shp owner gives cctv footage to member of public to post online

[qualia]

She was not the sort of dog to stray. So when Buckie the British Staffordshire bull terrier went missing from the driveway of her Bondi home, her owner, Grace Barnes, started searching the streets and beyond.

She put up posters offering a $1000 reward for her purebred pup. Her Facebook page – Help Us Find Buckie – has drawn hundreds of people into the hunt, among them a psychic "animal communicator" from Germany.

But things took a novel turn when Barnes, a 28-year-old naturopath, spotted a security camera outside a building near her apartment. She approached the building manager, who let her watch and copy CCTV footage from last week that appears to show a boy with short, brown hair in a sports jumper carrying Buckie down the street.

Barnes posted the grainy footage on Facebook and a childhood friend who saw it then contacted her with details of someone resembling the young teenager and his secondary school, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Police plan to interview the boy and his mother today.

"Someone's always watching, that's the thing to remember. You can't get away with anything these days," Barnes said.

But the NSW Deputy Privacy Commissioner, John McAteer, criticised the increased use of social media and CCTV footage by the public to catch alleged criminals. "It's concerning that people would post images of children online without the consent of a responsible adult," he said.

"Law enforcement is a matter for law enforcement bodies and members of the public shouldn't be taking matters into their own hands."

Social media is being used more often to identify alleged offenders or find people who are missing. Images posted on Facebook of four-year-old Nambucca Heads boy Riley Martin helped find him after he went missing this month.

Last month, two thieves who broke into the Annandale Hotel were arrested after CCTV images uploaded to Facebook by the pub's owners were shared thousands of times.

Barnes said she hoped only that Buckie came home unharmed. "We have no intention of hurting this kid in any way. We just want to get the dog back," she said.

"I think we're a bit beyond privacy in this day and age, aren't we? No one's got any privacy."

 

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/someones-always-watching--internet-vigilantes-spark-privacy-fears-20121016-27oyx.html

 

ok this has really riled my goat, didn't expect to get this pissed straight away. surely there's laws against this? how can a member of the public be allowed to see cctv footage? let alone be able to copy it and post it online? if i was the parents of this boy i would be looking to sue both "grace barnes" and the store which gave her the video footage.

 

"I think we're a bit beyond privacy in this day and age, aren't we? No one's got any privacy."

 

it's this tacit acceptence that everyone's lives are implicitly open and available for everyone else which shits me the most. fucking facebook.

 

[Distracted]

They were filming from their own property, the footage is publicly viewable.

If I were to videotape(lol) a friend of mine walking down a public street and there were strangers in the background, what sort of rights would you like me to have? Should it be illegal to view the tape, to own the tape, to show other people the tape?

I'm finding it hard to understand where you're coming from, sounds like you want more laws that can be used to prosecute innocent people :/

edit: If some little turd steals some of my property(or a living being) and I have a photo of their face, you bet your fucking arse i'm gonna post that around the place shaming the cunt that steals from me.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Distracted

[qualia]

it shouldn't be ok for just anyone to walk in off the street and request camera footage and then post it online.

a disgruntled lover walks into a shop "please sir i've lost my dog can i view your footage", pretty soon they can build up a profile of the movements of their intended victim, be it a former spouse or a child.

if i don't want to be filmed and have that footage splashed all over the internet for all and sundry i shouldn't have to. your saying individuals have no right to privacy.

edit: If some little turd steals some of my property(or a living being) and I have a photo of their face, you bet your fucking arse i'm gonna post that around the place shaming the cunt that steals from me.

where's the presumption of innocence in that? if this situation occurs i assume you have proof, at which time you should take it to the authorities. or you want to live in a society where everyone is guilty until proven innocent?

Edited October 16, 2012 by qualia

[space cadet swami]

or you want to live in a society where everyone is guilty until proven innocent?

 

When was the last time you were arrested..?

I can tell you now the police don't treat you as innocent until proven guilty, everyone is guilty in their eyes.

& the court system...well, if you've got enough money you're innocent & if you haven't got any $...oh well, bad luck.

You don't get justice with the law, you get what you can afford...

[ayjay101]

(slightly off topic)

I remember hearing/reading some time ago about a modern art movement whereby scripted film is pieced together from various snippets of cctv footage of the actors, as requeated from the cameras' owners

[Torsten]

If the cops didn't spend half their resources on chasing drug consumers then they might be able to get on with real policing and people wouldn't be so frustrated that they needed to take these steps. yes, the release of the footage is wrong, but I know from personal experience that even if you hand the cops enough evidence so they don't have to do any actual work themselves they still can't get results on little stuff like this [unless they get shamed into it by the media].