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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.'"
Tagging a photo is similar to someone asking "who is that person" and the photographer telling him.
Exactly. Besides, she used the wrong defence: she should have said she's wasn't drinking that much.
Mostly harmless.
Well, see, in countries where there's decent privacy laws, it's illegal to take a picture of somebody where that person is the subject of the photo, and then to publish that photo without their permission. You can still be in the background of a picture, as "noise" as it were, but if you're the actual *subject* of the picture, then they need permission to publish. (so those tourist photos you took of the Eiffel tower are fine: those people wandering around in the square below it are not the subject of the picture)
Such laws usually have to do with newspapers and magazines, but they could be extended to apply to people posting pictures of their friends on the 'net, but I don't think that kind of use was really in the minds of the lawmakers when they drafted this kind of law.
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.
Or Facebook should give you the option to stop being tagged. But that wouldn't be in their interest I guess. A lot of people tag irrelevant photos with all their friends name, just to get their attention. I have fought with my friends trying to tell them not to do that, some people just don't get it.
The phrase you are looking for is "easy cases make bad law.
For those who are unclear: the WORST law, in terms of setting precedents to be relied on later, comes from cases in which a defendant is "obviously guilty of something" or just plain unsympathetic. The end result is a jury ruling on the emotional bounds of what they are presented, rather than on facts in the case, or in the appellate side, a bunch of judges making "fuck it we can see they are guilty why are you bothering us with this crap" rulings.
Ironically, the counterargument - hard cases make bad law - is also valid. Hard cases require very case-specific rulings and legal hair-splitting in order to arrive at the verdict or appellate review result, but then inevitably someone comes along and tries to apply them to completely different situations as precedent.
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 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.