On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 1:47 AM, Russavia <russavia.wikipe...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Would you feel that is sufficient? This would make it clearer that > editors > > are expected to obtain subject consent before uploading images taken in > > private situations to Wikimedia websites. > > Define "private situations". > > Thank you. It may be helpful if I quote the entire resolution, as the word "private" occurs several times in it: ---o0o--- The Wikimedia Foundation Board affirms the value of freely licensed content, and we pay special attention to the provenance of this content. We also value the right to privacy, for our editors and readers as well as on our projects. Policies of notability have been crafted on the projects to limit unbalanced coverage of subjects, and we have affirmed the need to take into account human dignity and respect for personal privacy when publishing biographies of living persons. However, these concerns are not always taken into account with regards to media, including photographs and videos, which may be released under a free license although they portray identifiable living persons in a private place or situation without permission. We feel that it is important and ethical to obtain subject consent for the use of such media, in line with our special mission as an educational and free project. We feel that seeking consent from an image's subject is especially important in light of the proliferation of uploaded photographs from other sources, such as Flickr, where provenance is difficult to trace and subject consent difficult to verify. In alignment with these principles, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees urges the global Wikimedia community to: - Strengthen and enforce the current Commons guideline on photographs of identifiable people<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people> with the goal of requiring evidence of consent from the subject of media, including photographs and videos, when so required under the guideline. The evidence of consent would usually consist of an affirmation from the uploader of the media, and such consent would usually be required from identifiable subjects in a photograph or video taken in a private place. This guideline has been longstanding, though it has not been applied consistently. - Ensure that all projects that host media have policies in place regarding the treatment of images of identifiable living people in private situations. - Treat any person who has a complaint about images of themselves hosted on our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encourage others to do the same. Approved 10-0. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people ---o0o--- The proposed change is merely to add the words "on Wikimedia sites" in the sentence "We feel that it is important and ethical to obtain subject consent for the use of such media *on Wikimedia sites*, in line with our special mission as an educational and free project." COM:IDENT explores this in more detail, speaking of a "reasonable expectation of privacy": ---o0o--- The *right of privacy* is the right to be left alone and not to be made the subject of public scrutiny without consent. The right to privacy is enshrined in several international laws though the details with regard to photographs vary from country to country. Images must not unreasonably intrude into the subject's private or family life. The law on privacy concerning photographs can be crudely divided into whether the photograph was taken in a private or public place. A *private place* is somewhere the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy and a *public place* is somewhere where the subject has no such expectation. The terms are unrelated to whether the land is privately or publicly owned. For example, a tent on a beach is a private place on public land and a concert is a public place on private property. A place may be publicly accessible but still retain an expectation of privacy concerning photography, for example a hospital ward during visiting hours. Whether the place is private or not may also depend on the situation at the time: for example that same hospital ward would have been a public place during a tour before it opens. In the United States (where the Commons servers are located), consent is not as a rule required to photograph people in public places and publish those photos. Hence, unless there are specific local laws to the contrary, overriding legal concerns (e.g., defamation) or moral concerns (e.g., picture unfairly obtained), the Commons community does not normally require that an identifiable subject of a photograph taken in a public place has consented to the image being taken or uploaded. This is so whether the image is of a famous personality or of an unknown individual. In many countries the subject's consent *is* needed to just take a picture, and/or to publish it and/or to use it commercially *even if the person is in a public place*. Further nuances may include the age of the subject, what the subject is doing at the time, whether the subject is famous, whether the image concerns news of public interest, etc. See Commons:Country specific consent requirements<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_consent_requirements> for details. Because of the expectation of privacy, the consent of the subject should normally be sought before uploading any photograph featuring an identifiable individual that has been taken in a private place, whether or not the subject is named. Even in countries that have no law of privacy, there is a moral obligation on us not to upload photographs which infringe the subject's reasonable expectation of privacy. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:IDENT#The_right_of_privacy ---o0o--- That seems like quite an adequate description. Andreas
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