What are the legal repercussions of taking a stranger&#39;s picture in public? With Snapchat and Instagram it is all too easy to abuse picture taking and really inexpensive to snap a photo of an unknowing stranger. If you are in public and will only post pictures online without their permission, can the victim take legal action against you? What would be the effect on the photo taker? Will there be punishment for the host company (if it encourages this type of behavior)?
In the United States, You have no expectation of privacy in public. Anything you can see from a public place, you can take a picture of, even if the "victim" is in their own home but has the blinds open. If you are standing on a public sidewalk or street, you would legally be able to take a picture with certain exceptions. An exception to this would be: if with just your eyes you can see into a private home, you can take a picture of that, but if you require a telescopic lense with some sort of IR adapter to "see through" blinds. That MAY be considered illegal. For real world examples of this question, check out PINAC. Another example is "Creepy Camara Guy", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs6iLtl0BAw. This guy basically goes around recording videos of people in public in a VERY obnoxious way. But he is within his legal right. (Note: Video unavailable: "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.")
Online conversations are generally allowed evidence. However, EVERYTHING in the chat should be considered, as well as any later actions. Were there later conversations that said something different? Did the lease you signed have different terms? One line in a WhatsApp does not make your case a &quot;slam dunk&quot;. It may only be one piece of evidence in a much larger context.
It is illegal in Scotland. There is currently no law specifically against it in the rest of the UK. If you find this is unbelievable, yes it is. There are attempts now to change the laws. PS. There are no photos taken "of the act". Taking the photo is the act. The pervs use a selfy stick or just get down on the floor to take photos, or take photos on stairs. PPS. News on Jan 16th 2019: "A new law will now be introduced in the next couple of months. It could mean that perpetrators might face up to two years in prison and are added to the sex offenders register."
BAD idea It is one thing to upload the phonebook and associated pictures for use of the owner of the phonebook. It isn't a fair use of the phonebook pictures - and you might not have a license anyway, as some people associate photos with numbers that they don't have a license to associate with anyway. But what if instead of a photo of the person, the first photo someone associated with the person is a photo of something like... crack cocaine, a photo of someone in a very compromising situation, just genitals, or some other thing that is just as tasteless or possibly criminal to share? In that case, your company is possibly committing defamation, and in case sharing or possessing of the image itself is illegal, your company is now the actor and liable. Depending on the content of the picture, distribution of pornographic material (possibly even underage material of that sort) could be up that alley just as much as hate speech through symbols, usage of banned symbols (such as swastikas in Gernamy) and many many others.
As far as I can tell, that would be a criminal act. Georgia law § 16-8-2 - Theft by taking says: A person commits the offense of theft by taking when he unlawfully takes or, being in lawful possession thereof, unlawfully appropriates any property of another with the intention of depriving him of the property, regardless of the manner in which the property is taken or appropriated. Georgia law § 16-7-21. Criminal trespass says: A person commits the offense of criminal trespass when he or she intentionally damages any property of another without consent of that other person and the damage thereto is $500.00 or less or knowingly and maliciously interferes with the possession or use of the property of another person without consent of that person. If you know the store is refusing to sell you a product, and you eat that product anyway, that is theft. If you don't eat the food but just open it, that's still criminal trespass. Even if you're leaving them money, you're still taking and/or damaging their property without their consent. Additionally, if they told you to leave, and you refused and instead started opening food items, you might be guilty of trespassing in the more traditional sense: A person commits the offense of criminal trespass when he or she knowingly and without authority... Remains upon the land or premises of another person... after receiving notice from the owner, rightful occupant, or, upon proper identification, an authorized representative of the owner or rightful occupant to depart. As to whether it was legal to give the candy to your daughter before the disagreement and refusal of service, that may depend on what the standard practice is. It seems to me that in most clothing stores you're supposed to pay before consuming the product - this isn't a sit-down restaurant. But if there's nothing else going on, I think the average store would refrain from calling the police if the person did not try to hide the evidence (for example, by stuffing the empty box on a shelf) and if the merchandise was paid for before the person attempted to leave the store, regardless of whether it's technically illegal.
Generally they don't. If the conversation was made while there was a third person present, the person can be a witness at trial. Unless the witness is impeached, the witness's statement may be sufficient for you to meet your burden of proof to show the statement was made, because the burden is just a preponderance of evidence in most civil cases. Note that, the existence of a statement is not sufficient to prove breach of privacy. The context surrounding the statement is important. If you intend to record communications from the landlord in the future, please check with your jurisdiction's laws regarding recording of communications. Many jurisdictions (such as California) only permit a private communication to be recorded when all parties give consent. Not only an illegally recorded conversation is inadmissible as evidence (with the exception to rebut a witness), it is also a crime to do so. Some other jurisdictions in USA allows one party to record the conversation without obtaining consent from the other party.
More generally, can anyone just copy an existing website (without copying the code or images)? Yes. Could I make a website that lets people post pictures like Instagram but call it MyPics? Yes. In general, copyright protects particular expressions of ideas, not higher level ideas or concepts.
This question needs more detail. As a cybersecurity professional I can provide some technical context around what I believe to be the situation. While I do not know the legal precedence, technically, IP addresses cannot typically be attributed to an individual person. There are a number of reasons for this. In a local network, IP addresses are not unique. Rather, they are distributed by the DHCP server, and are reassigned at intervals. Forensic attribution to an individual in most environments would require a DHCP log linking the IP to the machine’s MAC address, with time stamps that correlate to the individual’s logon to that machine at the same time. If the IP correlation involves a VPN, it gets more difficult. I would need to know where the log/evidence was obtained to determine what the IPs in question actually correlate to. If the evidence was obtained in local area network of the suspect, the IP addresses are likely assigned by the DHCP server (see previous). If they are obtained after encryption in transit to decryption, then very little can be determined. If they were obtained at the VPN server log, these IPs likely belong to an ISP which in turn may or may not be able to show what machine initiated the conversation. Digital photos often contain EXIF data, which is metadata about the photo. This data can contain details like, device make and model, sometimes location, time and date... If the defendant owns a Nikon such and such and the photo was taken with a Nikon such and such, and was uploaded using a VPN the defendant has an account with, and the defendant was in that location at the time and place of the photo... there may be enough there... but I’m not a lawyer. I believe the discovery should include any EXIF metadata and logs to be used as evidence. You may need a special technical whiteness to educate the court on what can and cannot be determined (technically) given the evidence. Things to consider for such a witness could include: EXIF, forensic certification, network administration experience, VPN, TCPIP, OSI Model, Network Address Translation (NAT). Again, nothing here should be considered legal advise. Seek professional legal counsel.