Help Save Street Photography

Austin Mitchell has tabled an Early Day Motion in sup­port of photographers’ rights:

That this House is con­cerned to encour­age the spread and enjoy­ment of pho­tog­ra­phy as the most gen­uine and acces­si­ble people’s art; deplores the appar­ent increase in the number of reported inci­dents in which the police, police com­mu­nity sup­port offi­cers (PCSOs) or war­dens attempt to stop street pho­tog­ra­phy and order the dele­tion of pho­tographs or the con­fis­ca­tion of cards, cam­eras or film on var­i­ous spe­cious ground such as claims that some public build­ings are strate­gic or sen­si­tive, that chil­dren and adults can only be pho­tographed with their writ­ten per­mis­sion, that pho­tographs of police and PCSOs are ille­gal, or that pho­tographs may be used by ter­ror­ists; points out that pho­tog­ra­phy in public places and streets is not only enjoy­able but per­fectly legal; regrets all such efforts to stop, dis­cour­age or inhibit ama­teur pho­tog­ra­phers taking pic­tures in public places, many of which are in any case fes­tooned with closed cir­cuit tele­vi­sion cam­eras; and urges the Home Office and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Chief Police Offi­cers to agree on a pho­tog­ra­phy code for the infor­ma­tion of offi­cers on the ground, set­ting out the public’s right to pho­to­graph public places thus allow­ing pho­tog­ra­phers to enjoy their hobby with­out offi­cious inter­fer­ence or unjus­ti­fied suspicion.

It’s a shame there’s even a need for such a pho­tog­ra­phy code, but with one in place, at least those of us who like taking snaps in public will have some­thing to refer to when job­sworth secu­rity guards and bored rozzers attempt to harass folk going about their per­fectly legal business.

If your MP hasn’t signed the motion the best way to get in touch and give him or her an encour­ag­ing nudge is via Write­ToThem.

I’ve writ­ten to my MP, Ann McK­echin, but since her record on issues like this is pretty dubi­ous — she’s strongly in favour of dubi­ous anti-​terror leg­is­la­tion and ID cards — I doubt it’ll do much good. Should McK­echin reply, I’ll post her response here.

Posted at 1pm on 12/04/08 by Jack Mottram to the politics category.
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Tags: photographs, politics, privacy