Using binoculars in daytime in a public /street

[tali1]

Hypothetical question Is it legal to use binoculars in daytime in a public /street , built up area?- i ask because i suspect the police would surely stop and ask the person what he was doing - even though i'm sure it is not illegal at all?

[Buenchico]

It's perfectly legal. Simply looking at something (with or without visual aids) in a public place is (as far as I can see) never illegal. Even if you were watching a top secret military installation from a public place, there's no specific offence. (However, if you made any notes as to what you'd seen, you would have been contravening the Official Secrets Act).

In general, you're not only free to view things from a public place, you can also photograph them (with both still and moving images). There are specific exceptions relating to such varied things as 'official secrets' and 'voyeurism' but it's not an offence to photograph someone, or to watch them with binoculars, from a public place - even if they're in their garden or inside their house.

Actually, if you look 'official' (e.g. by wearing a high-vis jacket) the police seem to assume that you must be 'legitimate'. With a colleague, I spent 3 days carrying out a survey of pedestrians and cyclists on a cycle path in Kings Lynn. We were positioned right by the gates of a secondary school. Even though our instructions told us not to interview anyone under-16, we still asked loads of 6th formers about their journeys. I was expecting a visit from 'Old Bill' very quickly but it was well into the 3rd day before a bored PCSO (who'd previously walked past us many times) bothered to ask us what we were doing!

Chris

[Ethel]

I agree entirely with Beunchico

:)

[wonkon-wonk]

I don't

[wonkon-wonk]

only last week i was looking through the window using some binoculars , nothing interesting was happening really . Anyway after about 20 minutes the police arrived and i was physically removed from the Lady's kitchen!

[Ice.Maiden]

No, no ww. You're not using them right. use them in the house, to search for the daughter's dropped nub ends! : )

Sorry tali - on a serious note, I believe you CAN use them outside legally, but if you were to home in on someone's windows all the time, I doubt they'd be very happy.

[Paul87]

Perfectly legal

little suspicious though, if it were outside a school very suspicious