There are police snatch squads patrolling popular tourist venues like Trafalgar Square in London, on the lookout for - literally - dirty old men with cameras. They watch for men who photograph children, monitor their activities, and move in and arrest where necessary (to them).
Hmm, reminds me of my little reptile photography trip to the Slovene/Croatian cost. Local friends had assured me snakes were quite abundant there, and indeed after about an hour of searching I found a freshly shed skin of a large specimen.... near the parking lot of a children's holiday camp. Now, when out in the field, I tend to carry a 600 mm for bird photography and shorter telephoto lenses for reptiles. After several hours of searching in that area, it hit me what would happen if someone saw a single adult man lurking around in the bushes around a children's camp, carrying two long lenses. I bolted out of there immediately ("Sure, you were photographing SNAKES, sir. You can admire some snakes in prison while we process your film.").
Bizarre thing is that several hundred meters down the road, I found a pair of snakes at a construction site near the road. I decided to look around there, because the place was obviously really quiet... The presence of marijuana ciggy butts and a collection of smutty magazines lying about gave me that impression. THEN it hit me what would happen if the guy who was spotted carrying long lenses around a children's camp was now discovered at an abandoned site with smutty magazines and reefer... Nature photography has its drawbacks. Ah well, at least I got to photograph the snakes.
As far as the legislation goes... I'm no lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), but my guess is (like others already suggested) that this new European ruling means that judges will get to play a larger role to decide on case-by-case basis. If someone takes my picture on the street and I take them to court over that, the judge will probably laugh at me (before fining me for wasting time), UNLESS I can make a case my privacy has been seriously compromised. IF I can make such a case, the judge may rule differently. My guess is that this ruling will serve as a handle to prevent stalking excesses (whether it involves celebs, children, former lovers, whatever; any case were some maniac decides to follow you around with a camera all day every day) more than some Draconian measure to ban people from taking each other's photographs. I guess we'll have to see how jurisprudence develops.
Z.
