While at a local pub, I noticed a lady with a cell phone camera taking covert pictures of me without my expressed permission. I asked the lady to stop and to give me a copy of any and all pictures of me and to destroy all copies in her phone's memory. I asked twice on two different occasions and so far have been denied. What, if anything, can I do to obtain the unwanted pictures?
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33What country are you asking about? it differs between where you are. – thebtm Jan 04 '17 at 19:10
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1You'd probably have more success requesting that she deletes the photos without requesting a copy for yourself. – micheal65536 Jan 05 '17 at 08:13
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Everyone engaged in a comment-based discussion has sufficient reputation to use the site's chat room instead. Please do so. – Joanne C Jan 06 '17 at 03:36
8 Answers
While at a local pub I noticed a lady with a cell phone camera taking covert pictures of me with out my expressed permission,
Covert ? Really ?
If it was "covert" how can you know she was taking your photo and not a photo of something or someone around you ( or the room in general ) ? Phones typically don't have much zoom capability so unless she pointed at you close up, it probably wasn't you she was photographing and if she did that it wasn't covert.
I think you're making too much of that.
I asked the to stop and to give me a copy of any and all pictures of me and to destroy all copies in her phones memory.
And she probably thought you were crazy for doing so. She may even have no idea you were in the field of the photo ( and you may not have been ).
It's unrealistic to expect to sit in a bar or restaurant ( or stand in public ) and not be photographed either by accident or design. It's such a normal thing to see people holding up phones and taking photos and video now that it's become utterly pointless for anyone to try it in secret.
You need to learn to expect to be photographed and videoed as a normal thing.
I asked twice on two different occasions and so far have been denied. What if anything can I do to obtain the unwanted pictures ?
Nothing practical.
Frankly even if you have the legal right to do this ( wherever you live ), I would be astonished if a court or the police would not regard you as a time waster for such a thing.
Even if you try and delete a file from a memory card, normal deletion and even formatting processes don't actually erase the data - it can generally be recovered. So deleting it would be pointless.
Asking for a copy would, unless I'm mistaken, make her a legitimate photographer of an image and entitled to keep one for herself. So getting a copy would be counter-productive. Either you don't want to be photographed or you're happy to be photographed - you can't have it both ways.
What you can do is adapt to living in a world where people photographing you and videoing you by accident ( or deliberately ) is the norm, because that's the world you live in.
In your own home you'd be on safer ground legally. But in many countries it's perfectly legal to photograph someone in their own home once the photographer is not there (with a long focal length). In general your right to privacy is governed by how privately you are acting. Doing something in a pub is not somewhere you can easily claim a right to privacy.
Where you'd be on safe ground would be if they used the photos for commercial purposes without your permission or to libel you ( although libel isn't as straightforward as people think ).
So I think you need to learn to let these things go.
Probably not what you want to hear, but practical advice.
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25"Asking for a copy would, unless I'm mistaken, make her a legitimate photographer of an image and entitled to keep one for herself." I've never heard of such a thing. What even is a "legitimate photographer"? – David Richerby Jan 04 '17 at 23:28
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6In the sense that by accepting a copy of the image you are, in a sense, placing her in the role of "your" photographer. "Legitimate" in the sense of not being unwanted, as you can't simultaneously want the photo and not want the photographer. Perhaps I've spent too much time listening to legal arguments, but asking for the photo is potentially creating a contract ( a tort ). Asking for deletion ( but not a copy ) is different. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jan 04 '17 at 23:32
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2Asking for the photo certainly wouldn't create a contract under English law, since there is no consideration: the woman with the phone is giving you something but you're not giving anything back. Other jurisdictions, of course, may have different ideas about what is or is not a contract but I'm mentioning English law because I'm familiar with it and because it shows that the things you're claiming may be true in some places but aren't true everywhere. – David Richerby Jan 04 '17 at 23:35
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10However the woman might be entitled to seek a consideration in return for the copy, and would surely be entitled to deny a copy if she didn't get such a consideration. Asking for a copy just opens up too many complexities to be worth doing. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jan 04 '17 at 23:43
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2It seems very unlikely that somebody who is annoyed being photographed will offer to, e.g., pay for a copy of the photo. I agree that if they did enter into a contract whereby the woman supplied copies of the photos, that would essentially be agreeing to the photos having been taken. But that isn't the scenario, here. – David Richerby Jan 04 '17 at 23:45
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12Worth noting, in the USA, cops regularly get in trouble for doing what you want to do. Even the police don't have the rights to do what you describe except in very specific circumstances. – Cort Ammon Jan 05 '17 at 03:15
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Everyone engaged in a comment-based discussion has sufficient reputation to use the site's chat room instead. Please do so. – Joanne C Jan 06 '17 at 03:36
Legal rights seem to vary strongly from country to country.
