this is illegal almost everywhere.
e.g. in germany it is even illegal to take a picture of a person (one specific) in a public space without their consent (unless they are a person of public interest).
US [0] “ In the United States, photographs that are taken for editorial use in a public place generally enjoy Constitutional protection under the right of free speech.”
Denmark [1] “ you can almost without restrictions shoot anything as long as what you're seeing is visible from public property. You are allowed to shoot people, including police officers or other government officials.”
In Germany [2], you can photograph people from public locations but not if they are nude or vulnerable or in their home. “ You can’t take photos of people if it shows their helplessness.1 For example, you can’t take photos of accident victims, drunk people or nude people without their permission.”
[0] https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-are-the-laws-regardin...
[1] https://law.photography/law/street-photography-laws-in-denma...
My point isn’t that there are no limitations on photography or use. My point is that if you make something public, people can view it and use it. And that’s legal. People seem confused about this that somehow consent is required for use. Not for things publicly released. (In the US and many countries at least)
Not how I learned it. You can take pictures of public spaces as long as a specific person is not the focus of the picture. The other aspects, like the invasion of privacy when a person is nude, only come on top of that.
The law around questions like this is not definitive, so a lot depends on recent court decisions.
What I try to do is track to the actual source rather than relying on my own memory of things.
> According to German law and court decisions, it seems quite definitive.
That's impossible. Basically nothing is definitive in the german Medienrecht ;) Ok, not really true, but it's true that things can change and that it is a less defined area and you'd have to be really certain to know the relevant case law to be almost certain here.
Here is is: [2] https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/photography-laws-germany
And it actually references the same article you posted.
> Nach dem Bundesverfassungsgericht (BverfGE NJW 2000, 1021) ist bereits ab diesem Punkt [that a photo is taken] ein Kontrollverlust der ohne Einwilligung abgebildeten Person über das Bild gegeben, und dieser mögliche Kontrollverlust rechtfertigt sogar unter Umständen ein Fotografierverbot.
But that is debatable and actually the point that could be outdated.
In practice, the guide is not completely wrong: You can take pictures in public spaces and they can show people, but those people should not be the focus of the image and you might want to make them unidentifiable if you publish the image.
Taking a photo of a public square with a lot of people in it is still legal without asking everyone for consent. But the topless photo example would not be legal at all without consent or even just a photo where one specific person or small group is the focus.
Edit: taking the photo itself might be ok in the latter case, but publishing it (like posting to facebook or a blog or forum) is not.
That ends up being a prohibition on taking photos in public at all except in areas devoid of others as it is impossible/unreasonable to get the written consent of all parties who would be photographed in the background of a photo of a person who requested thier photo be taken....
******Warning****** NSFW pictures of the future Queen of England at this URL --> https://theoutsidersadi.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/click-here-...
The (UK) press get around the law, by reporting a story and then relying on the reader using search engines to get the information from other jurisdictions like I have just done here, located in UK, EU google servers, and where ever the wordpress server is located.
It kind of makes me think, what is the point of law?
You need a lot of money to fight these entities and fight them in multiple jurisdictions where relevant laws exist.
What also makes a mockery of the legal system at least the Royal lawyers is, whilst Kate Middleton has some injunction to block press publication in the UK, they cant stop the search engines from publishing the data to users in the UK, as I have just demonstrated with the link above and the search term "kate topless holiday photo" and then clicking the images option!
Now what if I meant "kate beckinsale topless photo" instead of "kate topless photo"? I just got someone elses topless photos without even expecting them, ie the future Queen of England.
Are the Royal lawyers from the stone age, do they not understand search engines or do they buy the targeted filter bubble narrative highlighted by Eli Parsier in his Ted talk?
I like German privacy, they even stood up to Google and the Streetview project, however Google have edited me from their Streetview images where I'm giving their car the bird as it drove past me so there is some human oversight, but they still have that data and refuse to hand it over via GDPR DSAR requests.
To many big entities including the Police, fulfil GDPR DSAR requests by relying on being able to identify the individual using todays existing systems.
If someone cant be identified, like my giving the Google Streetview car the bird in their streetview data, Google will say no data exists.
Yet GDPR law doesnt address developing and future technology which will be able to identify me giving the Google Streetview car the bird if they run facial recognition over their streetview data.
So the GDPR DSAR is useless law as is, although I havent read it, but I suspect Google's privacy policy is as well.