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Staff photographing celebrities without their permission?

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AlterEgo

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Technically a train as are shopping centres private spaces on private land.
They are public spaces for the purposes of privacy law. People may have no expectations of privacy in the saloon of a train, or any other public transport.

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A fellow traveller seeing Margot Robbie and photographing her is bad manners.
We can agree it is bad manners if it is a member of staff, on duty, and especially if they have sold it to the press.
 
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Bluejays

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I hope their management have identified and spoken to them. Think it's a really poor move myself.

Taking pics from CCTV like that seems a bit creepy!
 

PudseyBearHST

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Just my opinion- but I think as a society in general the way people are so quick to whip out their cameras is quite sad. Someone could be having a bad day or have an embarrassing moment and instead of helping them, they’ll record it and put it on tik tok for the world to see. (I get it’s perfectly legal but don’t think it’s morally ok personally)
 

PyrahnaRanger

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It is unacceptable and appropriate because I haven't got clue who Margot and her friend Robbie are.
Not Margot’s friend, it’s her twin sister. Robbie is one of those modern names people have now. I believe they’re both actors in those new fangled talkies ;)

Technically a train as are shopping centres private spaces on private land.
They may be considered private land, but there’s no expectation of privacy there - unlike being in your own back yard, for example.

and maybe GDPR because we are on private property, really not sure now
GDPR deals with Personally Identifiable Information, so a photo is not covered by GDPR unless it’s used to identify an individual, such as passing it through a facial recognition system.
 

HBP

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It is unacceptable and appropriate because I haven't got clue who Margot and her friend Robbie are.

Margot Robbie is a very talented, beautiful and rich actress at the top of her profession. She should be applauded for taking a 4hr train and not a private jet.
 

WAB

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The issues of photos being taken of you in public and of rail staff taking photos of you are two very different matters.

Staff are on duty as servants of the company and should not be taking/posting images and videos of specific members of the public, let alone going to the press about it. It brings the company into disrepute and should be dealt with accordingly. Especially when they say things like this:

"She’s absolutely stunning, even with barely any make-up on. It's my absolute biggest celebrity spot to date - she's A* royalty."
 

Towers

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I hope their management have identified and spoken to them. Think it's a really poor move myself.

Taking pics from CCTV like that seems a bit creepy!
They are, thankfully for the employee, not CCTV images, which should be a very definite disciplinary offence as any CCTV footage is tightly controlled by law.

I thoroughly agree with other posters however that this is unprofessional in the extreme, and I’d sincerely hope that LNER would feel the same. No company should be happy with their staff taking covert photographs of customers and then sending them to the press, totally unaceptable. I suspect a staff memo will be appearing shortly!

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Margot Robbie is a very talented, beautiful and rich actress at the top of her profession. She should be applauded for taking a 4hr train and not a private jet.
Although she may now choose the hopefully more professional attitude of the staff on board a private jet next time!
 

TUC

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As a slight aside on this matter, as far as I know from my reading of the forum posting rules there is no specific prohibition against posting photos on this forum which include potentially identifiable people. However, personally, in the odd case where I've posted in trip reports, and there was such a person who had "intruded" into my railway related picture, I've applied a blur to their face to make them anonymous.

I would suggest this is a good idea if there are any faces close enough and clear enough for it to be relevant.
But some of the most informative photos of the 1920s, 30s, 40s etc. show ordinary people going about their lives. They would be so much less atmospheric and informative if all the faces were blurred out.

If you're in public, then the chance of your face being in thr background of avphoto is just part of life.
 

yorkie

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If you're in public, then the chance of your face being in thr background of a photo is just part of life.
Absolutely agreed; this is a completely different concept.
The issues of photos being taken of you in public and of rail staff taking photos of you are two very different matters.
Exactly this.
Staff are on duty as servants of the company and should not be taking/posting images and videos of specific members of the public, let alone going to the press about it. It brings the company into disrepute and should be dealt with accordingly. Especially when they say things like this:
Indeed; I've worked in a couple of sectors where it I had acted this way, I could have expected severe disciplinary action and perhaps even been sacked.

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I’m sure my face is on countless forums over the years without my permission.

It’s only because I’m not famous that it hasn’t reached the papers.

I mean I literally said it’s unusual for the employee to do it so I don’t know what more you would like me to say on that.
You are making a false equivalence; you've not visited someone's workplace and had an employee do this to you, have you?
My point was it’s not a crime
I agree it's not a crime. It's a disciplinary matter.
and they work in an industry that brings about this type of reaction.
I don't think anyone should be photographed by an employee of the provider of the service they are using and have the photograph provided to the press, regardless of the industry they work in.
Whether people think it’s morally right or wrong is a different matter.
It's clearly unacceptable conduct for an employee to do this; it brings the employer into disrepute.
 
