What to do when they record you on the beach and broadcast it without your consent

Now that practically all of us carry a photo and video camera in our pocket (our smartphone), voyeurs have it much easier to record people on the beach and upload it to the internet. In fact, with applications like Periscope you can transmit live video, so there is no longer any need to wait. But what happens when they record us on the beach and broadcast them on the network without our consent?

They recorded me on the beach, now what?

It is more than likely that anyone who records or takes photos with their smartphone and uploads it to the network, has shared images of people without their consent on occasion. Posing in front of a monument, having ice cream with friends on a terrace, or Sunday lunch on the beach, on many occasions there are people circulating behind us, who appear in our photos and videos, and whom we did not consult before sharing. However, when they are released, the newsworthiness of these images will be the key, even above the fact that they are committed or private situations.

But as we said, the proliferation of mobile phones makes it habitual to see people recording and taking photos in a thousand and one places, it has become a habitual and daily scene that no one surprises and that, precisely for this reason, it is taken advantage of by voyeurs and exits on duty to make recordings and then broadcast them on the internet.

And now that we are in the middle of summer, these infractions are much more common than we could imagine, and it is not difficult to find online videos of women sunbathing on the beach topless who have been recorded without asking any permission.

Many argue that it is about public spaces and, indeed, it is true. However, where does the informative interest lie in spreading the images of a topless woman sunbathing on the beach? It is precisely because of the absence of this informative interest that this type of recordings or photographs constitutes a crime against the right to privacy of individuals.

Report the facts

Many of the victims whose image has been recorded and broadcast without their express consent decide not to take legal action against those responsible. This is often due to the belief that "the police will do nothing, " or that "it is impossible to find the person who made the recording." However, ignorance of the legislation is usually the basic cause.

Firstly, the police and the civil guard have sufficient means and tools to locate the IP from which a video has been uploaded to the network, and thereby geographically locate and identify the alleged culprit. In the case of videos broadcast live on Periscope or Facebook, it is even easier.

Secondly, we insist on the newsworthiness of the images as a basic element to discern whether a recording of this type is legal or not. For example, imagine that in the news they broadcast a video about a jellyfish plague on the beach that you usually go to. It will be inevitable that people will appear in that video, and maybe you will appear topless, however, this image is accessory to the information.

Conversely, if someone records you sunbathing or bathing on the beach, or cuddling with your partner, there is no news character here.

Therefore, if you find yourself in this situation, what you should do is collect all the information you have and report the facts to the Police or the Civil Guard