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Court Rules It's Ok To Tag Pics On Facebook Without Permission
neoflexycurrent writes "A federal court has ruled that photos of a woman on Facebook showing her drinking were properly used as evidence in a child custody case. She had argued she was identified without permission. But the court rejected that argument. In reaching that decision, the court made the interesting observation that: '[t]here is nothing within the law that requires [one's] permission when someone takes a picture and posts it on a Facebook page. There is nothing that requires [one's] permission when she [is] "tagged" or identified as a person in those pictures.'"
Why wouldn't tagging be within law? Tagging a photo is similar to someone asking "who is that person" and the photographer telling him. Sure, Facebook gets extra data, but then you should tell your friends not to tag you in photos.
Exactly. And since when is it truly -wrong- (not illegal, but harming someone else) to drink even under 21 (a really, really silly rule)? Do people -really- believe that before Facebook that people -didn't- do these things?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm pretty sure Facebook's privacy settings even allow you to deny people the ability to tag you in posts. Problem solved. Idiot.
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations..." -Winston Churchill
Just why would any court want less evidence? The judge & jury need information to base their decision upon. The more, the better. There are rules about what evidence can be excluded, but those are for only very good reasons. Not just because one party doesn't like it.
In this case, tagging is like making a comment on a post. Free speech, subject to the limitations of libel. If she can show the tag is clearly wrong, then perhaps she can get it excluded as irrelevant. If not, tough. The jury will decide.
The fundamental thing is that people are responsible for all their actions -- on record all the time -- except in clear situations where there is an expectation of privacy. Not in any bar.
Why would this ever be an issue? Why would you ever need to get permission to IDENTIFY a person in a picture?
As far as the supposed need to ask permission to take and publish the photos in the first place: the judge said there is nothing within the law to suggest permission is necessary. It will be hard to reconcile that with these "rights to be forgotten" or Google Street View etc. In those cases, the argument is that you can't simply take pictures of things/people in public places and publish them...
No, it's just way easier to prove now that everybody publishes every detail of their sorry lives --or their friends' sorry lives-- on the web.
Mostly harmless.
Actually, a Facebook non-user. If someone on Facebook takes a photo with me in it and 'links' it to my account, what you say may be true. But if I don't have a Facebook account and I am simply identified as PPH, how do I stop someone from searching through others Facebook accounts (which may be unsecured) for instances of PPH?
Do I have to have a Facebook account to control this sort of third party tagging? Isn't that a form of blackmail?
Have gnu, will travel.
Funny story...
Facebook is using their photo tagging system to build the world's best facial recognition software.
Oh wait, that's not funny.
sig?
Since there's "nothing within the law" requiring their permission?
I don't believe there's a search mechanism for people who are tagged in pictures that don't link back to an account.
So If I had a picture of you and I posted it and tagged it as being "PPH", I don't believe there is a way to just search for pictures of "PPH" using the interface. There might be, but it would be non-obvious.
Couldn't she just say she was pretending to drink? (People read way too much into photos and Facebook posts as being factual. It can all be made up.)
Bullshit.
Someone with the "intent" to cause trouble in a custody case might have their ex followed, or try to get access to facebook info, or any other social media info.
Some stalking that person would do the precise same thing.
When you are in a custody battle and are taking medication that is incompatible with alcohol. Which you would know is the issue if you read the fine article:
Her face could have been tagged "Lady Gaga", but if the photo itself was admitted as evidence, the person would still be identified.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
When you have bipolar disorder and are on medication which tends to react badly* with alcohol and are trying to have custody of the kids then yes drinking alcohol is going to look bad in court
* Where react badly is anything from reducing the effectiveness of the meds, to increasing the effectiveness of the alcohol, to resulting in hullicinations, self harm, and harm to others.
a) It would be VERY irresponsible of her to stop taking that medication cold turkey. It doesn't get out of your system for days/weeks and in the short term would have had rebound effects. b) She would have been told very clearly not to drink while on any anti-depressant/anti-psychotic medication. She obviously broke that rule. Adds these two points together and you get someone with poor judgement and not able to take very good care of herself.
Other than maybe not drinking if a psychologist says that alcohol has an adverse effect on the medication she takes and maybe asking the photographer not to take her picture while drinking, she could untag herself from unflattering pictures like these. There is already a setting to limit who can see tagged photos and also automation to have the system send an email and/or SMS when a photo is tagged. I frequently check the Privacy settings to make sure that I know how much information is being shared. I essentially have three groups: people I actually know (full access to what I share and access to see each other's posts on my wall), people I am 'Friends' with but do not have the heart to de-friend (basic information like photos I have shared and tagged myself, email address, status updates), and everyone else (name, default profile pic... and nothing else).
