Category Archives: law

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Bureaucracy in Europe: Germany vs. France

Europe is well known for excessive bureaucracy. However, there are distinct differences between European countries in this regard. We’ve lived in just Germany and France, but even between these neighboring countries there are easily identifiable differences.

German bureaucracy involves a lot of paper, but it simply works. I was always receiving loads paperwork, all in German, in my Bremen mailbox. But in Germany I learned very quickly that I could generally trust that the documents were prepared correctly. There were too many for me to actually translate. Additionally, documents from German organizations were always delivered promptly. For reference, and contrary to the situation in France, my health insurance card was delivered within a few days of signup. If I had to go to the Finanzamt or the Stadtamt, then some wait time was required, but the most important thing was for me to always have the correct paperwork in order. The Germans do sometimes make absurd document requests, like how they always want a diploma as proof of graduation, even though a transcript is far more appropriate for those of us from American universities. Apparently, to get married, a foreigner must get a document from his home country certifying that he has the right to marry (not already married, etc.). However, we’ve heard that this document does not actually exist outside of Germany and the other governments sometimes have trouble producing this made-up paper.

French bureaucracy involves a lot of paper as well, but I think it was slightly less than that in Germany. I wonder if this may have been slightly affected by the relative verbosity of the languages. It was much more important to read all correspondence in France. All paperwork is very slow in arriving and it is often incorrect. Health insurance cards in France take anywhere from 6 to 12 months for “fabrication.” I have no idea what they are doing during that time. Going to the Prefecture for simple visa or car registration tasks can require between 1 and 3 hours. The prefecture employees can generally be quite helpful, except when they are not. The best advice is, again, to make sure to have the correct paperwork in order before going to the Prefecture. They often send you (or you can find online) a checklist of all required documents for a given transaction. In France, they are a little more flexible than in Germany (and constant rule-bending likely leads to inefficiency), but bringing all of the requested documents is optimal.

A potential problem in Europe is the tenure of government employees. There is little motivation for them to be any more than mediocre workers because their jobs are secure. However, I didn’t really notice this in Germany, likely due in part to the strong cultural work ethic (it’s a stereotype, but it’s hard to argue its veracity). In France, this does seem to present a problem and there seems to be a lot of dead weight in the French government.

There is definitely a plenty of bureaucracy in Europe. Overall, my takeaway is that this is not an inherently bad experience. I’m much more concerned with accuracy than quantity. Note that here I am looking at this through a user experience lens. Bureaucratic structures have other costs and the opportunity cost of filling out paperwork may also significantly weigh on a society.

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Freedom of panorama in Europe

It’s no secret that I think European laws are a joke. Imagine the technologically illiterate politicians that we have in the US, but now imagine that they were actually effective at passing all the stupid laws they want.

There are many examples:

  • Their use of photo enforcement is unfettered by the rules of trigonometry.
  • If a website has cookies, it must display an annoying pop-up warning.
  • They required Microsoft to implement the browser ballot, a feature that was broken for 1.5 years before anybody noticed.
  • They required Microsoft to release an alternate version of Windows XP without Windows Media Player, a ruling that was so out of touch with the interests of the people that only 1500 copies were sold.
  • If you don’t like what somebody is saying about you on the internet, you have a “right to be forgotten” by Google.

Really any time the European Union or the individual European states pass a new law or make a ruling, it’s sure to be comical.

But today I want to write about “freedom of panorama.” This is actually an exception to copyright law, in that the person who designed a building has a copyright on its appearance. In the US, we have a scheme that considers most things that are outdoors and visible to the naked eye to be for public consumption and sharing. With minor exceptions (artwork, for example), one can take photos in public and use them as desired. There is a line, in that we cannot use a telescope to look in windows, for example. In my understanding, this scheme would not be considered true freedom of panorama due to the artwork exceptions. There are pros and cons, but a big positive aspect is that this is generally compatible with the realities of rapidly-advancing technology for taking and sharing photographs.

Now let’s look at Europe. Here, the right to share photographs varies by country. Germany is considered to have freedom of panorama, so outdoor public spaces can generally be photographed and shared as long as the photographer is standing on the ground. There are restrictions on sharing photographs of people. Also they have been drawing a strange distinction for large-scale mapping, and this is why Google Street view has a handful of blurred out houses in Germany. I don’t know the legal theory behind this, and it seems to be related to data privacy, but residents in Germany can opt-out of being pictured on Street View. It’s my understanding that one resident can even opt his entire apartment building out. Also, importantly, freedom of panorama does not apply inside buildings, such as museums.