For example:
- USA: Allowed to publish the photo even
- UK: Court will decide between a balance of the right of privacy and the right of freedom of expression when publishing
- France: Allowed to publish the photo even
- Germany: Needs consent from all people in the photo if you want to share the photo with a third party if the photo can do significant damage
- Hungary: Need consent from all people in the shot even if the photo isn't published
- Belgium: Allowed in general, except if it would significantly harm that person
Source: Derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography#Legal_concerns
Either way, in no case would you have a legal right to a copy of the photo. At best you can probably prevent the photo from being published or maybe from the photo being shared with a third party, but that's about it. Point in case: Don't do things in public you don't want to be public.
In some countries you could derive additional rights from the fact that a cafe is a semi-public place, where often the houserules of the establishment matter. Whilst researching for this answer I wasn't able however to find a good clear overview of those laws, so I used the above source which is about explicitly public places. In most - though not all cases - it will be the same.
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4The Wikipedia page you link to is about photography in public places. The photographs in question were taken in a pub which, despite the name, is not a public place: rather, it is a private place to which the public is admitted. I believe that, in both the UK and the USA, the landowner or business owner can choose whether photography is permitted on their premises. – David Richerby Jan 04 '17 at 23:32
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13@DavidRicherby True, but that wouldn't convey onto him any right to copies of the photos or to have them destroyed. It would just make the photographer in violation of the owner's rules and the owner could kick them out. – David Schwartz Jan 04 '17 at 23:34
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IIRC in Germany there is a critical mass, i.e. if a picture includes more than a certain amount of persons, you also don't need permission. Or it was something more vague like "the (few) persons the photo is cleary about". But IANAL... – Tobias Kienzler Jan 05 '17 at 07:31
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@DavidSchwartz He could get the owner involved though, and hope that the owner backs him up in requesting that the photos are deleted. – micheal65536 Jan 05 '17 at 08:18
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4You may be reading too much in that Wikipedia page. For example in the case of France there is absolutely no universal right to publish. The fact that the pictures were taken for artistic purposes is crucial in the cited case, and on the other hand the paparazzi press is routinely ordered to pay substantial damages to people whose photographs they publish. It's not at all clear where on the "artistic vs. paparazzi" spectrum the pictures in this case would fall. – Jan 05 '17 at 09:41
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5@DavidRicherby I think that you are wrong. Just as a UK landlord has to serve *all* members of the public who are behaving lawfully, and can’t discriminate to suit himself, because it is a public place, so he must allow publicly permissible activity in that public place, unless it is interfering with his livelihood. – Mawg says reinstate Monica Jan 05 '17 at 10:53
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@fkraiem: agreed. As a side note, one is free to take pictures (in a public place) of people without their consent if they are not published afterwards (see the ruling of the Cour de Cassation: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriJudi.do?idTexte=JURITEXT000024787833) – WoJ Jan 05 '17 at 12:46
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3@Mawg If it were a public place, he landlord wouldn't be able to require everybody to leave at the end of the day. The owner of private premises is perfectly able to make reasonable restrictions (such as "no photography") as long as they are not discriminatory (such as "no photography by women"). – David Richerby Jan 05 '17 at 16:38
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For France at least, your statement is a bit of a shortcut. The default rule is actually quite the opposite, there is a "droit de l'image" which prohibits publication of a picture of anyone without his/her consent. There are quite a few exceptions, but in most cases, anyone can object to their photo being published, and penalties can be quite stiff. However, this applies to publication, not taking the picture. – jcaron Jan 05 '17 at 22:59
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2@DavidRicherby In the US, the context of public refers to "reasonable expectation of privacy" rather than ownership of the property, and I'd assume many other places would look at it the same way. In a pub, you have fairly little reason to expect privacy. Additionally, the lack of physical magnification would also help since the other person had every right to be where they stood / sat to take photographs. – Palu Macil Jan 06 '17 at 02:23
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Everyone engaged in a comment-based discussion has sufficient reputation to use the site's chat room instead. Please do so. – Joanne C Jan 06 '17 at 03:37
In Canada for example, photos in all areas that are public area is fair game as long as the photos are not being used for commercial use. If you are in a private area that is opened to the public, photos also fall under the fair game sense. the only time photos that are not allowed is when your in a private area that has already been stated your not allowed to take photos without permission. Also forcing someone to delete photos can cause you to get charged with Destruction of Property.