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Meerkat

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I think it’s telling that the employee stayed anonymous.

I think it’s very poor form to take a photo of someone without their permission if they are the subject of that photo, rather than just happening to be in it.
At what point does it become harassment , specifically in terms of railway byelaws etc?

My biggest question is why a photo of an LNER train is on Coventry Live. Surely the employee wouldn’t live there??
 

Adam Williams

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My biggest question is why a photo of an LNER train is on Coventry Live. Surely the employee wouldn’t live there??
This is how Reach Plc work. They copy/paste all their "journalism" to all of their "local news" properties, slap a few hundred ads on top and then profit each month. It doesn't matter if the news story is relevant to the local are or not.
 

John Luxton

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My biggest question is why a photo of an LNER train is on Coventry Live. Surely the employee wouldn’t live there??
Almost all the ..... Live websites are run by Reach plc. I monitor a few from Liverpool Echo to Cornwall Live for stories about places I visit down the west of the UK and there is a lot of sharing or stories despite coverage areas sometimes being miles away.
 

yorkie

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My biggest question is why a photo of an LNER train is on Coventry Live. Surely the employee wouldn’t live there??
You are thinking of a long gone era of local news publications being created by local people.

The image is from SWNS ( https://swns.com/sell-content/ ) which encourages people to provide/sell* content to them; the content could then be used by any publication, anywhere.

Furthermore, it's not uncommon to see the same content on multiple sites, all purporting to be 'local' news sites, run by a monolithic 'news' company such as Newsquest, Reach etc, who provide generic, poor quality material under various brand names, which were previously used by reputable news organisations.

Often what counts as 'news' is very bland, and not really newsworthy, but if it generates clicks, that's all that matters. Headlines are often cryptic, or hyperbolic.

The standard of 'journalism' on such sites is generally very poor too; the aim is very much to provide a poor quality, mass produced product, which lures people into clicking on the material, often bombarding the reader with intrusive adverts in the process, with the aim of misleading the reader in order to maximise revenue for the minimum effort.

* It's possible, perhaps even likely that the person who took the photo earned some money for it; I've worked in a couple of sectors where, if I had done this to people who were under my duty of care, I would expect to get sacked for it. Whether it's moral for a member of the public to act this way is one thing (I personally would question the morality of it), but for an employee to do this, it takes on a whole new dimension, as detailed above.
 
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Adam Williams

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Going slightly off-topic now, but to be fair: Does anything genuinely newsworthy actually happen in Coventry to justify multiple daily articles? Half of the stories there on Coventry Live are actually about Warwickshire.

The articles that do get published about Coventry simply end up with the same people moaning about students and student accommodation in the comments, which is apparently the root cause of all the city's problems.

I can see how, against this backdrop, if you need to publish something you eventually end up using exactly the sort of content referred to in this thread (and sold to SWNS, as @yorkie points out), as long as it garners some clicks. But it's quite sad to see the death of local publications and this as their replacement. Not to mention that it then incentivises people to go and gather more of this sort of content.
 

Horizon22

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This! I don't think there's any real issue with taking a quick snap and sharing with colleagues or friends "Look who's on my train!" but sending it press? That's really poor in my view especially when the person in question is clearly trying travel quietly without drawing attention to themselves.

Of course sharing it with colleagues might mean it is then indirectly sent to the press even if that wasn't the original photographer's intention (not that this was the case on this occasion).
 

thenorthern

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There are very few laws on photography especially in public in this country. Even if people do send photos to the press there are still very few laws against it. Photographing children in public without consent is also largely legal.

Normally the only time photographing in public is illegal if it's causing harassment or if there is a court order preventing it.

With railway staff taking photos though it's largely a matter for their employer.
 

Bertie the bus

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Taking a photo of someone without their permission is one thing but that photo is just creepy. It is just one step up from upskirting.
 

ainsworth74

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Of course sharing it with colleagues might mean it is then indirectly sent to the press even if that wasn't the original photographer's intention (not that this was the case on this occasion).
It's always important to know who you can trust not to take the micky ;)
 

jagardner1984

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it isn’t upskirting of course, but personally, whilst of course I do not own the train or have a right to privacy there, sitting in one of the single seats by the window on LNER - if the person sitting opposite was to produce a camera and start photographing / filming me, I would find that disconcerting to say the least. -

I’m not sure “celebrity walks out of Tesco near a place they live / work” has ever been a genre of “news” I could get my head around. Not just because I’ve no interest in reading it, but just how anyone monetises any aspect of it.

