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Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures
An anonymous reader writes "Those planning a weekend break in Budapest take note. From 15 March anyone taking photographs in Hungary is technically breaking the law if someone wanders into shot, under a new civil code that outlaws taking pictures without the permission of everyone in the photograph. According to the justice ministry, people taking pictures should look out for those 'who are not waving, or who are trying to hide or running out of shot.' Officials say expanding the law on consent to include the taking of photographs, in addition to their publication, merely codifies existing court practice. However, Hungary's photographers call the law vague and obstructive, saying it has left the country of Joseph Pulitzer and photography legend Robert Capa out of step with Europe."
No more new Google Maps Satellite images for Hungary.
Well I guess I won't be visiting Hungary. I'd hate to go to jail for taking a picture of a landmark with a whole lot of people in the frame.
I'm sure plenty of Hungarian photographers are outraged they effectively can't take entire genres of photographs, now. These kinds of laws have social and cultural ramifications.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
The photogs are coming! Arm yourselves!
i dont care about "photographers rights" or any b.s. damn i do not want to be in a photo taken by a stranger! i hide my face (try to) when i walk past idiotic tourists and goddamn "photographers". the thing i hate the most is people who take photos/video in protests. yes why don't you put that up on facebook and alert my boss or the fascist gov't while you're at it.
i wish i lived in hungary. great law. intrusive photography is rude. improving tech has made people rude and idiotic!
The idea might seem good until you realize that unless you have an army of thousands you cannot possibly manage to ask everyone in a wide shot for permissions and in wide shots it's hard to recognize anyone anyway... And if you take it literary a picture from inside a restaurant might include a window and people outside, including people in cars driving by... Good luck obtaining permission from them.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I'm Hungarian to start with. Maybe Germany has similar rules, but here the goal of this law is obviously different: To make rampant corruption even more difficult to expose. Democracy became Kleptocracy.
I hope they get things sorted out before the last weekend in July
when the Hungarian Grand Prix is held
The media would have to get release from all the spectators.
Do security/surveillance cameras have exception?
Do surveillance cams count?
Standing in front of national monuments / points of interest and not allowing photos unless you pay a fee...
Hungary was deprived of an important step in the development of today's Europe: fascism. And they insist on catching up without any shortcuts. Unfortunately I am not joking. As the current government wants Hungary to leave the European Union anyway, they are shamelessly breaking all of its principles. Apparently this is only going to end after the Hungarians have spectacularly lost a war right in the heart of Europe.
Being homeless is now officially a crime. The ruling party quite openly supports pogroms against gypsies. Hungary is quite open about wanting to annex all Hungarian-speaking regions of neighbouring countries. (Ethnic Hungarians in those countries can already obtain Hungarian passports.) The media is censored to such a degree that when the current law came into effect, lots of journalists had to look for a job immediately as they were left with a choice between creeping up the government's posteriors or facing draconian punishment. Even citizens from other European countries cannot by land in Hungary. Austrian farmers who already own land in Hungary are punished when they cross the border in a tractor to cultivate it. When the Swiss Franc rose a lot, causing problems for enormous numbers of Hungarians (and Hungarian institutions) that idiotically had taken Swiss loans because of the low nominal interest rates, Hungary *unilaterally* decided that they only have to pay back these loans to the amount owed theoretically if the exchange rate had been constant. In other words, the Hungarian government unilaterally partially dispossessed the banks of an EFTA country.
The new photography law is just another in a series of rubber laws that criminalise almost everything so that they can be applied selectively to members of the opposition and other likely targets.
The NSA looks for all pictures on the Internet and do face recognition to see who is friends with who.
Having random strangers in the photographs makes it more difficult to detect who are each other friends and the NSA has a too high false positive rate.
By creating laws everywhere that you can not make pictures of random strangers will reduce these false positives.
Hope this induces people ... to get the hell out of my shot and let me take the picture with the background and just my wife in the foreground. Shush you inconsiderate bunch of fellow tourists. Walk that bit faster and show us snapshot takers you care.
Having said that, the idea is truly bizarre.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
What about those wearing Google Glass? Guess they don't give a damn about that either.
Maybe this is one of those "You commit at least 3 crimes every day without even realizing it" situations that James Duane proposes.
For most people, most of the time, they will not do anything. But if the authorities decide that you have become inconvenient, then there are numerous instances of you commiting crimes to justify locking you up.
Of couse.
Would you think, that you have any rights AGAINST the government, police, and government affiliated security companies?
