Have things now gone too far?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....en-Algarve-beach.html

Crikey is it illegal in Portugal or in fact anywhere else for that matter, to take photos of children?

Perhaps this chap was a photo enthusiast and he was capturing children at play, is this an offence?

How many times have we seen old black & white photos of urchins playing in terraced streets or on London's bomb sites?

Would it be also illegal for their travel industry to take photos of children around hotel pools for instance?

[jno]

people were being arrested for taking photos of St Paul's last year. Security threat, doncha know.

[anotheoldgit]

jno

Try and be a little more constructive.

Yes we knew about that, but that is a different story to the one published.

Photographing buildings in London got an airing at the time.

[chas2008]

i always think this thing about taking pictures of kids is just a bit over the top, lets be honest with the technology thats freely available out there you wouldnt know if pictures were being taken, so why draw attention to yourself..
I was on Peranporth beach last year and wanted to take photos of the grandsons, i actually felt like i was under scrutiny when i used the camera just soooo wrong.

[jno]

aog, I think there is widespread distrust of people with cameras - which has grown up as mobile phones with cameras have spread, so that now virtually everyone has a camera with them all the time. I think the hysteria over photographing children and the hysteria over photographing cathedrals amounts to the same thing: everyone suspects everyone. The almost universal use - and approval - of CCTVs in this country points the same way.

Did you know you're not allowed to take photos inside St Paul's either? What possible reason could there be for this ban?

[anotheoldgit]

jno

Yes forgot about CCTV, the authorities can take our images when they like, but soon personal cameras will be banned, in public areas.

What about Google street view also?

[jno]

I think you can have photos removed from street view - our house used to be on there, but it's now vanished along with half the street. I suppose somebody complained, I don't know why. There is a celebrity living in the street, but he's further down, in the half of the street that's still on show, so it can't have been him.

I went to Clarence House this week, the Queen Mother's house where Charles and Camilla now live when in London. (A disappointingly dull place.) I wasn't surprised to find I couldn't take photos inside, but amazed to be told I couldn't even photograph the exterior or the organic gardens or anything. The authorities are verging on paranoia these days.

[Coobeastie]

I think its fine if you're taking pictures of your own children and even if you get other children in the picture providing you're not going out of your way to photograph them.

If he is a genuine amateur or professional photographer wanting to get some beach photographs or photos of children at play then its only polite to ask permission of the parents before taking the pictures.

[razza]

I was taking pictures of my grandchildren in a hotel swimming pool last year and I was stopped from doing so,that was in Grantham

[Coobeastie]

Some of the bans on photography in public buildings are to do with flash photography damaging the displayed items such as paintings/ & fabrics etc. You tend to find that places like Cathedrals control the amount of light that is present and the accumulation of flash photography if allowed would probably have an detrimental effect. Of course they also prefer you to buy approved images from the gift shop.

[jno]

Coobeastie and Eddie, I've heard those reasons given, and also the one that says they're afraid of thieves photographing things they want to nick. I'm not sure how far they hold water. The National Trust has for years banned indoor photography; but they did a survey of members a couple of years ago - I was one of the ones they phoned up and I made the point strongly that I was not renewing my membership, because I was fed up with being treated as a thief by an organisation I'd paid to join. Interestingly, this year they've rescinded the ban (it still exists in individual properties, sometimes where precious objects aren't owned by the NT itself.) For the sake of tapestries and so forth, flashes are still banned. I don't really think light is a problem in St Paul's, though; it's a cathedral, not an art gallery.

As for the buy-the-guidebook rationale, they could get round this, as many places abroad do, by charging extra for photo permits, so that if you didn't buy the book they'd still get money out of you. I'd find that acceptable; I don't mind paying to exercise my hobbies.

[New Judge]

Contrary to the widely held belief among some of the more hysterical, in the UK (and probably in Portugal as well) it is not illegal to take photographs of anything or anybody (including children) in a public place. (The definition of a public place is not quite so wide for these purposes as, say for the Public Order Acts. Swimming pools, pubs and restaurants, among others, can impose their own regulations).

That said, there follows the question of one’s intentions. This chap, apparently, was on a fairly empty beach and took photographs of children (and only children) with whom he had no connection. This obviously aroused suspicion as to what he would do with these photographs and, probably more importantly, what he might have done with others he had taken.

Hence his arrest and the investigation.