If someone wants to use photos in Canada for commercial use, a model release form has to be filled out with the person (people) in the photo.
Also, the photographer doesn't have to share the photos with you. Now most photographers that I know, that if you ask nicely about seeing / getting a copy of the photos, will try to work with you about it.
An quote from Public Photography is No Crime
Subject to certain very limited constraints, it is not a crime in Canada for anyone to do any of the following things, and it is a violation of their Charter rights to prevent anyone from doing so:
- photographing or filming in any public place, or in any private place to which the public is admitted, and publishing those pictures and films,
- taking pictures of or filming in any government site other than “restricted access areas”*
- photographing or filming police officers in public, as long as the photographer/filmmaker does not obstruct or interfere with the execution of police duties. While everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in certain circumstances, police officers have no reasonable expectation of privacy as they go about their duties.
A police officer does not have the right to confiscate cameras or recording equipment (including phones), unless the person in possession of such equipment is under arrest and such equipment is necessarily relevant to the alleged offence. A police officer cannot force anyone to show, unlock or decrypt cameras or recording equipment, or to delete images, even when that person is under arrest, unless the police officer has a warrant or a court order permitting him to do so.
At no time, and under no circumstances, is anyone in Canada subject to arrest for the simple act of taking a photograph or filming, although he or she can be arrested if he or she is breaking another law in the process, such as, for example, trespassing or breaking or entering.
Other laws and legislation, including the Criminal Code, the Copyright Act, the Security of Information Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), must be obeyed while taking or publishing pictures.
The page has a section for the US but I will focus on Canada as I am from Canada and do my photography in Canada.
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I've done some research on public photography in the UK and it's pretty much the same. There's a difference though in that, on publicly-accessible private property, the property owner or a representative thereof can request that you stop taking photos and delete any photos that you've taken. – micheal65536 Jan 05 '17 at 08:17
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The same is true in the UK, where the OP may well be, since he mentions a "local pub". A *public* house is a public place, giving no reasonable expectation of privacy. – Mawg says reinstate Monica Jan 05 '17 at 10:50
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2The model release actually has little to do with commercial vs. non-commmercial use of the photo, and isn't strictly speaking necessary at all. It is really an agreement between model and photographer to prevent lawsuits. Not much different from any other contract. – Kevin Keane Jan 05 '17 at 11:04
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Not directly related to the question, but in many countries you may not be allowed to take pictures in public spaces if copyrighted works are in the picture. Buildings are copyrighted (by the architect) so you might be able to take a picture of the river Thames, but maybe not of the London Eye! In practical terms it may not always be enforceable, but I recall that there were some lawsuits in several different places. – Kevin Keane Jan 05 '17 at 11:10
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1@Mawg, IANAL but I think there can be a difference between a public place and private property that has public access. Despite its name, a public house is private property. – osullic Jan 05 '17 at 15:28
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@osullic In the US, the context of public refers to "reasonable expectation of privacy" rather than ownership of the property, and I'd assume many other places would look at it the same way. In a pub, you have fairly little reason to expect privacy. Additionally, the lack of physical magnification would also help since the other person had every right to be where they stood / sat to take photographs. – Palu Macil Jan 06 '17 at 02:24
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Everyone engaged in a comment-based discussion has sufficient reputation to use the site's chat room instead. Please do so. – Joanne C Jan 06 '17 at 03:39
Whether, and to what extent, the photographer has the right to use photos with identifiable people in them, without the agreement of those people, varies substantially around the world, as other answers and comments have covered.
