New laws that threaten photography and filming

[ufkacbln]

A typical overreaction when a father cant take pictures of his own family.
A real use of antiterrorist rules,or is it someones authority/power trip,and them just trying to be official,and look at what i have the authority to do type.Which there seems to be plenty of nowadays.

You don't know they were kids... they could be small terrorists.... a bit like paperboys!

New target for the anti-terror spies: Village paperboys - for not having the correct paperwork

By Dan Newling
Last updated at 8:37 PM on 05th December 2008

They creep around in the dark spreading misery, rumour and secrets from inside Westminster.

Even so, paperboys and girls are hardly likely to pose a threat to national security.

One local council, however, thought it necessary to use swingeing anti-terror laws against them.

Cambridgeshire County Council used the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on eight paperboys thought to be working without permits.

It sent undercover council officers to lurk outside a Spar in the village of Melbourn and take notes on the movements of the boys.

The evidence was used in a criminal prosecution of the shop's owners for employing five of the boys without the correct documentation.

Cambridgeshire's approach is just the latest example of local authorities using the RIPA for minor misdemeanours.

Such activities have been likened to those of the Stasi, the East German secret police.

A Cambridgeshire bylaw states that all paperboys must have a work permit issued by the council and signed by the child's employer, headteacher and parents.

Working children must also be over 13 and cannot start work until after 7am.

This week Cambridge Magistrates' Court was told that Dips Solanki, 42, and his wife Rashmi, 38, had failed to get the correct work permits for five paperboys.

Prosecutor Simon Reeve told the court that the couple ignored letters and visits from a child employment officer. He said that although eight applications for work permits had been sent to the children's school, only three were signed.

He produced the surveillance to prove the boys had been working.

The Solankis were found guilty of failing to comply with the bylaw and now have a criminal record. They were given a six-month conditional discharge.

All the boys concerned were between 13 and 16. Other than not having the correct paperwork, they were working legally.

Yesterday, the couple insisted that there had simply been a paperwork mix-up. They denied that they had been warned by council officials - and said the authority was using a 'hammer to crack a nut'.

Mrs Solanki said: 'They should only do such things for a serious crime. We're innocent people trying to make an honest living. It's ridiculous and was a complete waste of everyone's time.'

Andrew Lansley, Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, agreed, saying: 'These powers should only be used for the scope they were intended, which is to tackle serious crime and terrorism.' But a Cambridgeshire Council spokesman said: 'Delivering heavy bags early in the morning is potentially very hazardous.

'We do not want to wait until someone has an accident before we start to uphold the law properly.'

The Act was introduced in 2000. As well as allowing spying in the interests of national security, it also allows state agencies such as councils, NHS trusts and the fire service to act secretly in the interests of 'protecting public health'.

The council swoops

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act was supposed to grant only the police and security services the power to spy on emails and phone calls.

But it was extended to town halls, which have been taking advantage on a daily basis.

In the last financial year, 154 local authorities made 1,707 requests for communications data under RIPA.

They include Poole Council in Dorset, which spied on a family because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

Councils in Derby, Bolton, Gateshead and Hartlepool used covert techniques to deal with dog fouling, while Bolton spied on suspected litter louts

 

[classic33]

Originally Posted by classic33
Question put elsewhere on here relating to digital cameras. Given the storage method, as a series of numbers, not an image. Are you actually taking a photograph.

If your fingerprints are scanned onto a computer sytsem, then you haven't been fingerprinted. Both give the same end result, but you are only classed as having your fingerprints taken if it results in a hard copy. The other is a storage of a series of numbers.

True but for the sake of simplicity we tend to generalise dont we. How many people say they vaccuum the room? Most "hoover" it.

The legal classification has already been done though & its currently in use in this country. A seperate piece of equipment is required to "reassemble" the numbers in order that a picture can be seen.

 

[Bman]

Slowly beginning to seem as though Orwell got it right.

Oh ****! You're right!

 

[ChrisCrc]

IF OUR DEAR AND BELOVED COUNTRY HAD NOT GOT MIXED UP IN OTHER PEOPLES WARS & had not Tried to Subject OTHER COUNTRIES into our GOVERNMENTS way of thinking, THEN WE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY NEED FOR ANTI TERROR LAWS.