To limit who can see tagged photos:
Account > Privacy > Customize > Photos and videos I'm tagged in > Edit Settings > Who can see photos and videos I'm tagged in > Custom > Create a group of people you actually know or set it to 'Only Me'.
To receive alerts about being tagged:
Account > Account Settings > Notifications > Photos > 'Tags you in a photo'
"Mostly harmless."
as soon as you step out your front door, you are in public, and anyone can take a picture of you, without any need for permission
in your private abode, or someone else's privater abode, the opposite is true
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I love how the government is so eager to protect corporate "persons" but REAL people, who experience real consequences from someone basically doing the same thing, linking to them online, well, suddenly it's ok.
Court of Appeals of Kentucky.
February 25, 2011.
It's a great thing I have no friends: they can't tag me in any photos if anyone even happened to take a photo of me in the first place!
No friends == better privacy obviously!
Once again...it proves that you should say this little phrase before posting any photo online. Would your mother approve? If the answer is no, then don't do it.
Ok, by and large psychologist != medically qualified (at least here in the UK) and certainly not a pharmacologist. So testimony is basically pulled out of their arse. Secondly, being bipolar myself (and YMMV), I would be inclined to the view that most of the available medication (apart from Lithium) actually makes things worse, not better. But that's a side issue. Yer basic problem here is a legal system where throwing mud is a legitimate tatic. How on earth anyone could extrapolate a photograph on FB (unless, as suggested above, of cutting off someones head with a chainsaw) into making a meaningful judgement as to the fitness of ability to be a good parent is a mystery to me. Horseshit of the highest order.
tagging a picture is two separate acts: publishing the picture and publishing a statement (the tag). if I have published a legal picture of someone, I can tag it with anything non-libelous. not really anything new here, is there?
A few posts back "man arrested for linking to online videos."
This is one more confirmation that it is legal to photograph anyone without their permission in public places. No need for model releases. A victory for photographers that are regularly harassed by policemen around the world...
metageek
Where do you get these cameras that can take aa photo and simultaneously analyze the contents of a glass?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
i've been to montreal, i've taken pictures there where people wandered into the shot. have i violated their rights? no
you can make a law about anything you want. that automatically doesn't make the law common sense or something you must respect. clearly this quebec law is irrational and deserves to be overturned
you really support the notion that just taking a picture in public means you can't publish it without contacting every person who wanders in the shot? clearly, no. so the only common sense idea is that IF you go in public, images of you in that public area are open and free for all. to say you get to go out IN PUBLIC and still control your image there, is delusionally wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The government doesn't get involved with parents and children for taking medication or drinking. There had to have been some underlying cause for the entire drinking or medication to even be relevant in the first place.
In this case, it was a custody case in which one parent was saying I'm a better environment/person/provider/whatever then she is. This is the only reason why drinking or mental medication was even relevant.
All other things being equal, would someone not taking their prescription medication or boozing it up be a better or worse or equal environment for a child. You see, this is literally about the best and worst case arrangement for the kid(s) when compared between two distinct scenarios. The only reason why it's about drinking or medication is because someone is specifically saying it's not as good as over here.
Really? So ten lying witnesses are better than one truthful one?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They used the wrong defense. They should have argued that the original poster of the picture had no permission to use their picture for personal gain in the first place. Is it okay for me to scan in this month's Playboy and post the pictures as long as I tag them with the playmate's name?
how hard would it be for FB to seek the "tag-ee's" permission to use the tag? click here to approve your tag on this photo. click here to deny.. even better a setting that says - NO CAN TAG
instead they just send a note that says "you've been tagged"
fuck. that. shit.
In both of those cases the intent could be deemed criminal. Someone finding an old friend or family member would have a more benign intent and thus lawful action. The difference between manslaughter and homicide is intent. Intent plays a large role in our laws.
Also: Less chance of being involved in a child custody case in the first place.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
a) It would be VERY irresponsible of her to stop taking that medication cold turkey. It doesn't get out of your system for days/weeks and in the short term would have had rebound effects. b) She would have been told very clearly not to drink while on any anti-depressant/anti-psychotic medication. She obviously broke that rule. Adds these two points together and you get someone with poor judgement and not able to take very good care of herself.
a) Who says if she stopped it was "cold turkey"? "Months ago" would only suggest "when", not "how".
b.1)Are you sure that one would be "told very clearly not to drink . . ." on the meds? Ya, the bottle might say that, but you see the "don't drink" on practically every Rx med these days, it can kinda look more like a CYA thing. Like the warning to wear eye-protection when using your new pliers.
b.2)Who says she's on an anti-depressant/anti-psychotic medication for Bipolar Disorder?
