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Your bathroom example ignores the most important contextual point at play in the case at hand and therefore must be discarded as a criticism. Ignore the essent

Your bathroom example ignores the most important contextual point at play in the case at hand and therefore must be discarded as a criticism. Ignore the essentials and you can make a case for any action one way or the other: a silly, nonsensical case, but a case. My comments where in context dealing with criminal and a victim. I made clear that the voluntary actions of the criminal are what made the subsequent actions of the victim justifiable as the victim didn't relinquish rights to his property. In your example the phone owner is the voluntary actor and the unwitting person coming after is the involuntary victim. Naturally the cases aren't on par.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
In the bathroom video example, even if a criminal breaks into your house and uses your bathroom, you can't just upload the video to YouTube.
- jjeaff 10y ago
  Are you sure about that? Do you have an example of someone getting prosecuted for posting security footage of someone breaking into their own home? Not a chance, whe there the footage is the front porch or the bathroom. It's all about expectation of privacy. You are not protected from invasion of privacy in a public place, because there is no expectation of privacy there. And I expect a jury would also find that there is no expectation of privacy when you break into someones home and use the bathroom or steal their phone/camera and take it to your own home.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Expectation of privacy is an US concept, not universal law. It doesn't apply in the EU. Here you are protected from invasion of privacy in a public place.
    - jjeaff 10y ago
      The fact that you lump the EU into one statement seems to indicate that you don't really know what you are talking about. In the UK it is explicitly legal to take photographs of people in public places without their permission as long as the act can not be construed as harassment (which is similar here). But I don't know about the many other countries in the EU, I suspect they all have their own laws as well.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        I'm talking about the EU Data Protection directives and the subsequence CJEU rulings (like [1]). Last time I checked, the UK was still part of the EU. And I'm not saying you can't take photographs in public places. What I'm saying is that the binary concept of "expectation of privacy" doesn't apply in the EU. Even in the street there are some protections, such as from CCTVs [2]: This means that cameras attached to a private individual’s home may, in certain circumstances, no longer be exempt from the requirements of the DPA under section 36. Those circumstances are likely to include where the camera monitors any area beyond the interior and exterior limits of that individual’s home. This would include any camera to the extent that it covered, even partially, a public space such as the pavement or street. (...) If you have set up a live streaming camera available to the public so that they can, for example, assess which route to take on their journey to work based on the level of congestion, you should ensure that it is appropriately zoomed out so that individuals cannot be identified. If individuals can be identified then this will need to be justified and shown to be necessary and proportionate. [1] http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-protection-home-cjeu.html http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-prote... [2] https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf
tptacek 10y ago
Generally, being yourself victimized by a criminal does not entitle you to turn around and victimize that criminal. If you use your phone's surveillance features to attempt to locate the criminal and facilitate its return, you're almost certainly fine. But if it's clear that your intention was not to recover your phone or identify the criminal, but instead to persistently invade that person's privacy, it's less clear to me that you're safe. It may depend a lot on what state you're in. There are states with stronger statutes about camera surveillance and invasion of privacy than others. (I'm talking about the US; I don't know what the situation is in other countries --- or rather, I know even less about it).
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  The difference you and I have is that you seem to be arguing law and I'm arguing right and wrong. The two have a disappointing degree of correlation in many jurisdictions. In some culturally regressive countries, the law is used to prosecute the victims of rape. Such law is wrong and immoral... but in those countries it's the law and as a real victim on a moral level you are not "safe" from the law as you say. My argument about what is right and wrong comes from the fact that I do not lose the right to use my property when it is stolen and the criminal loses certain rights when they voluntarily commit a theft. Of course the likely most sensible case is to use tracking, monitoring, etc as you suggest to bring the criminal to justice. But, if you steal a device that can be remotely controlled and monitor you: you lose the right to privacy because part of your theft was to invite me (by way of my property) into your life. The victim didn't ask to be invited, but the criminal made sure the victim was there. By the way, there's a lot worse the criminal gives up at the moment of theft: the right not to be assaulted by me is lost... take my phone a start to run away, I may well cause you to trip and injure yourself to protect my property: I exercise retaliatory force to defend my property, and because you initiated force to take the phone (not necessarily direct violence) you loose the right to be protected from such action. Again: this is moral argument, not necessarily legal... there are plenty of laws around the world more willing to make a victim the criminal and the criminal the victim on criteria going well beyond any willful act (social status, group identity, etc.).