The impact is far less dramatic than the article suggests - you just cant invade the privacy of random people anymore. IMO a good law to have!
I see no difference between someone looking at me in public and someone taking a picture of me in public. I have no expectation of privacy in public. Public is the oposite of private. If you don't want to be photographed while in public it is up to you to obscure your identity and not up to me to be sure I don't capture your image.
Don't make the mistake of interpreting this law as one aimed to protect the privacy of individuals. If that was the case I would even argue in favor of it.
The ruling party - who will likely win the next elections without trouble due to the state capture level corruption, media control, and rigged election system (an impotent opposition doesn't help) - regard Putin's Russia as an example to follow. They also do everything to kiss his ass despite their actions in Crimea, and despite the long and painful Soviet opression of Hungary and the revolution of 1956 crushed by them. And why? Because they want Russia to expand the power plant in the city of Paks, the biggest infrastructure investment in the history of Hungary ever, without even asking for a quote from other companies or reaching a consensus that it's even needed (green energy will likely be much cheaper by the time the plant is finished). Russia will also kindly provide the loan for the project, making us depend on their good will for decades, because seriously, what could go wrong with that?
Now, what would you think if such a country, with its leader in the pocket of Putin, would enact this law?
According to the law even private individuals can be punished, not just professionals who realize a profit from the pictures. This is dumb at best in the era of smartphones. Obviously, the law won't be enforced to the letter or mean anything for the majority. Nobody will go after tourists, either. But it WILL be used as a possible weapon to prosecute anyone from public servants caught criticising the power to journalists who stick their noses where they shouldn't.
Just a shining example from the recent past. I personally agree that there are things you shouldn't even say in anonymous comments and people should have the right to defend themselves against online abuse. But when a prominent member of the ruling party can sue a commenter for a basically harmless comment and win a huge compensation (even though there is a law in place saying public figures must tolerate more criticism due to their roles), you know something's very wrong. This new law fits in the picture just nicely.
Do come to Hungary as a tourist as it's a lovely place to visit. It's safe too unless you invite girls whom you just met (and who happen to celebrate their birthdays) for drinks. But do come before we silently join the new russian empire. (Sorry for my english, I'm honing my russian instead, it will be very handy soon.)
Hungarian Law Says Photogs Must Ask Permission To Take Pictures
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I guess it's back to old school photograhpy then. 100 years ago, photographs of landmarks didn't have people in then unless they were willing to stand perfectly still for 20 minutes or more. So just get a tripod, set up at your chosen landmark, and open the shutter. None of the people moving around will show up in your picture, and if you want to be in your own photo, just walk in front of the camera and strike a pose that you can hold for a half hour or so.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
I'm Sofia Koutsouveli, a street photographer in Greece, and I've built my whole 20-year career taking pictures of strangers in the street without permission. This law is not just a Hungarian law but it exists all over Europe because it was pushed by the European Union as part of its privacy law. Let me tell you one thing: here in Europe we look towards America for helping us gain more freedoms. We aren't free here in Europe. Many countries here still have kings and have no constitution (like the UK). Taking photos of strangers without their permission or even against their wish is an important part of fine art photography, social documentary photography, street photography, photojournalism, and historical photography. If someone doesn't want to be included in a street photographer's shoot, they should learn what a public place is and stay in their home. Laws such as this is exactly what makes many social documentary and street photographers to invest in smaller cameras, smartphones and Google Glass rather than big DSLRs, what we shouldn't have to. Society will be deprived of images if taking a picture of someone in public is seen as a privacy issue. Privacy doesn't exist outside one's home.
Pierre Woodman will be sad
Brilliant!
I see two things coming out of this:
(1) Get a bunch of your friends together; stand all around in photogenic places so it's impossible to get a shot without you or one of your friends in it; charge to sign the release
(2) Be about to do something that will end your political career, like going to see one of your 6 baby mamas or going to meet someone to pick up your bribe; have a large security detail; have them arrive first, and stand all around so it's impossible to get a shot without one of them in the picture; have them refuse to sign the release
The first should be a wonderful drag on the tourist industry, while the second should be an effective way to prevent people from taking embarrassing pictures.
How stupid is this? There are not words in ANY language (or all of them) to express it. It is akin to saying "You can't look at anyone without their permission."... Possible? Get REAL!
"Now future generations will have no pictures of commoners in the street." --Anthony David
Billions of photos taken every day. This kind of law just lets the government selectively prosecute somebody they don't like. I also assume it doesn't apply to surveillance cameras.
