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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.
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
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?
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.
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"!
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."
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.
If someone took my picture without my permission, or over my objection, is there something in the law that would prevent me from getting my picture back?
Absolutely nothing. If you're in a position that allows someone to take a picture of you then you automatically give up that right to privacy. You could be in your own yard but if the photographer is on the street a photo of you as well as posting it anywhere the photographer wants is entirely fair game.
What you do have the right to is not to be involved in a commercial way. I take a photo of you and put it up on my website and there's nothing you can do, I could sell it in an art gallery and there's nothing you can do, but if I write Pepsi on the bottom or sell it to a company to be used for advertising or other commercial purposes then the onus lies on the company using the photo to ensure they have your original signed model release form.
"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.
The picture of her was taken in a public place where she had no expectation of privacy. The personal gain argument fails since a private investigator could take a picture of her and be paid by the husband; the picture would be admissible in court. Even if she could establish that the poster had no right to publish the picture, that would not mean that the picture could not be used by the court since it was not taken illegally. Otherwise every defense team would publish the evidentiary pictures against their client thus violating copyright and excluding them from the trial. The Playboy pictures are copyrighted so you may not use the pictures except within the confines of "fair use".
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
I was originally going to argue against redelm's point, but I think he's just arguing a point I might agree with but a bit clumsily and using too much macho rugged-individualist puritan hyperbole.
The point is that it's great and all to have your own personal, public "wall" or news feed where you can chronicle your life and times for all to see. There needs to come a point where people realize that this is not the best idea.
The problem isn't Facebook or which actions a person is responsible for or not, the problem is the decision to publish it for all the world to see.
If I do a thing, which may or may not be legal or moral, etc, then I can only be responsible for it to the people who know I did that thing. If those people are the entire world and society at large, then I'm responsible to society for what I did. If those people are a few close friends, then what happens behind closed doors happens. As long as the door stays closed.
More people need to understand that. It works both ways, too. Why would I publicly embarrass a friend? People need to think before publishing.
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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