Police in court over pictures

Legality of surveillance challenged.

This could be an interesting case, one could argue that if the rest of us have a right to take pictures in and from public places without breaching anyone’s privacy, then the police must surely have the same right too. So long as they understand how close they can get to causing harassment, alarm, or distress, and breaching privacy by repeated photography.

The two-day judicial review is likely to determine the legality of surveillance and whether ‘routine’ intelligence gathering is permissible under the Human Rights Act.

Police claim that routine intelligence gathering plays a key role in deterring crime. However, the case comes amid concern that Britain is heading towards a ‘police state’, with the government’s information commissioner warning that fears the UK would ’sleepwalk into a surveillance society’ have become a reality.

I noticed yesterday that a number of people were being “routinely photographed” by police “sharp shooters” as they made their way to the Sunderland vs Middlesbrough game, admittedly some of them were members of large groups but they did not appear to be doing anything illegal or acting in a disorderly fashion. However, the police were deliberately following them and making a point of repeatedly photographing them and recording them on video cameras too. Now if you or I were to do this with a camera it could easily be claimed to be harassment and an invasion of privacy - once is OK, repeating the action is not (especially at close quarters!).

Andrew Wood, from Oxford campaigns against the arms trade, and claims his human rights were infringed when he was photographed and his images were kept on a police computer despite no arrests being made, at a meeting he attended as a shareholder.

It will be interesting and instructive to see what the High Court decides, particularly as privacy is not treated as a strong point in British law when we are out in public.

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