Is there a Law against taking pictures of children engaged in anti-social behaviour

Is there a Law Against taking pictures of children (8-9) engaged in anti-social or hazardous behaviour?

I know this touches on -

• child pornography - he was fully dressed
• privacy - he was in a public place and had been in a child minder group.
• criminal intent - my video was taken for the purposes of showing it to be police, who had been called.
• health and safety - he was climbing a fence about 8-12 feet up over a tarmac surface and refusing to come down.

Is there any law governing the circumstances a I have described them?

Previously I had discussed the situation with the owner of the childminding facility who had come out to address the situation.
She was concerned that there was risk of an accident, I tried to get the boy to get down and then suggested calling the Community Officer.
The owner was worried that there was a serious risk of an accident which could have had serious implications for her business and so she agreed.

I made the call in her presence and then took the picture of the activity as proof.
For the record, with the picture taken and the police called, the kid got down pretty quickly.

I then got an earful from the group child minder about it being against the law to take photos of children.
Or course, if I had tried to lift the child from the fencing, assuming I could reach him, I could have been done for assault.

I cannot find any laws prohibiting taking a picture in such a situation.
Anyway, laws on photography please.

ONQ.

There is no law against taking pictures of anything or anyone who is in a public place.

There are some laws against the inappropriate use of pictures - the situation above is not inappropriate.

I then got an earful from the group child minder about it being against the law to take photos of children.

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I'm not aware of the existance of any such law.

In regard to pictures taken in public place is there some restriction if the person is being harrassed or being deceived?

csirl said:

There is no law against taking pictures of anything or anyone who is in a public place.

There are some laws against the inappropriate use of pictures - the situation above is not inappropriate.



I'm not aware of the existance of any such law.

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Me neither, and thanks for the comments above, csirl, but I was told it was part of their documentation for running a creche.

I can understand that a parent might want to have rights of veto over pictures of their children being used for advertising by a creche or being sold for material gain.

In such a cases a contractual arrangement might be offered by a creche to allay their fears and restrict use of pictures and/or require them to seek permission to use any pictures.

To my mind it seemed/seems that an actual law preventing the photographing of children would be so restrictive in practice that it would prevent the reasonable ordinary use of a camera by law abiding people to record photos of their kids and their kids' friends.

But it STILL wouldn't prevent inappropriate use by others.

ONQ.

dewdrop said:

In regard to pictures taken in public place is there some restriction if the person is being harrassed or being deceived?

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Are you talking about the unlawful harassment of someone or the deception of someone in order to receive monies?
If you're looking at gathering evidence there may be admissibility issues, but an always-on security camera may get around them.
In your case (if my assumptions are correct) I think you'd be only using it to prove to a Garda that the offence occurred, for example if someone is likely to deny, or has denied, the offence.

ONQ.