>At least were I am coming from, you can also not just film random adults on the street.
If you live in the United States, the first amendment absolutely allows you to film anyone in public. It's a constitutional right.
This also applies to publicly funded facilities, like courthouses, libraries, post offices, the DMV, and also public schools - any publicly accessible area, in any facility that is publicly funded.
I'm not making this up, it's actually part of the constitution.
> also public schools - any publicly accessible area
A public school in your country is something were any random dude, can just walk in, without anyone being able to object? How does this work with the duty of supervision, the duty to provide and the protected status of children as ward to the educators?
A prison, a nuclear power plant, the hospital and the military are all facilities, that are publicly funded, yet you certainly can't walk in and take random photos or do other things.
I expect public schools to be publicly funded, not to be the same as any public space. Maybe that indeed doesn't apply in your country, but that sounds bullocks to me.
>A public school in your country is something were any random dude, can just walk in, without anyone being able to object?
These days, generally no, "random dude" cannot just walk into any school as some have the front doors locked during school hours (mostly due to gun violence, not taking photos), but it's not impossible. But "random dude" is not the subject of the article, the subject is student's phones being banned, which does not include cameras specifically being banned, which students could still bring into a school, and it's still perfectly legal to use them. Don't hallucinate something I didn't say to try to make a pointless argument. "Random dude" was not part of this comment thread until you made it up.
>A prison, a nuclear power plant, the hospital and the military are all facilities, that are publicly funded, yet you certainly can't walk in and take random photos or do other things.
You can take photos in the public lobby of all those places, that is accessible to the public, or from outside the facility on public sidewalks or roads, etc. Hospitals over here aren't generally publicly funded, a small number are, but most are for-profit. The US has a lot of problems with healthcare that your country may not have. It's perfectly legal to film military bases from outside the base, anything you can see from a public space is legal to film. It's up to the public entity being filmed to create privacy (walls, etc). Publicly accessible areas are a thing in most public facilities, and restricted areas are a different thing, where filming is not allowed, nor access is given.
1st amendment rights are the same rights that allow security cameras to record people in public, and the public has the right to request police body cam recordings, as well as all camera footage from cameras in public facilities to be requested by the public. If I wanted to, I could get all the security footage from any public facility, just by requesting it. That's why it's also perfectly legal for me to bring my own camera and film inside any publicly accessible area of a public building. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public in the US.
>I expect public schools to be publicly funded, not to be the same as any public space. Maybe that indeed doesn't apply in your country, but that sounds bullocks to me.
Constitutional rights don't stop because someone's feelings might get hurt if their photo is taken, and a made-up policy that some institutions like to post on the front door banning photos doesn't supersede the rights given in the constitution. We can ignore those policies, because they are not more important than constitutional rights.
Most people in the US don't even understand 1st amendment rights, but there are a lot of "1st amendment auditors" that go around testing our rights, filming in publicly accessible areas of all the places you've mentioned, and educating people (including law enforcement) that don't have a clue what the 1st amendment guarantees.
> Don't hallucinate something I didn't say to try to make a pointless argument. "Random dude" was not part of this comment thread until you made it up.
Sorry, that wasn't what I was trying. "Accessible by random dude" was something I took as a measure for being "public accessible space". In my mind that's a prerequisite to being allowed to take photos.
> If I wanted to, I could get all the security footage from any public facility, just by requesting it.
Wow. That's a thing? That explains some films, I always thought, they have just weirdly good connections to a security guy or bribe someone.
> Constitutional rights don't stop because someone's feelings might get hurt if their photo is taken, and a made-up policy that some institutions like to post
In my mind personal privacy should be a higher right than some random person today feeling like they need to record my faux pas. But your law is your law.
Don't you have a (legal) duty to protect children from having arbitrary behaviour publicly broadcasted?
The videos sound I bit like public place means any where you can just walk in. Does that mean you really need a fence, to say that something is not public? I mean we are here also not the Nordics, where you do not need a fence what's-o-ever, but we don't need a fence that physically prevents you from going in. A partial fence or markings on the ground are enough, and you are expected to just not walk onto private property, you don't need to be forced to do so here.
>In my mind personal privacy should be a higher right than some random person today feeling like they need to record my faux pas. But your law is your law.
You are being recorded by the government, constantly in public. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. If you're going to be disturbed that someone recorded you tripping over a rock, then that's your problem, not the problem of some random camera in the area.
The only time where permission is required is if the photo or video is used for commercial purposes - like a tv show or movie or an ad campaign, etc. Then the person filming must get a signed release to use the images.
>The videos sound I bit like public place means any where you can just walk in.
Generally, yes.
>Does that mean you really need a fence, to say that something is not public?
Not a fence, just a "no trespassing" sign is enough if it's a private property. But you are allowed to walk up to any home's door and knock on the door, even while recording. If they tell you to leave, you must leave.
If it's public land, then a fence is likely necessary, with a sign posted that it is a restricted area. For example, if it's an unfenced parking lot at a public facility, and there is no "restricted" sign posted, you can walk around and take photos of all the cars, even inside the cars since it's essentially within public view from a non-restricted area.
> You are being recorded by the government, constantly in public.
Are we talking about your country or about mine now? When the legal basis for the surveillance expires the government must also delete the data like everybody else. Sure they might not always do it, but that is simply illegal and I can sue my government for that.
This applies to all cameras. Any place where a camera is installed needs to have a sign, stating the storage duration and a contact where you can object and get your data deleted earlier. For example, footage from bodycams of policemen need to be regularly deleted, and emergency dashcams for cars, are only allowed to be have storage for a few hours maximum, so the data is regularly overwritten. If you use a camera that doesn't do that and you bring the data to a court as evidence, it is taken against you.
> If you're going to be disturbed that someone recorded you tripping over a rock, then that's your problem, not the problem of some random camera in the area.
It's less that I would be personally disturbed by the recording itself, but by the public humiliation that follows, which absolutely has real world consequences. Would you hire that fool you have seen last week on Youtube doing a dumb challenge? Suddenly the recorder has a way to ransom you. That applies even more to children in a school. That will be a easy way to bully people if you make that legal.
Your explanation sounds like it would be absolutely illegal, to record the habits of your neighbors, when they get up, when they go to work, what they like to eat etc. ...
If you live in the United States, the first amendment absolutely allows you to film anyone in public. It's a constitutional right.
This also applies to publicly funded facilities, like courthouses, libraries, post offices, the DMV, and also public schools - any publicly accessible area, in any facility that is publicly funded.
I'm not making this up, it's actually part of the constitution.