In France, there is no freedom of panorama. People who own copyrights on buildings or outdoor art exhibits enjoy copyright protection even from small time photographers. A famous example of this involves the Eiffel Tower. In my understanding, the structure’s copyright has already expired, but the lights on it at night are considered an art installation and thus receive copyright protection of their own. Therefore, sharing photos of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night is copyright infringement if prior permission is not received from the organization that runs the tower.

My problem with all of this is practicality. These copyrights are being infringed all the time and it’s only going to get worse. The fact that freedom of panorama isn’t the rule everywhere shows a huge disconnect with reality. I complain all the time about the prevalence of cameras in public, but I’m not crazy. Tourists are not going to navigate a minefield of legal nuance when taking photos. So you’re either going to have broad copyright protection of outdoor sights and no compliance or very limited copyright protection of outdoor sights and high compliance.

Because European lawmakers are clueless, there have been recent attempts to eliminate freedom of panorama exemptions all across the EU. I understand that the EU is hot to increase consistency across borders, which may often be beneficial, but this is the wrong direction to go. For better or worse, the government is supposed to work for the people. The position of the people is clear.

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French food safety

This is another part of my “offend the French” series. But actually I think anybody who takes a step back to look at the issue of French food safety objectively cannot deny the stark contrast between France and the US on these issues.

One of the things that has probably surprised me the most about France is the utter lack of food safety regulations and practices. I understand that back in the US we are known to go very overboard on sterilization, and that’s not what I’m advocating for here. In France, the problem is quite the opposite.

Here is probably the best (worst?) example that I’ve seen of not caring at all about hygiene as it pertains to food. We were on the Paris metro last month when we saw a girl not paying attention (reading the phone or something) as her baguette brushed against the vertical hand rail the whole time. While this may be among the most disgusting examples I’ve seen, this disregard for baguette cleanliness is pervasive. When you buy a baguette, the worker places it right on the counter. When eating, it is normal to place that bread right on the table, even in public places.

We have seen many other instances in which the locals don’t even pause to consider the transfer of germs. We’ve seen dish rags dropped on the floor, picked up, and immediately used to dry dishes. I’ve seen all types of silverware and food picked up off the floor. This happens frequently in restaurants and it also happens at the lab. At the lab, when something gets spilled on the floor, the table sponge is used to wipe it up. I’ve seen the dish towel at work used as a bib for a child and then returned to the hook. This isn’t obsessive sterilization that I’m seeking. I’m honestly shocked that a modern first-world country doesn’t seem to have discovered germ theory.

To me it goes further than concern about disease. I see it as a matter of pride. Everybody knows that the French are proud of their food culture. But “having pride” doesn’t seem to translate to “taking pride.” In my culture, if I take pride in my cooking, serving food that hasn’t been on the floor is part of the deal.

The lesson: Keep an eye on the people handling your food in France. Or actually I think I’d enjoy dining in France a lot more if I were oblivious.

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The king’s tax collectors

The French government got me! They caught me driving by one of their speed cameras. Of course, the photo clearly shows that I was driving well below the speed limit. But what do facts matter when the real purpose is fundraising?

This ticket alleges that my car was traveling 97 km/h in a 90 km/h zone on the A6 down in Écully, just north of Lyon. Because there is a 5 km/h buffer to allow for error on posted speeds of less than 100 km/h (above 100 km/h, it would be 5%), this means I was formally charged with the crime of going 92 km/h in a 90 km/h zone.

I would never expect to have a good chance of success in fighting a ticket anywhere in the world. I’ve driven a lot, been ticketed, and fought tickets before. Interestingly, my tickets have been wrong more often than they have been correct. (My last photo citation showed somebody else’s car.) I am thus very aware of the uphill battle when wrongly ticketed, but I think it’s important to document these stories, even if we must live in places with such reduced liberté.

My case

I know society has a tendency to prejudge these situations (“Oh, he’s guilty, but he just wants to exploit some technicality. It’s a photo so it must be correct.”). I ask you to please try to forget those biases, and remember the following points:

  • There is no wizard! Technology isn’t magical. It has specifications that must be respected if you intend to get the desired result.
  • If you violate these specifications, in some cases the evidence can actually be evidence of innocence.
  • The roads do not become safer by wrongly punishing innocent drivers. Guilty drivers will generally be found guilty, even in a system designed to protect the innocent motorist.
  • It is more important to protect the innocent than to convict the guilty.

My argument closely mirrors that of this guy. I guess he won in court, but he’s French so he clearly has an advantage over me.

