reason.
I’ve long believed the issue with the current “There’s no laws against taking photos or filming in public” laws/rulings is the precedent and principles were laid down in an era when the internet wasn’t even a science fiction concept and distribution of images/information generally required a lot of work (to make flyers by hand) or ownership of a newspaper (or later, TV station)/printing press to distribute widely.
Basically until probably 20-odd years ago it was really too much work for “the average person” to do much with a photo or video they’d taken beyond putting in a photo album or watching it at home.
Nowadays a photo/video of someone making a derp face or licking their dog at the park or having an unpopular opinion or whatever can be snapped on a smartphone and on the internet for literally billions of people worldwide to see, in the space of a few seconds, and used in countless, potentially life- or career-ruining ways.
Obviously that’s at the extreme end of the scale, but culturally, I’ve noticed a lot of Americans seem to have a problem with the concept of “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” and what the guys mentioned in the OP are doing seems like a pretty good illustration of that, IMO.
This is specifically illegal in Switzerland. If I were to have a ring doorbell, I have the responsibility to make sure that it only covers my property.
In normal years I am probably in the background of dozens of vacation videos and pictures every year. That’s what I get for living near one of the most picturesque towns in Switzerland (Luzern). I don’t worry about that.
But if someone were to come up to me and start videoing me specifically, I would be within my rights to tell them to stop and to even get the police involved, especially if I am on my own property.
A few years ago a woman yelled at another woman for taking pictures of the employees at Starbucks in the Zurich train station, telling her that it wasn’t permitted. The woman taking the picture acknowedged that she was correct, but because she herself is the manager of the store (had a nametag, but no other identifying clothing), it was okay. The complaining woman accepted the explanation and they had a friendly discussion about the rules.
Nonsense. Federal law requires what’s called “single party consent”. IOW, a 3rd party can’t record you and I talking on the phone without either of our knowing. But under US Federal law I can record our conversation totally without your knowledge. And vice versa; you can pull the same crap on me.
Now various states have laws requiring more or different. Or not. Some require explicit verbal consent for each and every call. Others allow one-time consent between parties for all future calls. Others require nothing more than a periodic audible beep on the line and simply assume that all parties to the conversation know the beep means “I’m being recorded”.
Many of these laws distinguish between telephoning and in-person interactions. Some protect phoning only or have different protections for phoning vs. for in-person.
Finally, substantially all of these laws have explicit exceptions for out in public where no notice or consent is required.
In the USA as a general rule you have zero legal expectation or presumption of any privacy whatsoever in public. That’s not a result of any magic words in the constitution that some yahoo can point to; that’s just accumulated code and case law. As always, there’s lots of accumulated legal wisdom and legal contortions about where exactly “in public” begins and ends.
Whether any of this is the way it should be is a totally different topic I’m not engaging with here and now. I’m just laying out how it is.
See here for a nice summary of Federal and state-by-state law:
This.
The EU is waking up to the danger, both to companies being able to process masses of individuals’ data, and to ordinary citizens having the power of mass media behind them which can be used in devastatingly irresponsible ways.
Meanwhile, the US is stuck somewhere in an unholy triangle between “Corporate freedom is more important than citizen freedom”, “Police state surveillance is fine with me because I’m not one of Those People who do need watching every minute”, and “Mah Freedum!”
Sometimes when I start to post something, I think, “Wait–is that really correct?” And I do a little quick research just to double-check myself. Seems to me that you would be well-served by adopting the same attitude.
Federal law permits recording telephone calls and in-person conversations with the consent of at least one of the parties. See 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d). This is called a “one-party consent” law.
https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations
A lot of people would be well-served to look up “expectation of privacy.” In America, with the exception of changing rooms, bathrooms, etc., there is no expectation of privacy in a public place. Note–NOT “public property”–but public place. Malls, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. are private property, but are open to the public, and thus you have no expectation of privacy.
Some people have this really weird notion that recording stuff is a one-way street. It isn’t. Any place where it’s legal for a store or restaurant to put up security cameras, it’s legal for any member of the public to take pictures or video. Another really weird notion that a lot of people have is that it’s somehow illegal to take pictures or video of somebody in public unless you get their consent.
There was a discussion (I think on a subreddit) about a video posted on TikTok about a guy who was in an airport (which is a public place) using his phone to either record video or still photos of women. One of the women called him out on it and insisted he delete it. The discussion was basically to the effect of that he wasn’t breaking a law but he was creepy beyond belief. I think the subtext was that it was assumed he was looking at these photos with the left hand while the right hand was busy.
This is hardly an original observation, but COVID gave all of us a perfect excuse to become far more anonymous in the presence of pervasive surveillance. Face masks are awesome for hiding identities and facial expressions. And for inhibiting random conversations with random strangers.
It is interesting to me that the demographic least likely to want to wear a mask for COVID largely overlaps with the demographic most exercised about surveillance and craving the unfettered rights to exercise free will anonymously.
I used to have two dogs. One day I was walking them when a little girl (who had to be less than ten years old) used her smartphone to start filming the smaller dog. Of course I happened to be caught in the video. I happened to look back and saw her. She gave an embarrassed smile and seemed to be non-verbally asking for permission to film. I figured if she wanted to film the dog, it was no problem. Of course a child under ten is no kind of threat, and I never saw her again (so it’s not like someone hired her to film me, and why would any random person care about me anyway?).
As a university student my class was taken on a “field trip” (just to walk around a neighborhood) and we took pictures of old houses. At one house the residents were sitting on their porch. The teacher kept filming or snapping pictures, and they got upset. There wasn’t any screaming or anything, and we just left once they got upset. It’s legal, but the teacher should have known not to film them anyway.
In general I won’t care since I’m in public anyway. However if I were comforting someone crying or something along those lines, then I would be upset. Filming someone publicly could be an element of harassment, so while filming someone in public is generally legal, it could be part of illegal behavior.
I would not care. I would have cared once, just as I was once worried about all the stuff that every entity on the internet knows about me. I have long since been de-sensitized to all that. I can’t live in the modern world and worry about that stuff.
And then I think, what is the worst that could happen if someone taped me. The worst I can think of (and it’s not very bad really) is someone taping me walking into a fast food joint, and posting a video about “fat man goes into Burger King, no wonder he’s fat, ha ha” and it goes viral. And so what? I know I’m fat, and I know perfectly well why. They can’t tape me doing anything I didn’t actually do. If they manipulate the video so that it seems to show me committing a crime (why anyone would go to that trouble is beyond me), well, I understand such things can be unraveled by experts. I just can’t be bothered to worry about every little thing any more.
I don’t think really care unless it’s getting to the stalker stage. If someone has their phone out making a video at my favorite bar, I could care less if I show up in the background. And, surveillance video is what it is.
But let’s discuss the contradiction.
(The music really adds to the suspense … and contradiction)
While there may be no “law” against videoing in public as such, there are laws against things like “public mischief”, generally being a nuisance or causing a disturbance.
I’m not creating a disturbance; you’re creating a disturbance by over-reacting to my innocent recording. AKA “Mom! He’s touching me!!!1!1!!”
Idjits.