Greg Bartle,
I have a Pentax and I'm not afraid to use it.
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There was a debate on television recently about organised crime now apparently planning well ahead and attending police graduation ceremonies and taking photos of the new graduates, with the intention of then using facial recognition technology to detect undercover police later on, and in that discussion they mentioned that police officers with intention of ever going into undercover work, should not have facebook pages, or photos of themselves online anywhere.
I notice on lots of TV coverage now, of various law enforcement events not just police, but Customs, Fisheries Officers, military actions, that they now blur out the faces of many of the officers involved. I'm guessing they have the same thought. I guess they don't want these people to potentially be recognised while they're doing their jobs some time down the track.
If they tried to follow this line of action through to its ultimate conclusion, wouldn't they have to make it an offence to take any photo of any law enforcement personnel? And that would never be feasible.
Canon EOS 60D ..... EFS 18-200mm f/3.5 - 5.6 IS - 430 EXII Speedlite - "eBay special" Remote Control Unit - Manfrotto 190XPROB w 804RC2 head.
I think there's a big difference between officers who are the public face of the police and who deal with members of the public—not all of whom are criminals—on a day to day basis, and the relatively small number of undercover police who really do have valid reasons to protect their identity.
The bottom line is that members of the public have the right to take photographs and/or film police officers and incidents involving police officers and police do not have the power to prevent anyone from photographing or filming them and cannot confiscate camera equipment or delete images.
If you still don't believe it or are unsure just check with the Police media unit in your state for confirmation of the above.
If you are impeeding traffic, be it pedestrian or otherwise, they CAN issue a move along order, which must be obeyed. (Brisbane city Council has a rule about tripods impeeding traffic. In essence, you're not allowed to use a tripod in Queen Street mall, or on a foot path as it can impeed traffic)
The local paper has an article today saying the "peoples party" is bringing in a law to stop filming acts of,bullying,sexual or violent assault and private images,to me this will stop all rights you have.
Who will decide if a push is a violent act, or telling your child he/she should not do this or that is bullying,every time law makers pass laws, it makes me wonder what is the real reason for passing these laws.
Jack
Last edited by pixy; 12-03-2013 at 12:33pm.
Pentax K5iis, k7 plus lenses from 18mm-600mm.
But thats got nothing to do with photographing police at work.
You could be photographing/videoing them the entire time that they are approaching you, talking to you, telling you the reason why they are giving you a move along direction (in NSW it's called a direction and not an order) and you obeying the direction.
I don't agree that a police officer has any more expectation of privacy in a public place than anyone else.
What we all should have an expectation of is an accurate portrayal of what occurred, and that seems less likely to be the case from either the public in general or the media.
Making things up (a spade is a spade) has been going on forever. Back in 1968 my father & I spent a great month in the owners suite on a oil tanker going to & from Sumatra.
About 3 months after we got back there was a report of a fire on board the ship, which was tied up in the Brisbane River, that indicated the ship had burnt to the water line.
My father, who was state Operations Manager in Vic for the oil company rang his opposite number in Brisbane ho was horrified. It was his responsibility & he'd heard nothing about it. 2 hours later he rang back to say there had been an incident on the ship - a bearing in a pump had overheated & a small amount of oil had caught alight but because it was within an Oil refinery precinct the Fire Brigade had been mobilised and the area locked down - the Brisbane reporter hadn't gotten any details on the site so he made it up. Actual total damage was $60.
Another, more recent example. About 4-5 years ago the army had arranged for a cull of Kangaroos on the Puckapunyal base and protesters were picketing at the main gate.
I had to go out there on business & saw the protesters and the vans with satellite dishes from all the major stations, including the ABC. Out of curiosity I watched the 9 news at 6 o'clock, taped & watched the 7 news & also watched the ABC. ALL the news reports were cut is such a way as to portray a large group of protesters waving banners & the like - there were 3 - and about 15 media crew.
Last edited by Boo53; 12-03-2013 at 1:37pm. Reason: typo
They generally all started as General Duties cops on the beat, doing all the above, and only later progress on to Undercover work etc, so that's why the problem with filming any Police Officers, and is supposedly the plan for organised crime taking photos at graduation ceremonies and storing those images for facial recognition later on when they're checking out whether members might be undercover cops. But then again the TV show that made the story about organised crime doing this, might have been sensationalising things a little, I hear they sometimes do that ... just occasionally