Illegal To Take a Photo In a Shopping Center?

New submitter Kyrall writes "A man was questioned by security guards and then police after taking a photo of his own child in a UK shopping center. The center apparently has a 'no photography' policy 'to protect the privacy of staff and shoppers and to have a legitimate opportunity to challenge suspicious behavior.' He was told by a security guard that taking a photo was illegal. He also said that a police officer claimed, 'he was within in his rights to confiscate the mobile phone on which the photos were taken.'"

Re:No.

[xstonedogx]

Partial credit. The correct answer is "Hell no." I would also have accepted "Fuck you."

Won't Somebody Please Think of the Shoppers?

[xstonedogx]

A spokesperson for Braehead said it wanted to "maintain a safe and enjoyable environment" for shoppers.

There is literally nothing I enjoy more than to have a security guard and the police question me in front of my small child when all I was doing was minding my own business.

Re:Get a life

[GrahamCox]

No, that is NOT the real question. The real question is why the fuck we are building a society for ourselves that is undoing all the hard-won freedoms we've fought for and earned in the last few hundred years. If one of the ways people exercise those freedoms is to tweet and blog all day long, theta's up to them. You're also free to ignore them.

Cherish it, it clearly isn't going to last.

Re:Private property.

[Frosty Piss]

Sure, I understand what you're saying. And if enough people did it, it *might* make a difference. Except that most people, especially the kind who shop at "the mall" simply don't care.

I mean, how do you think we in the so-called freedom loving first world countries got to where we are, essentially a collection of Fascist police states?

People are selfish children who care mostly about flashy toys, and as long as we get our flashy toys at prices only sweat-shop workers can produce, we're a happy lot!

In other words, most of us simply don't give a rip.

Sad, but true.

Re:Recent experiences in the U.S. and Canada

[bky1701]

Think it is bad for taking photos? Try living barefoot. Then you'll see just how pervasive corporate control really is over your life.

Re:No.

[Hazel Bergeron]

The "thing is" that all property is held in fee simple and ultimately belongs to the government, and most of what you can and cannot do anywhere is defined or enforced or allowed to be enforced thanks to the government. This will never change as long as the world is ruled by humans. So the question becomes whether you want a government which can be bought by the many or bought by the few. The answer will depend on whether the dominant philosophy in the country is to invent rights for the powerful or rights for the weak. America just might possibly be slowly changing its mind, but it's still firmly in the former camp.

"But won't somebody please think of the mall owner!" OK, I'm thinking of him, and I've decided that where lots of public eyes may go, he must permit private photographs as an extension of the natural faculty of memory (which may be photographic).

Re:No.

[Firehed]

He also doesn't have the right to say that breaking his mall's rules is illegal. If you break policy, they can ask you to leave. If you refuse, you are then trespassing. That is illegal. Despite what cops (or pompous property owners) say, photography is not a crime. They can neither confiscate your camera nor make you delete the photos.

Of course, that only applies to the US; YMMV but I expect most countries are very similar.

Ooh, get this.

[headkase]

My new mall has a policy that it's against the rules to be black in it. So, can my rent-a-cops call real cops and make black people leave and maybe arrest them too? There's a big difference between "policy" and "illegal." When your "policy" becomes "law" then we're back to fiefdoms.