Can a US passport be used in advertisements? I recently saw an ad on facebook using a picture of a passport, and it seems a bit fraudulent but I can't any law restricting the use? So, is this allowed or are there certain cases for which it is allowed?
The picture shown is not fraudulent or problematic. Fraud involves using a false representation (or concealing a fact) in order to obtain a result that would not have been possible to secure without the misstatement or concealment. No one is using the photograph of the exterior of a passport (which is identical for all U.S. passports) to obtain any immigration benefit or for a non-U.S. citizen to obtain citizenship. All that is being done is visually associating international travel (which would usually be done using a passport) with a credit card that can be used internationally. Since a passport is a federal government document, it is also not protected by trademark or copyright laws -- the exterior, generic design of a passport is in the public domain. It can't be used for a purpose to mislead someone about citizenship or immigration benefits, but otherwise, it can be used for any purpose. I suppose that you could be interpreting the photograph (on a Spanish language speaker's facebook feed) as implying that by getting this credit card you will also get a U.S. passport and cool sunglasses, but that would be a patently unreasonable assumption in this context, particularly in light of the clarifying caption at the bottom, and, of course, many people who speak Spanish as a primary language have legitimate U.S. passports (including more or less all passport holders in Puerto Rico). You could also, I suppose, be interpreting the appearance of the passport as some sort of implicit government endorsement of the product when the government does not, in fact, endorse the product, but again, nothing in the advertisement that I can see that can be reasonably interpreted as conveying that message.
You could sue them for commercially exploiting your image without permission, so the waiver is necessary. It is entirely legal to require of tenants (even if weird) that they be part of an advertising campaign, in a specified way: it's also your right to refuse to sign. There is a minuscule chance that there is a local ordinance prohibiting such a clause.
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.
People often use &quot;passport&quot; as a metonym of &quot;citizenship,&quot; but that should not lead one to mistake the two. Notably, many US citizens live their entire lives without having a passport. A fairly brief search didn't turn up an explicit statement from an official government source that passport revocation does not affect US citizenship, but that is quite clearly the case if one reads between the lines of the fairly sizeable statutory and regulatory provisions governing both. Nationality law is codified at 8 USC 1401 and following, with the sections governing loss of nationality beginning at 8 USC 1481. The regulations concerning nationality generally are found at 8 CFR 301 and following, but there are not many regulations concerning loss of nationality. Passport law is found in an entirely different title of the US Code, and titles are the highest level of division in the code. It is in 22 USC 411 and following. There are provisions that restrict eligibility for a passport scattered around in there without any section applying specifically to passport revocation. That is found in the related regulations. Passport regulations are codified at 22 CFR Part 51, with revocation being the subject of Subpart E, which is 51.60 and following. There may be an explicit statement in the regulations that passport revocation does not affect citizenship. I did not look very thoroughly. But a bit of logical reasoning shows why it must be so: The conditions for loss of US nationality are very well defined. They are also fairly tightly circumscribed by several decisions of the US supreme court in the decades following the second world war. The conditions for revocation of a passport are much less strict; as an example, a passport may be revoked under 22 CFR 51.62 and 51.60 if the bearer &quot;is the subject of an outstanding Federal warrant of arrest for a felony, including a warrant issued under the Federal Fugitive Felon Act (18 U.S.C. 1073).&quot; US nationality is required to hold a US passport, but US nationals do not need to have a US passport. Therefore, a US passport may be revoked for a reason that cannot lead to loss of US nationality, and, when that happens, US nationality is retained. The condition mentioned in point 2 is clearly insufficient for depriving someone of US nationality, not least because the subject of an arrest warrant is only suspected of having committed a crime. Depriving a suspect of their liberty is acceptable to the extent necessary to bring that person to trial, but further deprivations beyond that end would violate the constitution's guarantee of due process. A word on &quot;nationality&quot; and &quot;citizenship&quot; in US law is in order, lest the use of the two terms seem inconsistent or arbitrary. US nationality is broader than US citizenship. All US citizens are US nationals, so loss of US nationality implies loss of US citizenship. However, there are some people who are US nationals without being US citizens, so it is more precise to speak of &quot;loss of nationality&quot; than &quot;loss of citizenship,&quot; and indeed that is the term used in US nationality law.
No. Refusing to tell the address alone is not a reason to detain somebody. But there are situations where the authorities can demand that a person identifies himself or herself, including such details as the address (or lack of a permanent residency). In such a situation, failure to identify yourself can get you locked up. Also, the tone of your posting seems to question the legitimacy of the UK government and legal system as a whole. That is a box you're putting yourself into, and the company you find there is not very pleasant.
German law protects the Right of Personality, of which the Right of Publicity is a part. The Right of Publicity protects individuals from having their identity exploted for someone else's gain, without their permission. Using an individual's likeness in the way you describe would violate this, including that of non-German citizens. Depending on what you used this image for, you would potentially face a civil suit. Changing aspects so they're unrecognizable would likely depend on the specifics and intent would count. Honestly, if you're going to change them to be unrecognizable, why even bother- just create an original character. This right lasts for 10 years after the individual's death- during this time it is controlled by the deceased's estate. After 10 years, you would be able to use them this way.
Summary from comments. (Hat tip @jqning) Daniel Nathan Ballard writes here: [It] is not only improper it is UNLAWFUL and may result in serious repercussions... Such a misuse may constitute false advertising... (“It is no doubt true” that affixing the ‘Trade Mark Registered U.S. Patent Office” notice on goods that are not protected by a federally registered trademark creates “a prima facie case of fraud against the public… .”). ... Such use is also a form of “unclean hands” that can bar the user’s registration of the mark. ... Such a use may also bar the maintenance of an infringement case. ... And the fraudulent use of the trademark registration symbol DOES provide other marketplace participants with standing to oppose the user’s registration of the mark. http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/use-of---symbol-but-not-federally-registered-1125746.html
In the general case, it seems unlikely, based on the wording (which is convoluted). In certain cases, if the president of Russia posts "My name is Vladimir Putin", that post is personal data. On the other hand, you might, based on my writing, conclude that I am from the US, and you might even conclude that I'm in Washington state, but that doesn't distinguish me from 7.5 million others, so on those grounds that is not personal data. Eventually, though, you might identify me specifically from other things that I may have said on SE. The definition depends on two parts. First, personal data is "information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person". Any "information" provided by a natural person is "related to" that person (as is any "information" that is about such a person). The second part defines "identifiable natural person", that is, who is an "identifiable person"? Every person can, in principle, be identified by reference to some label or description of fact about them, so every person is an identifiable person, under this definition. This means that every piece of text that refers to an individual (not even text which can identify the person) is "personal data". Obviously, any individual can be uniquely identified by some collection of identifiers; the problem is that the wording of the law does not explicitly say "using that supposed personal data". If I mention that I have a relative named Knudt, that would technically be personal data: I've given information that relates to a person, though you have no idea (and could not possibly figure out) who that person is. Another term that the regulation defines and uses in a few places is "pseudonymization", which is defined as the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person The point of interest here is that this says that "personal data" which cannot be attributed to an individual is, nevertheless, still personal data. I think the most important part of the regulation is art. 6, which defines lawfulness of processing, especially para 4., which allows consideration to be given to safeguards such as pseudonymization.