However, the question doesn't ask that. The question asks:
I asked the to stop and to give me a copy of any and all pictures of me and to destroy all copies in her phones memory. I asked twice on two different occasions and so far have been denied. What if anything can I do to obtain the unwanted pictures?
And to that the answer is simpler. To the best of my knowledge, you have no right to do that, anywhere in the world.
You could ask to see the photos on her phone, but it would be allowable and reasonable for her to refuse. You could remind her that using photos of you without your permission is a violation of your rights, to the extent that's true where you are. In a particularly strict jurisdiction it may be that the photographer has no legal choice but to delete the photo. But nothing gives you the right to obtain the photos; if that happened it would be at the photographer's own choice, and you're unlikely to corner her into wanting to give them to you.
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1I wanted to answer this question, but as it was locked....sad face You hit it on the head, an individual cannot force an individual to delete stuff on their personal devices, anywhere. If OP is in the USA, this falls under expectation of privacy. If OP were in their own home, they could have a quite reasonable expectation of privacy. But when you leave your home, that goes out the window. Red Light cameras, CCTV monitoring by law enforcement, etc. The thing we have to remember these days, is we are all on some camera, somewhere sometime. – NZKshatriya Jan 07 '17 at 04:45
In Australia you need the land-owner or tenant's permission to take a photo. If you are on public land you are permitted to take a photo. "Public", by definition, means not private, so if you are the subject of a photo on public land, you cannot argue for privacy. However photographers have been charged with public nuisance for disturbing others - this is the usual recourse for people being photographed unwantedly.
In your case it's in a pub. If it were here you could ask the pub licensee whether the woman has permission to take photographs in the pub. If she does, there's not much you can do, although you can argue the pub should have informed you that your photo might be taken while on their premises - and they probably did, if they have security cameras operating then they probably have signs warning same. You could advise the pub that you did not attend in order to be photographed (and/or harrassed - if you feel it was harrassment) and you will take your patronage elsewhere.
If you suspect her actions are criminal in nature then report them to the police.
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4Almost every restaurant or similar place allows photographs now. Photos of their food and of people eating/drinking there on Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter drive their business. – David Schwartz Jan 04 '17 at 23:36
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9Note that harrassment is a repeated course of action. You can't harrass somebody by annoying them once. – David Richerby Jan 04 '17 at 23:36
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@DavidSchwartz - just because they don't enforce restrictions on photography does not mean permission was granted. – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 00:00
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1@DavidRicherby - fair point, so perheps the best advice is to contact a legal service to ask about options. – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 00:00
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@youcantryreachingme Sure, but taking and sharing photos of experiences at restaurants and bars is completely common now. Expecting someone to get explicit permission to do it is as silly as expecting them to get special permission to bring in a phone. – David Schwartz Jan 05 '17 at 03:38
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2"In Australia you need the land-owner or tenant's permission to take a photo."
[Citation needed]
There's a big difference between the owner of a premises having the right to demand that people leave their property (and using that power to institute a ban on photography on their property) and photographers having a legal obligation to explicitly request the permission of the land-owner.