DONT BLAME THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER FOR TAKING A PHOTOs



Our Country is going downhill fast and i myself am quite worried about what we are losing ( our Identity ) We now have Laws that PROTECT the Laws So where is all going to end? We have become a nation of Softies WHO WALK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET and look the other way..............Lets give the ordinary people the Power to Change things BUT THIS WILL ONLY COME ABOUT IF WE ALL STICK TOGETHER Which we dont so things will stay as they are.............WE HAVE ONLY GOT OURSELVES TO BLAME

Oh yeah "Thanks to all the Knobs who voted for LABOUR" Because if you did THEN YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE CURRENT CLIMATE.

 

[downfader]

IF OUR DEAR AND BELOVED COUNTRY HAD NOT GOT MIXED UP IN OTHER PEOPLES WARS & had not Tried to Subject OTHER COUNTRIES into our GOVERNMENTS way of thinking, THEN WE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY NEED FOR ANTI TERROR LAWS.

DONT BLAME THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER FOR TAKING A PHOTOs



Our Country is going downhill fast and i myself am quite worried about what we are losing ( our Identity ) We now have Laws that PROTECT the Laws So where is all going to end? We have become a nation of Softies WHO WALK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET and look the other way..............Lets give the ordinary people the Power to Change things BUT THIS WILL ONLY COME ABOUT IF WE ALL STICK TOGETHER Which we dont so things will stay as they are.............WE HAVE ONLY GOT OURSELVES TO BLAME

Oh yeah "Thanks to all the Knobs who voted for LABOUR" Because if you did THEN YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE CURRENT CLIMATE.

As a voter we have every right to complain, even if its about the party we voted in. Nobody knew how this would turn out and we all had high hopes. I was an old school labour supporter, raised in a shop steward's family and believing in the Unions.

Now lawyers have replaced the unions and 600 new laws or something have been passed that need not have been. If the law is simple and made of common sense then things run smoothly.

Oh and the "other people's wars" was brought to the west with 9/11 despite what everyone says, and that in turn was brought about via the Reds invading afghanistan in the 80s and the yanks pulling out support...

 

[Ghost Donkey]

Locally a man was attacked by a mob for filming his own grandkids on the common, the police had to intervene.

On the rare occasion I film the kids in the park for the grandparents overseas I tend to do it when it's quiet and if other people are their I ususally ask if they mind me doing it. I can't remember when I started asking people but it seems like the right thing to do in the current climate. I though it might be me being paranoid but maybe not.

 

[col]

On the rare occasion I film the kids in the park for the grandparents overseas I tend to do it when it's quiet and if other people are their I ususally ask if they mind me doing it. I can't remember when I started asking people but it seems like the right thing to do in the current climate. I though it might be me being paranoid but maybe not.

Just goes to show how rediculous its getting, it must be pretty obvious to normal people when someone is with family or friends. But those that attacked him are the type that like to use any excuse to make themselve s look like they really care, when they dont.

 

[Crankarm]

Its slowly being outlawed in the UK it seems. I know that in my home town that if you walk around with an SLR you'll get approached, stopped and searched by the local police... now on Feb 16 a new law comes into affect:

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=836646

It seems to me that this will slowly effect all forms of photography and filming. Ironically - will people now come forward with evidence to help the police if a police operation goes wrong? So say you see an officer getting a kicking and have a camera phone on you perhaps that will stay safely in the pocket?

The words " likely to be of useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" seem to be key. The police would presumably have in addition to show that you were preparing or likely to commit a terrorist act. Would taking a picture or series of pictures on their own constitute without preparation or commission of a terrorist act constitute an offence under the Act? Probably not but you would have to go to court to find out. This police power would have to be balanced against the right to Freedom of Expression article 10 and Freedom of Assembly and Association article 11 of the HRA 1998 and in the case of the Japanese tourist photographing his family the Right to Respect for Family and Private life article 8 comes to mind. Any derogation from these fundamental rights would have to be proportionate and justified by the police. In many cases they spectacularly misread a situation and overact.