Here is the certificate (French) for the Mesta 210C speed camera. In the middle of page 2, it is clearly stated that the camera should be oriented at a 25-degree angle to the trajectory of traffic. This relates largely to what is known as the cosine effect, the idea that a car moving away from a radar looks faster than one moving across its beam, however it seems that this particular model has other reasons that make the discrepancy even worse.

Here is an official report from Metz (French) on the impact of improperly aligned cameras on reported speed. At the bottom of page 2, you can see a table showing the effect of small angular error on the reported speed. Note that the effect is very large for even a small deviation from 25 degrees.

Here is a photo from the certificate, taken from a properly configured camera at 25-degree angle from the trajectory of traffic. This angle can be verified with trigonometry (which I have done), but given that it comes from an official document just assume it’s correct.

An official photo with the car at the correct angle.

Below is a photo from my ticket. It is easy to see that the car is changing lanes and that this angle is different from that in the other photo. (Disregard the direction of travel, as the system works either way.) Trigonometry shows that this is approximately a 16-degree angle from the camera line of sight, but the difference is also very obvious to the naked eye. This difference in angle is so blatantly obvious that I don’t really need to type anything else to disprove this citation.

Speed camera photo of my car.

Some points to take away from these photos:

  • This ticket was issued in clear violation of the 25-degree angle in the camera certificate.
  • It is clear to the naked eye that this is true. Anybody who says otherwise has an agenda.
  • Based on the French government study linked above, this amount of deviation would lead to speed being over-reported by a lot.
  • It is unlikely that vehicle dynamics would allow for crossing lanes at a 9-degree angle while traveling at 97 km/h.

One more note, before I proceed to slam the system. The document regarding the government study stated that it is illegal to operate the camera in violation of the 25-degree rule. This means that the person who sent the ticket might be guilty of a crime.

Due process rights obliterated

The only thing more offensive than being found guilty of the crime, in which any bystander would have seen my innocence, is the complete lack of due process rights along the way. The entire system is set up to be as painful as possible for anybody attempting to challenge a ticket. This includes lost time, lost money, and stress (though, to be fair, this is most government interactions in France). Notice how long this process takes. There is no excuse for this slowness. The system is just incompetent and they probably like it that way, as a deterrent to those who might contest.

The timeline:

  1. October 25, 2013: “Infraction” committed.
  2. October 29, 2013: Ticket issued.
  3. November 2, 2013: I requested photos.
  4. November 12, 2013: Photos were sent.
  5. November 21, 2013: I paid EUR 68 “deposit” for the privilege of due process (early payment and admitting guilt would have only been EUR 45).
  6. December 13, 2013: I sent appeal letter by post.
  7. December 19, 2013: Notice was sent that file had been transferred to local tribunal de police.
  8. April 22, 2014: I requested information on the status of the appeal.
  9. July 1, 2014: Police sent letter requesting me to visit them on July 8 with info about driver’s license. (received on July 6, so limited time window to contact them about rescheduling)
  10. July 15, 2014: Police meeting. No translator was present, though I had called to request one. Because there was no proof of who was driving, I didn’t need to present my license to get points assigned.
  11. October 31, 2014: Written appeal rejected. (received several weeks later, but there a clock ticking on the 30-day limit to submit opposition letter)
  12. November 25, 2014: I appealed the written decision.
  13. December 19, 2014: I requested all details of the camera configuration via post.
  14. April 8, 2015 (4 months later!): Response to request for technical details was sent, though it didn’t actually have new information.
  15. April 27, 2015: I received service to appear in court. I had to go across town to collect this myself.
  16. April 27, 2015: I requested camera configuration specifications again, but never received response.
  17. June 3, 2015: Court date.
  18. June 24, 2015: Notification of decision.

Also note that, in the best case, the cost more than doubles if you fight it. In the worst case, the judge is free to impose a fairly extreme fine. You only fight one of these out of principle. The bureaucrats worked out the math so it’s always a bad financial move to contest, even if you are innocent.

The implications

This should have been a straightforward decision. Anybody can see that the car was changing lanes and it was therefore at an incorrect angle. The prosecutor, Lionel Gauthier, may very well have known his evidence was shaky, as he didn’t put up a serious fight in court. Though he was speaking too fast for my translator, it doesn’t seem that he ever really argued against the actual points I was making. The judge, Sylvie Lagarde, was friendly, but remember that traffic court doesn’t exist in any country to protect the innocent. The translator was nice, but it was her first time in court and she was unable to keep up just due to the nature of the interactions. Nobody was pausing long enough for her to get everything translated. So this alone was pretty unfair. The judge should have taken steps to ensure that every sentence was translated. As it was, 75% of what the prosecutor said was never relayed to me.

