Has anyone been stopped by the police for taking photographs yet? Ive quite a few friends who are very much into their photography and the amount of people reporting being stopped by the police for snapping photographs of anything and everything seems to be on the rise. The latest incident seems to be someone who was down in London who was stopped by a member of the local constabulary and demanded that he be shown all of the 200 images that had been taken or he would be arrested under anti-terrorism laws. Fortunately they argued a bit and the policeman let him go; but Im reminded of another incident recently where someone was taking some photographs of birds in a farmers field (he had permission) on a feeder and pool he had set up when the police pulled up and accused him of everything from being a fly tipper to putting drivers off concentrating on the road by taking photographs of them.

I do a fair amount of aviation photography (99% military) and to be honest the MoD police all seem to be fantastic with the whole thing, in fact on a few occasions Ive been told where the best spots are for photography by them and even given a business card with the gatehouses number on to contact them if I did notice any forced gaps in the fence or anything suspicious. But I dont often venture out into cities and towns with my camera equipment and I was wondering if anyone else had any horror stories to do with the police stopping you?

Does anyone know and have any links to the actual laws regarding this? As far as I was aware they couldnt demand deletion of your photographs without a court order... but Ive a feeling that I may be talking a load of rubbish.

I do not know about photography but I have been stopped Twice and my brother Once for jogging on the streets. We are both rugby players and around that time he was in the county and I was playing High level also so we kept fit of course.
But to the local bobbies Young lads cant be running these days unless they have done something bad and running away from it


poring rain Last year off to dentist, bus not turned up AGAIN so was walking very quickly hood up head down, got stopped put in the car and a million and one questions

I think they get told about crime or issues on the increase In the regular meetings and then some go over the top in terms of application

My sis was stopped the other day for doing 40 in a 30  :shrug: But as the policeman was on his own, she contested it (her word against his) and he let her go. I dont get the point of that, if the police cant ticket you on their own for speeding, why the hell are they wasting their time doing it solo?

As to photography and stuff, Not had a problem, though Ive not really done much urban stuff at all. Would have thought it comes down to permission mostly. If youre on private land, or photographing it loads (like your goal for the day was to photograph a particular bit of land) itd make sense to get permission first. The polce are likely to only be called out by the land owner or a passerby who thought you were being suspicious. Getting permission would rule out the landowner, and if a passerby got the police out a quick "I have permission from mr.x, here..." and offer to phone him or something should sort things out. I wouldnt mind showing them the photos Ive taken either as itd be interesting to get their opinion on them haha!

With my hobby of geocaching you get lots of stories about the police and stuff. I mean, whats more suspicious than a person looking around in the undergrowth, holding a hand held device, and looking uber suspicious each time someone passes him by?

But usually what happens is if a policeman comes along, again you just explain what youre doing, and most of the stories end up with the policeman/men wishing the person luck and going on their way or sometimes helping look for it themselves heh.

People with worse luck have been asked to stop what theyre doing. Usually this is because the cache was poorly located (IE near train tracks etc) in which case its not really the cachers fault but at the end of the day being asked to be moved on in this situation is a fair request as its dangerous, and the cache probably shouldnt have been put there.

Some people have had the misfortune of stumbling across a body in the woods, and have been taken in for questioning, which sucks (this was in america I think)

Worst case scenario was some tourists in Portugal or Tunisia. A cache had been placed nearby to one of the rulers properties. The police came out and arrested the cachers on grounds of terrorism or something I think. As they didnt speak the language it was hard explaining what they were doing, and in the end the police got a translator in, explained the situation, and the police escorted the cachers to the location, helped find the cache, and confiscated it and let them go.

Then there was the time a group found an unexploded bomb and not only did they get the police out but the bomb squad...

http://www.sirimo.co.uk/media/UKPhotographersRights.pdf

Is the one Ive found.

London met are doing an anti-terrorism campaign about photography at the moment, this could be the reason for London, tbh i think its all a FUD campain


Link

Tbh one instance comes to mind when some photographers should have been stopped and really I should have called the police. They were media students, had to be, on a busy road near uni. They must have had some kind of artsy project they were doing. Basically they were filming someone walking across the road holding a leash attached to a bag that had something in it.

The way they were doing it must have been with the intention of getting someone to run over the bag. My interest in special effects figured they had a balloon with red paint or something inside.

It was the fact that rather than get a fellow student with a car to drive over it, they were doing it trying to get Joe Public to run over it. So, busy road, cars swerving to avoid the prat walking across the road infront of them AND the bag...Im surprised there werent any accidents there that day. I just hope that their lecturer/marker when he saw it failed them for being completely reckless.

^ = above example where the police have every right to stop photographers, and in my opinion, beat some sense into them if required.

would be tempting to do a personal project entitled Surveillance Britain or something along those lines.....

then basically go around photographing CCTV cameras... perhaps starting at that prominent building in Vauxhall, then the one across the river than onto the palace of Westminster, buck palace, downing street, US embassy, Israeli embassy etc... wonder how often Id get stopped....

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad

Most problems for photographers in the UK occur when taking candid shots of children.

It is perfectly legal to do so at present in the UK (and rightly so in my opinion) yet most parents dont agree nor see this as being right. It only takes one parent to report you taking photos of kids on a swingset before you end up with a policeman asking you rather pointed questions about your reasons for being there.

IIRC there is a leaflet available on the internet that you can print out and details all the rights of a photographer in the UK. Clarifies the subjects right to a copy of a print, details how permission does not need to be used unless its to be used in a defamatory or commercial sense... things like that. Have a google for "photographers rights UK"

It isnt so much parents but teachers. I was up at St Marys lighthouse last year, taking photos of the buildings and a couple of teachers decided to try and question my use of the camera, even though I had the lens cap on, it was switched off and the camera was in its cover. The first was pleasant enough but I nearly told the second to FO.

Most other instances seem to be FUD involving things like transport, trains, buses, stations.

Teachers have a legal care of duty to the children and that includes stopping photographs of them being taken for non academic purposes (this has nothing to do with the law but a general LEA policy in the vast majority of places). Of course youd expect teachers to engage their brains and use a bit of common sense and discretion but unfortunately over half of the teachers Ive met thus far are hopelessly incompetent and would probably behave in the way that you describe.

That said I used to do a lot of work with kids at summer festivals over the summer when I was at uni for the arts and culture department of a certain Scottish council that shall remain nameless, I was told under no circumstances were any pictures of children to be taken by anyone, even their own parents, or it was my job. So at the end of the day I had nothing to do but stick he rule and ask parents to put their cameras away or save the photographs for elsewhere when they could be sure of not including other kids in the picture. You can imagine how hard that was to try and enforce this when organising something like a group of face painting for 50 kids all with parents in tow, all of whom wanted a picture of their beloved little terror with his or her face painted like whatever the flavour of the month was at the time.

I think its 99.9% bollocks myself personally, a complete overreaction and an extension of the paedophile witch-hunt. Wasnt there a case very recently where a school took down class photographs and suchlike from its website after parents complained or something daft like that?