A few weeks ago, as I was standing in line at a store, a security guy (or maybe an officer) walked in and proceeded to arrest somebody at the cashier. Immediately, one of the guys in the line pulled out a camera and snapped a picture. The security guy got furious and threatened the customer that his camera would be confiscated, which evidently got the customer a bit scared and he stopped taking photos. Now, I can understand the security who doesn’t want to be captured on camera and then put on YouTube, but from the legal perspective he is a public figure and has no right to threaten the customer, or does he? I got curios to find out!

I generally don’t want to spend years in a law school to study all things possible about the law, but in situations like that I get curios – what is the legal answer? Not that I ever plan to be arrested, but when I take out my camera and snap a photo, I want to know what my legal standings are, and of course if somebody ever tries to take my stuff away, I want to know just how much pull I should have in the matter.

After a quick Google search, I wasn’t able to come up with many answers coming from the government websites, but I got to somebody’s blog. Apparently, if you are in a public place and you’re not violating “reasonable expectations of privacy” of an individual, then you are good. Only a police officer could confiscate your belonging, but even s/he would have to arrest you to do that without a court order.

Great, so that means no one can take your camera away, or can they? One of the blogs suggested that if one is taking photos on the private property, the property owner could legally restrict the action. But in our case, could the employees of that property do the same? Furthermore, once you have taken the photo, could the guard take away your camera, or would s/he have to call the police and have you arrested to do that? Well, thanks to this Photographer’s Guide to Privacy, apparently even in the private place you’re free to take photos as long as it’s publicly accessible private place!

One problem solved, but it is one of many such legal questions that we come across every day. In my view, we should all know the answers. Unfortunately, because there are so many laws and they are all so cryptic and well hidden, a member of the general public has no sane way to finding answers without research, not to mention to deduce the common sense answers on the spot. It is unfortunate that one cannot defend his or her own rights without first passing the bar.