– David Scarlett Jan 05 '17 at 03:49 -
@DavidScarlett - http://www.artslaw.com.au/images/uploads/Street_photographers_rights_2016.pdf - "Just because people have free access to a place does not mean that place is a public place in which you are free to take photographs." (and the rest of that paragraph pointing out many common venues in which the operator at that venue may restrict photography permission). – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 04:25
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4@youcantryreachingme Just because the operator of the venue may restrict photography on the premises does not mean a random patron can do so. Also, the fact that the owner has a legal right to restrict photography does not necessarily place a burden on the photographer to ask first. I'm not sure about Australian law, but in U.S. law the burden would be on the owner to give notice of the restriction, not on the photographer to request permission. I suspect Australian law is similar, though. – reirab Jan 05 '17 at 05:12
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@reirab - I am not saying the random patron (if you mean the original poster of the question) can restrict the photography. You may be right in the burden being on the venue to communicate a photography restriction, I am not sure. It is still sound to ask the venue whether she had permission though - that may be an avenue to pursue. As someone else pointed out, the question asked was actually whether anything can be done to make her hand over the photos and I still think seeking legal advice is the best bet. – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 05:27
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1This article explains a lot about Australian laws and notes they are very different to US: http://4020.net/words/photorights.php – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 05:27
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3From your link: "What if you take photos of a private space, publish them, and are then contacted (threatened?) by the property owner, claiming you have no right to display or sell images of their land? Frankly, ignore them. They may be able to restrict you while the photos are being taken, but they cannot do anything once the images have been captured." So, the answer to this question for Australia appears to be essentially "There's nothing at all you can do about it." Even if the photos were taken in violation of the owner's rules, there's still nothing you can do about it. – reirab Jan 05 '17 at 05:39
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Not necessarily. If the landowner had prohibited the woman, there may be recourse via the court to enforce the images be destroyed. There may be other reasons besides. I think a lawyer would have a greater idea about what might be contestable in court than the website author. Anyway, I think all points are laid out for the original poster, along with many other suggested answers, so I'll leave this one here. – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 05:46
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5No, there is no recourse whatsoever for a landowner to demand that photographs taken on their property be destroyed. (If you disagree, please cite actual legislation or case law.) Landowners can implement whatever rules they want for what people can do on their land, but can only enforce them by asking people refusing to follow those rules to leave. Just as some venues ban photography, others ban the wearing of sleaveless tops, or sneakers. A venue owner has no more right to demand that a photographer destroy their photographs than they do to demand another patron destroy their sneakers. – David Scarlett Jan 05 '17 at 05:57
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If they are informed they can't take photos and then take them anyway in many places they can then be criminally charged by the property owner with trespassing. But even then the property owner has no right to confiscate or destroy the photos taken. – Michael C Jan 05 '17 at 07:13
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@MichaelClark No, they absolutely cannot be criminally charged with trespassing. Laws have to provide clear notice of what they prohibit, while an owner can have any rule they want, "don't do bad stuff on my land". The reason owners get so much freedom to make rules to their whims is because the enforcement is limited to asking people to leave. To charge someone with trespassing, they have to refuse to leave when asked (or return after being clearly told they may not enter the property at all). While the details vary among jurisdictions, the basics are due to fundamental legal principles. – David Schwartz Jan 05 '17 at 16:11
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"In Australia you need the land-owner or tenant's permission to take a photo." How does that work? Let's say you're standing on a hill overlooking a large city and wanted to take a picture. Logically, before you could take the picture you'd need to contact the owners or tenants of all non-public property which would appear in the picture and obtain their permission to take the picture. – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Jan 05 '17 at 17:30
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@DavidSchwartz In the U.S. at least, an individual persisting with behaviour on publicly accessible private property that has been specifically prohibited by the owner or their agent (i.e. the bar's manager) after the individual has been informed to cease and desist is prima facea trespassing even if they have not been specifically asked to leave. If the person in charge of the premises says, "You can't do x here" and the other party continues doing x they are trespassing at that point. There are mountains of case law to support that. – Michael C Jan 05 '17 at 22:46
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@MichaelClark What's your best citation that didn't involve any criminal act, interfering with the lawful use of the property, or any request to leave the premises? Preferably one that was thoroughly litigated where the defense was raised that a property owner can't define arbitrary behavior he doesn't like to be a crime. – David Schwartz Jan 05 '17 at 23:24
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@BobJarvis - the land on which you stand when you take the photo. – youcantryreachingme Jan 05 '17 at 23:54
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Everyone engaged in a comment-based discussion has sufficient reputation to use the site's chat room instead. Please do so. – Joanne C Jan 06 '17 at 03:37
I think this question needs a more direct and concise answer than existing answers are:
Can I make a woman who took a picture of me in a pub give the image to me and delete all other copies?