pavel_lishin 10y ago

In the bathroom video example, even if a criminal breaks into your house and uses your bathroom, you can't just upload the video to YouTube.

jjeaff 10y ago
Are you sure about that? Do you have an example of someone getting prosecuted for posting security footage of someone breaking into their own home? Not a chance, whe there the footage is the front porch or the bathroom. It's all about expectation of privacy. You are not protected from invasion of privacy in a public place, because there is no expectation of privacy there. And I expect a jury would also find that there is no expectation of privacy when you break into someones home and use the bathroom or steal their phone/camera and take it to your own home.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Expectation of privacy is an US concept, not universal law. It doesn't apply in the EU. Here you are protected from invasion of privacy in a public place.
  - jjeaff 10y ago
    The fact that you lump the EU into one statement seems to indicate that you don't really know what you are talking about. In the UK it is explicitly legal to take photographs of people in public places without their permission as long as the act can not be construed as harassment (which is similar here). But I don't know about the many other countries in the EU, I suspect they all have their own laws as well.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I'm talking about the EU Data Protection directives and the subsequence CJEU rulings (like [1]). Last time I checked, the UK was still part of the EU. And I'm not saying you can't take photographs in public places. What I'm saying is that the binary concept of "expectation of privacy" doesn't apply in the EU. Even in the street there are some protections, such as from CCTVs [2]: This means that cameras attached to a private individual’s home may, in certain circumstances, no longer be exempt from the requirements of the DPA under section 36. Those circumstances are likely to include where the camera monitors any area beyond the interior and exterior limits of that individual’s home. This would include any camera to the extent that it covered, even partially, a public space such as the pavement or street. (...) If you have set up a live streaming camera available to the public so that they can, for example, assess which route to take on their journey to work based on the level of congestion, you should ensure that it is appropriately zoomed out so that individuals cannot be identified. If individuals can be identified then this will need to be justified and shown to be necessary and proportionate. [1] http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-protection-home-cjeu.html http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.pt/2014/12/bringing-data-prote... [2] https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf https://ico.org.uk/media/1542/cctv-code-of-practice.pdf

tptacek 10y ago

Generally, being yourself victimized by a criminal does not entitle you to turn around and victimize that criminal. If you use your phone's surveillance features to attempt to locate the criminal and facilitate its return, you're almost certainly fine. But if it's clear that your intention was not to recover your phone or identify the criminal, but instead to persistently invade that person's privacy, it's less clear to me that you're safe. It may depend a lot on what state you're in. There are states with stronger statutes about camera surveillance and invasion of privacy than others. (I'm talking about the US; I don't know what the situation is in other countries --- or rather, I know even less about it).

sbuttgereit 10y ago
The difference you and I have is that you seem to be arguing law and I'm arguing right and wrong. The two have a disappointing degree of correlation in many jurisdictions. In some culturally regressive countries, the law is used to prosecute the victims of rape. Such law is wrong and immoral... but in those countries it's the law and as a real victim on a moral level you are not "safe" from the law as you say. My argument about what is right and wrong comes from the fact that I do not lose the right to use my property when it is stolen and the criminal loses certain rights when they voluntarily commit a theft. Of course the likely most sensible case is to use tracking, monitoring, etc as you suggest to bring the criminal to justice. But, if you steal a device that can be remotely controlled and monitor you: you lose the right to privacy because part of your theft was to invite me (by way of my property) into your life. The victim didn't ask to be invited, but the criminal made sure the victim was there. By the way, there's a lot worse the criminal gives up at the moment of theft: the right not to be assaulted by me is lost... take my phone a start to run away, I may well cause you to trip and injure yourself to protect my property: I exercise retaliatory force to defend my property, and because you initiated force to take the phone (not necessarily direct violence) you loose the right to be protected from such action. Again: this is moral argument, not necessarily legal... there are plenty of laws around the world more willing to make a victim the criminal and the criminal the victim on criteria going well beyond any willful act (social status, group identity, etc.).