MP's EDM for freedom to photograph in public places

Photographers lobby parliament over police curbs - UK Press Gazette

Not directly a waterways story, but a worrying one with impact on freedom-loving photographers like myself:

Labour MP Austin Mitchell is planning to take a delegation of photographers to the Home Office to protest about the growing number of cases in which police officers and others try to stop professional and amateur photographers taking pictures in public places.

Mitchell, MP for Grimsby, has already tabled an Early Day Motion at the Commons which has been signed by 131 MPs, giving it wide cross-party support.

... Mitchell said that last year he was challenged when taking a picture of the view while visiting the Leeds-Liverpool canal by a lock-keeper who wanted to know why he was taking photographs. [granny's emphasis]

It's not really a problem when someone asks me why I take photos.  I think they are as free to be nosey about why I'm taking the photos as I am to take them.  I slip 'em one of my Moo cards (which I always carry) and everyone's happy. 

But I worry about people's growing impression that they think they have a legal right to stop me taking photos in public places.  With very limited exceptions, they don't.  Further reading: www.photopermit.org

It's good to see that one of the signatories of Austin Mitchell's Early Day Motion was the 2008 IWA Parliamentarian of the Year Charlotte Atkins.  Aha, so I got my waterways link in after all!

Comments

[glenn]

Austin mitchell is my local mp and if you saw the way in which he took his pictures you would object. He often enters a room for a meeting and immediately sticks his camera in your face.I find this extremely offensive. I have absolutely no objection to photographers taking photos but surely a courteous "do you mind" would go a long way. Also taking pictures of children in todays climate is something you shouldnt do without first approaching their parents or guardians. I remember an incident when Austin Mitchell took pictures of children playing on cleethorpes beach which brought a lot of objectional comment, but he could not see anything wrong.

[Halfie]

I found the photopermit site, to which you link, not very helpful. Next door to my house a building development of 18 houses has just started. I was filming and taking still pictures of the activity when I was asked to stop. Apparently I was invading their privacy. And their shattering my peace and suddenly putting me on the edge of a housing estate isn't an invasion of MY privacy? I wondered where, aside from on my own land, I stood. Rant over.

[Sarah]

There's also the issue of lots of public space actually passing into private ownership - they can't stop the public rights of way, but they seem to think they can control your behaviour while you're there. Paddington Basin is a good example of this where a suited security type tried to stop me taking a photo of a boat (the boat's owner didn't object) on BW water, but standing on privately owned land and against a backdrop of privately owned buildings.

I tried to engage him in conversation; he having claimed the photo ban was for 'security' reasons, I murmured sympathetically about burglars etc. Oh no, he countered, it's terrorists we're worried about...

Now, I have never yet seen a convincing argument (or, indeed, any argument) that taking photos in publicly accessible and visible places is of the slightest help to terrorists, yet this seems to be widely accepted. Just what is the argument, anyone?