A slippery slope

For those who advocate ever-closer surveillance of ordinary citizens in the UK, a familiar argument has come full circle. We are often told by these figures—such as home secretaries and chief constables—that we have “nothing to fear” from more CCTV cameras in workplaces and shopping centres, a national ID card scheme or state monitoring of our emails and phone calls.

Why, then, should state authorities or Home Secretaries have anything to fear from a professional photographer taking a picture of a working police officer or a police station?

Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act—which came into force on Monday 16 February—allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone whose pictures are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

The law also introduces across the whole of the UK a ban which has hitherto operated only in Northern Ireland, where it has been an offence since 2000 to elicit or attempt to elicit information about an individual who is or has been a member of the armed forces or intelligence services, or a police officer.

Your defence—if charged—would be to prove that you had a "reasonable excuse" to take the picture in the first place. We believe working photographers have a very good reason to be taking pictures of police officers and others—whether they are attending a car accident, arresting burglars or helping elderly people across the road, or whether they are dressed in riot gear, hitting anti war demonstrators over the head—it is their job to take those photographs.

So, as Section 76 became law this week, the National Union of Journalists and other campaigners organised a mass picture taking session outside London’s police HQ. Says the photojournalist and NUJ member Marc Vallée, who helped organise the event: “It was a great, great moment. We hope the police now realise that the first time a photographer is stopped under this law, it’ll be a big news event. So they should be giving advice to their officers that it wouldn’t be an appropriate way to use the law – in the same way that the stop and search powers under Section 44 of the terrorism laws have been used.”

In the months before the new act became law, the NUJ had questioned the government over how police would enforce Section 76. The reply from Vernon Coaker, the minister for policing, ominously reads: "[limits on photography] may be on the grounds of national security or there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations or inflame an already tense situation or raise security considerations. Additionally, the police may require a person to move on in order to prevent a breach of the peace or to avoid a public order situation or for the person's own safety and welfare or for the safety and welfare of others."

The NUJ is not alone in seeking to challenge the new legislation or to highlight its shortcomings. Indeed, the Metropolitan Police Federation says any law in this area should aim to facilitate photography wherever possible, rather than seek reasons to bar it.

In a statement following the NUJ event outside New Scotland Yard, MPF chairman Peter Smyth said: “Police and photographers share the streets, and the Met Federation earnestly wants to see them doing so harmoniously. Good relationships between the police and media benefit everyone, including the public, which both sides exist to serve.”

The MPF and others are calling for joint action to produce a mutually-agreed code of practice which would underpin, if not replace Section 76. While the NUJ would welcome such a code and would actively participate in discussions to draw up the document, one single act would help enormously to improve confidence among police, photographers and the wider public that this legislation will no be abused. What single act? Scrap Section 76.