I am not a crackpot.
If breaking those dietary restrictions have a history of triggering the person to harm others then possibly.
Though as with the drinking it isn't "cause to remove custody" it's evidence off unsuitability meaning the other parent is more likely to be a better choice.
"The days of 35mm cameras" might seem as ancient as the dinosaurs to you, but concerns that new technologies and new businesses exploiting of those technologies are infringing on the right "to be let alone" have been raised for more than a century.
Two future Supreme Court of the US Justices, named Warren and Brandeis, published a classic paper entitled "The Right to Privacy" in the Harvard Law Journal in 1890: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html. It is on of the most frequently cited law journal articles of all time and was the first to identify a Constitutional basis for a "right to privacy".
Of course in their day, the new technology was photographs (which were slow back then, but enough faster than paintings that they could be taken surreptitiously) and newspapers were the new business exploiting those technologies but the principles and issues have not changed in a long, LONG time. If you want to read some discussion by a couple of really smart guys about what acts in public deserve privacy, read the paper.
There might be, but it would be non-obvious.
The reason I asked is that: I have a friend who has no Facebook account. On top of that, he has the same name as a famous actor. So he thinks he is completely anonymous on the Interweb. But I went into a people search engine (it aggregates searches from numerous sources) and typed his name in. Sure enough, in the midst of a bunch of Hollywood paparazzi photos of his namesake, there's his ugly mug staring out at the world from some other person's Facebook account. So "non obvious" isn't going to buy you much anonymity.
Have gnu, will travel.
I don't believe there's a search mechanism for people who are tagged in pictures that don't link back to an account.
So If I had a picture of you and I posted it and tagged it as being "PPH", I don't believe there is a way to just search for pictures of "PPH" using the interface. There might be, but it would be non-obvious.
And even if there were such a mechanism -- and I believe you're right that there isn't -- one would have to be checking all the damn time to see if any new tags showed recently. At least if one has an account, one gets notified of new tags. For now. But that would sort of be coercion to get an account, as PPH wondered.
I am not a crackpot.
this is seriously fucked up.
The Facebook angle is about the LEAST thing wrong with the case. Dad Ran off to play softball for months (the links left off where dad's stuff was), mom took kid to Michigan (probably for family support). She did the MORALLY RIGHT thing of returning the child to the father on time, then going back to Michigan to file Divorce not in front of the kid. That was a mistake because HE then had custody in KY and she had to get the kid back. I can't believe the court tipped the scale because she was VOLUNTARILY under treatment for Bi-Polar and did something slightly bad. There was no indication that CPS was involved or that the drinking was in front of the child. Purely that she was "interfering" with her meds.... Wow! Does this mean I can lose custody for haz Cheezburg if I take Cholesterol or blood pressure meds??? The basics of the ruling are the fucking stone ages! That's like 60 years backward!!!!
What is it with Kentucky and protecting crappy dads? A cousin of mine did traveling equipment repair, left is wife for weeks and spent his days off with somebody else.... SHE had to explain why SHE didn't have a job, and explain why SHE needed support... and he took a job with a pay cut, but still an hour drive away just before filing.... What's wrong with those people down there???? I'm all for Dad's rights... but he should have been ass-raped by the court for every single dime just on principal, he misses visits for dates, and doesn't do any extra to spend time with the kid.... SHE had to leave the house? WTF.
I never understood in these cases why the "marriage" partnership wasn't held up to the same legality as a business partnership. If I had a business partner with joint responsibilities and they didn't do their end, and hit money, misappropriated resources, etc... they'd go to jail for fault... why don't those same rules apply to husbands and wives... crap like this makes "gay" marriage the LEAST of our moral problems with marriage.
The tagging doesn't even matter. If someone tags you, you get a notice, and you can 'untag' yourself, and the person will not be able to re-tag you in the same photo. Apparently this person didn't think there was anything wrong with the tagged pictures until it came up in court.
In your case, you are lucky that facebook has a really lousy search function. If there is a way to find such tags, I don't know it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Right on the money - I do not believe that the mere act of being in public (which is something, for all practical purposes, we must do), erases a right to privacy. When I walk out my front door, it is not an implicit invitation to every Tom, Dick, and Harry to turn my life into public spectacle if they so choose.