This presents a few problems for France:

  • This would be a hard enough process for a local to navigate, but successfully challenging a ticket as a foreigner seems impossible. Where is my égalité?
  • Because of the translator, I got to go first in court. The translation also meant that my appearance went very slow. It took about 35 minutes. When you have a courtroom of people waiting behind me on this, that has a negative effect on productivity.
  • There is a stereotype about French engineering. This ordeal is a data point in support of that. It’s troubling that a ticket with this problem was even mailed out.
  • The taxpayers lost money on this case. Yes, they charged me some money to fight it (in clear violation of standard due process principles) but they still didn’t make enough to pay all of the people involved:
    • People to process the multiple documents going back and forth,
    • Person to rule on written argument,
    • One hour of the translator’s time for the court appearance,
    • At least 45 minutes of the prosecutor time, and
    • At least 45 minutes of the judge’s time.

And you want to know why I recommend against living in France?

But, more seriously: Life is hard. I have a lot of legitimate stresses with respect to moving around and searching for jobs, etc. I want to feel like the government is there to serve the people. I want to feel like the government is there to stand up for the little guy and keep things fair. In general, I’m not anti-government. But when a government behaves like this, victimizing people for no good reason, it’s really upsetting and it leads to a lot of internal conflict about who the government is really there to serve. I know “life isn’t fair,” but in theory aren’t our interactions with the government supposed to be? Are we really supposed to sit back while the government randomly demands our money without any obligation to provide sufficient evidence of wrongdoing?

If the people of France want to reinstate the king’s tax collectors, they should just make it official.

Update (July 15, 2015): I’ve written a detailed description of the math and science behind these problems at

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Privacy Contradictions

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Europeans have some intense views on privacy, and this has some very real effects on photographers. There is this idea in many European countries that a person owns images of himself. I question the legal rationale behind this and it certainly limits the possibility of a free press. It also might be a little naive in today’s world. But, at this time, I don’t intend to really criticize this stance offhand (because, hey, I like privacy too). I don’t even really want to talk about the legal side but, instead, just the cultural side. I don’t feel that these demands for privacy are very principled, at least in France.

I think it’s generally good policy to respect people’s wishes. If a friend asks me not to share a photo, that’s basically fine. I don’t even question it. I myself shield my face in public when tourists are around. I am not overly shy about the camera, but I just find it disrespectful to take photos of people you don’t know. So I’m cool with this idea. However, I do find it a bit unfortunate when you take a photo with friends and then cannot share it because of one holdout. I see a subjective distinction between the case of some friends taking a photo together and a tourist snapping shots of random people.

That being said, my big problem with it is the inconsistency with other areas of French life. It seems OK to have a cultural shyness in which you don’t want to broadcast your activities to the world. However, if that’s how the French feel, I wish they would stop sending my birth certificate and passport all around the country in unencrypted emails. This is a huge problem in France. It’s even common for hotels to request credit card numbers via email. My requests/demands that people don’t do this with my personal information are generally shrugged off. My concerns are seen as unfounded and certainly not worth the hassle of finding an alternative. (Of course email is a huge privacy/security problem for personal information.) To me, this makes the whole thing less genuine. It seems like there is an indignation-laziness tradeoff at play here. They’ll get indignant about you trampling all over their privacy by sharing a photo, but using encrypted email or sending things by post? No, that’s inconvenient. Privacy isn’t that important.

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French fire safety

It is no secret that the French culture embraces regulations. Illusory or not, they love the feeling of controlling the world around them with policies, procedures, and assignment of responsibility. These regulations slow down all activities in France and, in many ways, hurt France’s standing in the world. Of course tradeoffs exist, so we should be careful not to conclude that they are a bad thing in all cases.

What astounds me is that, even with all of this government intervention, common-sense safety regulations really don’t exist. In some cases, this seems like a good thing. It is liberating to not be protected from myself at every turn. But here they don’t even have basic safety features in flats and workplaces.

Take my workplace, for example, where there is a single usable fire exit (UPDATE: See below). The building is not particularly small. It is quite modern, and fire exits do exist all over the place, but they are all locked or barricaded in various ways. The only way out is the front door, and many parts of the building will likely be quite cut off from this exit in case of a fire. I don’t know what French law actually says about this situation, but such an American lab would be inspected and shut down promptly. It is true that some codes in the US are ridiculous, but I’d go so far as to say that the effective lack of fire codes here is stupid. One would think that a responsible employer would solve the problem, but I guess this lack of action illustrates the need for workplace safety regulations and enforcement.