Many photogs (photog being the usual abbreviation we photographers use for ourselves) actually want to emigrate to the US and leave Europe, or somehow persuade our European governments to give us the same First Amendment the US Constitution has. I'm a local photographer here, Chrysanthi Lykousi, and I plan to leave Europe and emigrate to America because of laws such as this. We can't do our job anymore. These laws masquerade as privacy laws but in reality they are censorship laws to protect the political and business elite. Street photographers such as Bresson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson would be criminals today if they tried to take pictures in Hungary, France, Greece, or other European countries.
Now they can arrest people photographing anything the authorities don't want photographed. Welcome to the 21st century Fascist movement.
Hungary has also:
Burnt and outlawed Monsanto's GMO crops.
Paid off their IMF loans early and are reducing debt.
Asked the IMF to leave the country (rock!!!).
Reduced the corporate income tax rate to a flat 16%.
Reduced the personal income tax rate to a flat 16%.
Passed laws to reduce foreign interests from influencing internal policy, the press, and politicians.
Started resiting the EU strongly and the concept of a United States of Europe with total centralized government.
In general they are one of the few countries in recent times to take a step away from the globalist banking cartel sinking every country and their citizens into perpetual debt and locking them into US multinational corporate controlled policy .
Ohhh but we can't have that now can we?!?!
So strangely enough even few weeks I see another western media article about these no good fascists Hungarians. Funny. And I'll read tons of NSA contractors ^H^H^H^H^H^H comments about how it's even so much worse then that. Funny. Why is there never any 'news' like this about the other central Europe countries surrounding Hungary? Funny. I'm Hungarian and I don't see any of these things happening in my country. NOT FUNNY!
Next thing you know we'll read a story about how some neo-Nazi's (that are funded by a US NGO) killed some poor Gypsy families and that the UN/EU/US must now intervene to save the children and in the process over load the country with IMF debt! Wait! Aren't they trying to do something like that right now in the Ukraine?
GOOD MORNING. Welcome to the modern propaganda machine in action, alive and well on /.
All photographers from Europe dream of leaving the socialist EU and going to America to gain their freedom of speech and freedom of the press rights... Have a look at street photography and tell me how much privacy-in-public laws like this affect a society's ability to record its own history: http://www.street-photographers.com/
sorry to have to do this but that 40% or "their" area only housed something like ~15% hungarians. Just to be clear: hungarians (magiars) were invaders from the asian steppes, they are/were Not greco/roman/germanic/slavic. Just sayin.
This seems to be what the population of Europe is clamoring for, and Hungary delivers. Populism at its best. Hungary is simply less constrained by a tradition of democracy and liberty than other European nations. But don't worry, France, Germany, and the UK will catch up.
If you want to argue law cite law and precedent.
What some self-important group of hobbyists post on the internet is not only irrelevant, but probably misleading.
At last a country with no CCTV. And very little spying. Sucks if you want to take pictures of crowds of course, but it's a mall price to pay for such privacy.
As a photographer, I feel this is stifling creativity. In the US, it is my right to photograph to my heart's content as long as I am not trespassing, peeping through windows or committing a crime while doing so. That image is copyrighted, and it is up to me to determine how I use it. If I choose to publish and make a profit other than editorial use, I should have a model release (but in artistic works I do not necessarily need it.) The bizarre fear of cameras should be over with by now. There is so much imagery pumped out every second of the day, there is little point worrying about "who will see it" since for the most part nobody gives a poop anyway. I do not want to have to worry about someone that won't get out of the way of a shot and I intend to photoshop out of the image later. The fact that it is law means it can be used against me, in ways that are solely up to the people who may have a bad day, may want me jailed. No photography in Hungary for me (and I guess I've got plenty of other places I'd go first.)
Don't forget to use a good neutral density filter (or 2+ as needed) to really open the shutter.
I see no difference between someone looking at me in public and someone taking a picture of me in public. I have no expectation of privacy in public. Public is the oposite of private. If you don't want to be photographed while in public it is up to you to obscure your identity and not up to me to be sure I don't capture your image.
This issue has been discussed numerous times on Slashdot, have you been asleep? There are many situations where people are technically in public but nevertheless have an expectation of privacy.
Suppose, for example, you and a group of your friends are walking home at night on a public road, through the woods, with nobody in sight. Will the conversation reflect the technically "public" setting, or will it be more like what one will expect to find in a private setting?
