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Comment by zokier | Hacker News Reader

It is funny how insular and US centric many of the comments here are. In fact many countries do have legislation requiring consent in many scenarios for photographing or publishing photos. And it turns out that it is not actually very problematic.

Wikimedia has some examples, but I'm sure it is not comprehensive: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_...

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1. The author of the article is in the UK

2. Recording people without their consent still happens in lot of other countries other than the US. I bet I'm in tons of YouTube videos showing skiing in the Alps.

Because the US has other laws that make the kind of laws you're talking about very difficult. You have to look at the laws together as a part of a system and not a one off set of actions.

In addition laws in the US tend to protect the rich very well and get wholesale ignored for the poor. That is Jeffrey Bezos will punish you with the full extent of the law for taking a video of him beating a baby fur seal to death with a bat, while star-wars kid will be begging for venmo donations in order to get thousands of copies of video taken down while law enforcement ignores the situation.

I don't think the law is the issue here. Stuff like #metoo shows how devasating effects can be even if you eventually sue and win. And the audience sentiment never really changes because they never come back to the story.

Mix that with the lack of general shame for this stuff and you have this weird state of affairs where you don't want to do anything slightly risky. Nothing silly, nothing that can cause you to be looked over on job apps, nothing that you enjoy by yourself but others find "weird".

Not really, other European countries also have the "don't participate if you don't want to be filmed" mentality.

E.g. author says:

> But then I’ve seen the same at (private) conference

I've been to many such conferences, and they all make it very clear that all the photos can be taken and used in advertising by anyone, both in agreements as well as entrance banners. Same as in US.

Some conferences I've attended provide stickers to put on your badge and if you don't want to be photographed/published the conference organizers may pay attention with respect to their publicity photos. Of course, others snapping pics with their cell phones may not. (And, in Germany as well as other countries, I've never seen explicit warnings about not publishing photos of people at a conference without permission.).

Most people are pretty reasonable and aren't aggressive with their picture taking. But there are almost certainly photos of you online whatever the local country laws may say.

In my country is like this, or was, I have not worked in that space for a long time.

An individual can record you on the street without problems.

A crew can't record you on the street for anything that will be aired on tv/cinema without your signing that you give your permision.

A Youtuber can record you on the street without problems.

I mean there is a "photo release" or "Model Release" contract used often when taking pictures in any private place that grants the right for the photographer to use those photos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_release

Well, the author in the article is in the US, posting about behavior they experience in the US, so it really isn't that surprising.

ah, .co.uk, the TLD long favored by lawyers blogging in the US, indeed.

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