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As a rather privacy-conscious person, I find this argument rather troubling: > asking for [consent] afterwards almost guarantees you will be turned down. In o

As a rather privacy-conscious person, I find this argument rather troubling: > asking for [consent] afterwards almost guarantees you will be turned down. In other words: I can't ask for people's consent because they might not give consent. > Even I, as a photographer, would feel suspicious if a stranger came up to me saying they just took my photo and would like some kind of retroactive permission. The fact that most people would not explicitly consent to being photographed is (prima facie) a pretty strong argument against taking such photographs. It's worth noting that some people have particularly strong reasons not to want to be photographed. Among them: some religious traditions forbid photography, and some people (e.g. closeted LGBTQ people) need to keep aspects of their lives private.

MrStonedOne 5y ago
> In other words: I can't ask for people's consent because they might not give consent. I think you missed the point. If somebody came up to me and asked permission to do something they already did, i'd say no out of "what the fuck" factor even if i would have said yes if they asked before. Implying they were suggesting otherwise is stretching the truth.
zuminator 5y ago
I understand that people may have particularly strong reasons no not wanting to be photographed in public, but the strength of their conviction is not in itself necessarily a reason to respect those reasons. For example, lots of people strongly think that Bill Gates is using vaccines to insert microchips for surveillance purposes. Should we respect those ideas? And yes, the surveillance state is a real thing, so I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone's concerns are completely unfounded, but at least some of the time, the overall logic and philosophical underpinnings of their reasoning are not well considered. Do they really want to restrict the rights of others in a way that may end up harming them? Wouldn't they in fact be grateful if (without consent) a villain was caught on video attacking them, or if a kidnapper (without signing a release) was caught on video putting a child in a van? Some might conclude that only well-behaved people have a right to public privacy, and think no further about the full implications of that. But, technology has created this problem, and may very well soon solve it. First, the increasing spread of deepfakes enables people to at least facially deny that the image in a photo is theirs. Second, the rise of deep learning means that it's becoming increasingly possible for photographers to alter photos of real people so that the faces in street photos are replaced with realistic GAN-generated faces that are distinct from the original face, but the expressions and everything else stay the same. It's not hard to imagine that that may become standard etiquette, another decade or two down the line. What a time to be alive.

MrStonedOne 5y ago

> In other words: I can't ask for people's consent because they might not give consent. I think you missed the point. If somebody came up to me and asked permission to do something they already did, i'd say no out of "what the fuck" factor even if i would have said yes if they asked before. Implying they were suggesting otherwise is stretching the truth.

zuminator 5y ago

I understand that people may have particularly strong reasons no not wanting to be photographed in public, but the strength of their conviction is not in itself necessarily a reason to respect those reasons. For example, lots of people strongly think that Bill Gates is using vaccines to insert microchips for surveillance purposes. Should we respect those ideas? And yes, the surveillance state is a real thing, so I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone's concerns are completely unfounded, but at least some of the time, the overall logic and philosophical underpinnings of their reasoning are not well considered. Do they really want to restrict the rights of others in a way that may end up harming them? Wouldn't they in fact be grateful if (without consent) a villain was caught on video attacking them, or if a kidnapper (without signing a release) was caught on video putting a child in a van? Some might conclude that only well-behaved people have a right to public privacy, and think no further about the full implications of that. But, technology has created this problem, and may very well soon solve it. First, the increasing spread of deepfakes enables people to at least facially deny that the image in a photo is theirs. Second, the rise of deep learning means that it's becoming increasingly possible for photographers to alter photos of real people so that the faces in street photos are replaced with realistic GAN-generated faces that are distinct from the original face, but the expressions and everything else stay the same. It's not hard to imagine that that may become standard etiquette, another decade or two down the line. What a time to be alive.