Well... if failing to follow the dietary restrictions could result in the person having a psychotic episode and become violent and dangerous, I would hope the answer would be yes...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
We're safe. I've used someone else's account and found people tagging my name / aliases. When you're not a member of FB people skip your surname, misspell misspell your first, or misspell the whole thing and add anti-stalking noise.
Facebook isn't yet sharing tag contents with google spiders. Besides, for avoiding tag paranoia alone, the "FB skeptic/outsider" state is better than joining, since once joined, people WILL find your name on google's first hit. For FB members, it takes a single click after autocomplete yields profile-linking names of the people you want to tag... when you're a non-member the GUI puts the effort on the tagger to type the entire name. If they have 30 pictures of you to be tagged, need to type it 30 times.*
* Computer users have little idea about abundant copy-and-paste and rarely train their minds to abuse subtle scenarios. Thankfully, this deters them from making choices like systematically tagging their 200 friends in their personal (Picasa) or FB collections. This will become a problem as facial recognition AI's become cheaper to implement... I'm dreading the day FB just asks them to click 'Yes, THIS is John Smith's face' on each picture.
I have a Facebook account I use to keep in contact with friends from High School. As far as I'm concerned it's like this. If it is my Facebook page and I post the picture, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. If I post it, they can tag it. Now if someone else takes my pic and post it on some Facebook page, they cannot tag it. I never gave permission for it to be there and there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Now let the courts argue it so some slime lawyer can make money.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
reminds me of recent news on public recordings and cops. they get different interpretations of the law.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
this is getting into an argument about moral relativism and moral absolutism
which i will say this about:
i'm very sick of this respect for cultural relativity that says something stupid is ok in another place out of "respect" for culture
to me, this is ignorance beyond words. there is only one standard of morality for the entire world. it is a human morality. please note i said HUMAN morality. i didn't say american morality, or european morality. i said HUMAN morality. so the typical tired attack that i am trying impose my culture on other people is a bullshit attack, because there are just as many abuses of human morality in europe and the usa that needs addressing
i am not going to rant for 50 paragraphs, i am simply going to say this: cultural differences do not trump human rights. they are called human rights. not western rights, or caucasian rights, or rich people's rights. human rights are human rights are human rights. where human rights are abridged, i don't fucking care what you say about culture, it's simple WRONG
and for you to say "that's wrong what they are doing, but it's ok, because it's far away, it's over there" to me is vile ignorance and cowardice. the planet earth is one tiny dust ball in space. in an age of the internet and jet air travel, distances mean nothing
so have a human conscience, and when something wrong goes on somewhere else, condemn it. sensitivity to "cultural differences" is completely morally, intellectually, and logically incoherent of you, and is a kind of chicken shit desire to be a coward. to turn a blind eye to something going wrong somewhere in the world because those people are "different". how fucking condescending and patronizing of you. a human being is a human being is a human being. doesn't matter where they live. they deserve the same consideration as you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The reason they don't want you to smile in passport and drivers license photo's is for facial recognition. And those photo's come tagged with accurate name/address details.
Why do you feel like you have a right to do things that could cause you to get in trouble with the law or lose your kids without suffering any consequences for that? Privacy is all well and good, but why does it seem like a lot of people use that as a shield for wanting to break the law/etc. and get away with it?
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
That's right, you tell that automated comment system who's boss.
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
TFA states that she told her mental health care providers that she was cutting back on her drinking. The judge never states how lying to your doctor makes you a bad parent, but that seems to be his conclusion.
a) Noncompliance in the first place would have seriously hurt her argument. The judge's opinion appears to be primarily based on how truthful she was with her doctor.
b.1) She told her doctor that she was quiting drinking. Again the decision was based on her truthfulness.
b.2) TFA says the medication was for bipolar disorder. Judge's opinion says that she had Bipolar II. (This opinion is linked to from the TFA.)
The right to take someone's picture and use their likeness has always been protected the first amendment, even before the internet existed. See Nussenzweig v. DiCorcia.
Tagging in Facebook, in some sense, does require a person's permission, because a person may remove a tag from any picture on which they are tagged. Further, they can not be retagged on that same picture unless they reinstate the tag themselves. This means that while FB initially assumes permission, that permission can be revoked.
Let's stay right within the law -
Watch what will happen when a judge gets tagged after going to a party out of town!
"Oh no! That's facilitating the embarassment of a Respected Member of the Governmental Aparatus! Violation of Security!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Streisand effect.