The situation at home and around town is more complex. There are a lot of old buildings in France, including much of the housing. For this reason, it is undoubtedly difficult to implement safety rules across the board. That said, there are some things that are just silly. Last month, though we already had one, a law went into effect that finally mandated smoke detectors in rental housing. This is shocking to me, given that this has been regulated in pretty much every American town for decades. I don’t know the laws in the rest of Europe, but there was also no smoke detector in my flat in Germany. The silliness also extends to the construction domain, with almost every door in France swinging inward. Even worse, many doors require a key to exit. In our flat, for example, we must manually unlock the door to the actual flat and then also the one downstairs to exit to the street. If we don’t have our key on us, we’ll be trapped. I’m not just arguing for the value of regulations. I also believe that responsible landlords and architects should solve these things voluntarily, and it astounds me that they largely haven’t.

Imagine living in a place where right turns on red are universally outlawed but the fire exits are chained shut. It’s mind boggling.

UPDATE: I’ve been told (for unrelated reasons) that there is a second exit that does work in our lab. As far as I know, there is still no alternate exit from the large room with the VR equipment, which has 3 out of 4 exits locked, but is the most likely place for a fire.

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Freedom of speech around the world

There is often talk, particularly among Americans, about freedoms and who has more of them. I have lived in the US, France, and Germany, and have traveled extensively elsewhere, so I want to make some comments based on my understanding of the different tradeoffs in these places. I may write additional posts, but first I want to cover freedom of speech.

United States

Americans like to talk about freedom, but in reality they have given up more than a lot of countries. Americans give up freedoms mostly in direct exchange for the feeling of security. Note that this doesn’t often translate into actual security, as many of the programs that suck up American freedoms cannot demonstrate any positive outcomes. However, freedom of speech is a glaring exception.

There are many in the US who are fighting for censorship, with arguments that hate speech isn’t covered by the first amendment (it is) and uninformed references to the “fire in a crowded theater” quote. Their efforts have been slightly successful, as we are seeing some actions being taken against people for what should be protected speech. For example, public universities have been really going down a bad path lately. Ultimately these people are OK with limits on speech, as long as they get to define the limits.

Additionally, police action is often not on the side of free speech. There have been many examples of military-style crowd control to intimidate protesters. There are also plenty of examples of police beating people up and arresting them for verbal insults.

That said, the courts often come down on the correct side (in my view) of this issue, finding that the government cannot place limits on objectionable content. In the US, speech is instead supposed to be regulated by society. The government cannot stop you from saying things unless they are credible threats or defamation (which must be believable, harmful, and false), but they also offer no protection against repercussions from your fellow citizens. Obviously that citizen can’t go violating other laws when giving payback, but you get the idea. Things aren’t perfect, but this is one issue on which I believe the US really shines as compared to the rest of the “free world.” It’s a shame that so many people are trying to ruin it.


I was surprised to learn that there really isn’t free speech in Europe. Every government over here seems intent on defining lines and limits on what speech is allowed. Britain is generally known to be the worst offender, with laws against all sorts of speech that might disturb the feelings of any subset of sensitive citizens. I’ll comment a little more on Germany and France, as those are the ones I have the most experience with. But note that the laws are not very accessible to non-native speakers so I don’t always know them with great precision.

Germany’s big thing, with regards to speech, is that you cannot deny the holocaust or say anything antisemitic (or other types of “hate” speech). This seems to actually be the case around Europe, and I understand their history is a bit different, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have eliminated such groups. Germany also has some, let’s say ridiculous, limits on insulting people. You quite literally cannot call names in Germany, and the truthfulness of a statement is not a defense. While I don’t condone limits on speech, I must say that Germany is a very civil society.

French speech laws are similar to those in Germany, though they seem to have less emphasis on the personal attacks (i.e. you may be less likely to be sued for calling a name). Worse than a normal personal attack is insulting an employee of the government, an activity that receives great protection in the US. One can also not legally insult the flag or anthem. Germany does have a law against desecration of the flag, but I think the French law differs in that verbal insults, for example, would be illegal too. Think about that: They allow “free” speech, but one cannot fully mount a campaign against the government (certainly not its agents), which is arguably the most important reason to have protected speech. France has also been getting in trouble lately (after the Paris attacks) because of the lines they have drawn regarding religious insults. This is the danger when you start to draw lines. Once you draw them, every special interest group wants them moved. Finally, it is also illegal to publish anything promoting the use of drugs, which can limit arguments about reforming drug policy. So, ultimately, France has left setting limits on speech in the hands of the majority, which is a very dangerous move. Instead of “je suis Charlie,” they should say “je suis hypocrite.”