No you cannot.
What if anything can I do to obtain the unwanted pictures?
Nothing other than ask politely - you have no legal rights to those photos.
As others have noted
- It is legal to take pictures of anything in public places.
- A pub is a private space to which the public have access but you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a pub. Note that pub is short for "public house".
- There are restrictions on publishing photos, but these do not affect people's rights to make photographs.
- If you feel the woman was harrassing you or committing some sort of crime, you can either complain to the pub owner and ask for her to be ejected or you can report a crime to the police. From your description it doesn't seem that calling the police could be justified.
I believe the above applies in most (if not all) of the Anglosphere - but this is not law.stackexchange.com. The use of the phrase "cell phone" suggests the pub is probably in the USA. I am reasonably confident what I have written applies there. I am not a lawyer, if you seek legal advice, it would be necessary to consult one.
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This is a matter of opinion. But I would absolutely ask the shooter to delete the photo, and expect her to show you that she deleted it, AS A MATTER OF COMMON DECENCY and wanting to avoid an altercation.
I was a press photographer for years, and I would never take a photo without someone's permission, unless they were making news (such as carrying a protest sign) in a public place. Drinking in a pub is not making news and it's not unreasonable to expect that you won't be recorded. Especially because cellphones let you do more than take photos, the shooter could have recorded video, with sound, and may intend to post it on social media as part of their money-making business.
People who want to get all "I have the right to shoot whatever I want" are missing the point, IMHO. You have to have a VERY good reason for taking someone's photo in place like a pub and and asserting that you don't give a damn what they think or want.
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2This assumes that the photo actually is exclusively or primarily of the OP. What's to say it is, rather than of the woman's friend with the pub as backdrop, or just a general "I'm at the pub, look how crowded/empty it is"? Even something like my Canon EF 70-200/4L has internal zoom, so you can't tell by looking at it whether I'm shooting at 70 mm, 200 mm or something in between (and that's deliberately ignoring the crop factor). I'm not aware of any cell phone camera that has a lens that changes visibly when zooming, and would honestly be surprised if they exist. – user Jan 05 '17 at 19:40
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2I was an event photographer and ran into fellows like the OP on a regular basis since bars/clubs usually hired me.....usually they were cheating, paranoid, ultra low self-esteem, or violating some religious rule of their culture(drinking is ok long as I don't get caught!), embarrassing, etc.
I always deleted them but viewed these fellows as a bit odd...
– deek Jan 06 '17 at 00:40 -
Absolutely agree that this is a PITA if you are a photographer, and my answer ignores legal rights. But it's important today for photogs to realize people can object to feeling they are under surveillance. A reasonable person should comply with a request to delete an image -- or show that the person is not really visible (a quick look at a preview to prove it's not a closeup of you kissing your mistress). – user8356 Jan 09 '17 at 15:49
The biggest problems here are:
You don't have any proofs that the pictures were indeed taken, she could just use the camera as a tool to zoom in something she doesn't see clear with naked eye (for example I used that technique sometimes, because of vision problems)
Even if the previous point is somehow "solved", you don't have any way to ensure photos were deleted instead of just being hidden (optionally with some fake on-screen messages like they were deleted). Even if they are "truly deleted", it's usually possible to recover them, because typical flash memory controllers are programmed to evenly distribute writes so that the memory chip's rewrite cycles will be spent more uniformly (search "wear leveling"). So, unless you steal or destroy the camera's storage (or the entire camera with all memory), chances are the photos are not really deleted. And doing this is illegal and also will bring you bigger problems.
These facts are purely technical/logical, they are unlikely to change anytime soon. Unless everybody start using some TiVoized devices which are made to not obey their user's commands, making above tactics very hard to pull off.
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