For another example, suppose you are hiking through the woods on public lands, and decide to step off the trail to "use the facilities". You are technically in a public place. There is, nevertheless, an expectation of privacy. A hidden photographer (or perhaps somebody that isn't hidden, but is so far away that you don't know they can see you through their telephoto lens) that takes your picture is violating that privacy.
Public is not the opposite of private.
Once we acknowledge that there can be an expectation of privacy even in public places, it is entirely appropriate to determine what the limits of that privacy are.
It is important to remember that classical concepts of "public" and "private" reflect an era that existed before digital systems allowed recording of people without their knowledge, and with perfect recall of the recordings. The values, beliefs, and rules that societies developed with respect to the older concepts are not necessarily valid today.
It is entirely appropriate to bar recordings of people made without their permission, with some reasonable exceptions. Once a recording is made, it is also appropriate to limit what can be done with it.
For example, it should be possible to record government officials in the course of their official duties, without their permission. It should also be possible to have security cameras to protect a home or business. This does not mean that one should be able to post pictures of private moments of government officials, outside the scope of their duties, or be able to release arbitrary security camera footage to the press or the public.
If a private individual happens to be captured in a recording of a government official engaged in official duties, and that private official isn't involved in those duties, any publication of the recording should edit out recognizable portions of the image, unless permission can be obtained to include that individual.
This issue has been discussed numerous times on Slashdot, have you been asleep?
I have been involved with those conversations. My point is that just because a person thinks it should be private does not make it legally so.
Once we acknowledge that there can be an expectation of privacy even in public places, it is entirely appropriate to determine what the limits of that privacy are.
That is your opinion. In my opinion there is no expectation of privacy in a public place therefore nothing to acknowledge. If you don't want something recorded in a public place then don't do it in a public place.
It is entirely appropriate to bar recordings of people made without their permission, with some reasonable exceptions.
I see it as the opposite where "It is entirely appropriate to allow recordings of people made without their permission, with some reasonable exceptions". We agree that either extreme, "no limits on filming" and "no filming allowed", are wrong but we draw the line at a different place. I draw it further to the allowing side and you draw it further to the privacy side.
The further differentiation between public and private individuals is irrelevant; everyone deserves the same level of privacy.
If you don't want something recorded in a public place then don't do it in a public place.
It's not physically possible to remain in a public place for long periods of time without having to relieve oneself. For most of society, this period of time will be between 1 and 4 hours while awake. Many public places do not have bathrooms, and even those that do often have limited hours. If one is in rough terrain, or deep in a public wilderness area, it might not even be physically possible to get to a bathroom, even when they exist, are open, are available, and are in working order.
I think you'll find that most people don't want somebody recording them in any way while they are taking care of business. They can, and generally will, step into cover, as a matter of courtesy, but this doesn't prevent recording by hidden cameras, or long distance lenses, or by a concealed photographer. The expectation of privacy is still there, it is held by most of human societies around the world, and it is real.
You can readily observe all this for yourself. Perhaps you should get out more.
It necessarily follows that there is an expectation of privacy even in public places. Public is NOT the opposite of private. It's not just a matter of opinion, but rather a rational conclusion that flows inevitably from observed data.
To counter an argument, you must counter either the assumptions or the logic. Claiming that a point is invalid by calling it "a matter of opinion" is nothing but sophistry.
It's not physically possible to remain in a public place for long periods of time without having to relieve oneself.
This is one of the few exceptions I would consider as a private act.
Public is NOT the opposite of private.
The difference between us is that you see public acts as the exception while I see private acts as the exception.
Claiming that a point is invalid by calling it "a matter of opinion" is nothing but sophistry.
Where the opinion comes in is the classification of private act and public act. In my opinion there are many more public acts that what you seem to think.
Is it acceptable if you blur out the faces etc of those who weren't intended to be in the picture?
Hungary is like a rotten tomato amongst European countries. I'm sure the purpose of this law is just another way to take money on tourists who come here. While they making this law you pretty much able to see the whole country on google streetview, including me and my relatives being outside in our garden. When did I gave permission for them to take picture of my house or us? What can I do about it? Nothing. The amount of corruption and hatred is unbelievable in this country. Probably some rich polititian whored out the whole country to Google to fill up his own pockets (someone who was rich already). The gap between poor and rich are just growing and growing. No wonder that everybody is running away from this country, at the end only the rich corrupt elite will stay and rule their dumpster land. I seriously am ashamed to be Hungarian and will change my citizenship to German. Kocsogorszag jobban teljesit!