Relevant in some senses to the use of phone cameras etc, one wonders if an outcome of the recent violent disorder might be some restriction / offence relating to photographing / filming obvious suffering - for example the recording of the abuse / injury of emergency services workers, and whether more clarity on the use of a phone as an object of intimidation might be needed.

For example, taking a photo of a train pulling into a station - ok, taking flash photos into a cab where someone is trying to work without discussion or permission - not ok.
 

Mikey C

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It's definitely wrong for staff to take photos of celebs on board trains, to potentially profit from them. While the public might be more intrusive, the staff should be above that.

The same would apply in a restaurant, could you imagine waiters taking photos of celebs eating there?

I'm just glad the pregnant Margot went 1st class, and didn't have to endure the awful standard class seating for 4 hours!
 

Belperpete

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As I understand the railway is private property, not public land (hence the ability to refuse admission, kick people off/out and set its own bylaws).
Agreed, and the owner of the land has the right to set restrictions on whether or not someone on their land is allowed to take photos. However, I think there is a difference between land ownership, and what is considered public space in respect of privacy laws.

Just because someone is an actor does not mean that they are not entitled to some privacy in their private life. Some celebrities deliberately court publicity and seem to want to make every detail of their private life public, but that doesn't mean that they all do. Unfortunately some publications and an increasing number of people seem to think that they are all fair game.

I have seen a number of celebrities, politicians and the likes on my travels over the years, and would never have dreamed of trying to take a photo. Unfortunately nowadays everyone seems to need a selfie to record every moment of their lives.
 

Tetchytyke

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It's Reach plc (or Retch, as Private Eye refer to them) and so I'd take the idea it was a staff member taking these photos with a pinch of salt. The angle certainly looks as though it was taken from a seated position.

Having been in LNER first class several times with celebrities on the train, and having seen how LNER staff treated them, I'd both be very surprised and very disappointed if a member of LNER staff was taking photos like this and selling them to the papers. But once you send a photo to a WhatsApp group there's no telling what someone else will do with it.
 

43066

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It's Reach plc (or Retch, as Private Eye refer to them) and so I'd take the idea it was a staff member taking these photos with a pinch of salt. The angle certainly looks as though it was taken from a seated position.

Having been in LNER first class several times with celebrities on the train, and having seen how LNER staff treated them, I'd both be very surprised and very disappointed if a member of LNER staff was taking photos like this and selling them to the papers. But once you send a photo to a WhatsApp group there's no telling what someone else will do with it.

I must admit I have a similar inkling about this. The staff working the train would get into *big* trouble if caught doing this, and they would be easily identifiable if a complaint was made, which suggests it’s more likely to have been off duty staff travelling as passengers (if indeed it was staff members at all).

And why would people selling photos take the risk of identifying themselves as staff members? It doesn’t add anything to the photo, which could just as easily have been taken by a random member of the public. The WhatsApp group scenario is possible, I suppose.
 

ainsworth74

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The angle certainly looks as though it was taken from a seated position.
I know what you mean but I don't think there's any seats from the position where the picture has been taken. That's the first class wheelchair space and there's two, one on each side of the coach. Obviously it could have been taken by someone in a wheelchair but I think the angle is wrong for that as well! I suspect it's someone just stood up but holding their phone low down as if they're looking at something on the screen rather taking a picture.
 

Tetchytyke

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I suspect it's someone just stood up but holding their phone low down as if they're looking at something on the screen rather taking a picture.
You might well be right. It looks as though it's the half-carriage of first class. It also looks as though the second photo was taken at Newcastle station (you can see the Voyager out of the window) so perhaps during a crew change or similar?

If LNER staff are flogging this stuff to the papers then it really does show that standards have slipped there.
 

greatkingrat

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Presumably holding their phone down low in order to make it less obvious that they are taking a picture.
 

ainsworth74

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You might well be right. It looks as though it's the half-carriage of first class. It also looks as though the second photo was taken at Newcastle station (you can see the Voyager out of the window) so perhaps during a crew change or similar?
Yeah that would track I think!
If LNER staff are flogging this stuff to the papers then it really does show that standards have slipped there.
Indeed, shame really how low that the operator has gotten. As far as I can tell morale at LNER is in the toilet and has been for a while. Real shame as in their various incarnations the one thing that they always had going for them was, with a few notable exceptions, excellent staff.
 
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