Tinks and I had our first clash with a member of the public today.  A lady became rather irate, and accused us of a serious breach of her right to privacy. There are many facets to this story ― and I am far from claiming that I was in the right and the lady in the wrong ― but in this post I want to concentrate on the privacy issues from an ethical point of view, since that was the main thrust of her accusations.  The legal aspects of her accusations are dealt with in another post.

So from what I gather from her emotional outburst was that she strongly objected that I flew Tinks near Brough Castle, as I may as well accidentally have taken pictures of her house and family, as well as of her, as she was near the castle at the time.  I have reviewed the footage and her house may well have been on there ― I do not know where she lives ― but ironically she herself is not actually captured until she purposefully strides towards me to pick a fight.

I personally take privacy very seriously, and I very strongly object to the current view of many politicians that privacy has to be given up in order to gain security.  I personally would much prefer being blown up by a terrorist having lived a free life, then reach a hundred years in an Orwellian dystopia.  I also think that the threat from terrorists to individuals is vastly exaggerated by politicians ― both consciously and subconsciously ― as a convenient leverage to convince citizens to give up their freedoms, but that is an entirely different story for a different thread.  I just mention it here to emphasise that in principle, I sympathise with the desire for privacy.

However, she has built a house near a public place ― the castle ― and by the by from what I gathered uses that public space to make a lot of money, as I understand that she is a groundkeeper of some sorts, and also has an ice cream parlour of some description.  So, in general she is quite happy for the public to attend the vicinity of her house, and presumably take plenty of pictures, some of which will inevitably also capture her house, as well as actually enter her premises in order to purchase ice cream, while taking lots of selfies and posting them all over Facebook ― as always, I avoided flying over private property, so was getting nowhere near as close to her house as those paying guests eating her ice cream would have been.  So, apparently, she does not object to photos of her and her property as such ― the one thing she does object to, apparently, is however if those pictures are taken with a drone.

Now, I do admit that drones have the potential to seriously invade a stranger’s privacy.  Theoretically, I could hover high up in the air, and take pictures surreptitiously without anyone knowing that Tinks is there, or could hover outside her bedroom window, though I honestly have no idea why I would want to.  Nevertheless, I appreciate that those are frightening prospects.

However, I could easily do a similar level of damage with my DSLR and 1,000 mm zoom lens.  Brough Castle does after all have an accessible keep that would allow me to get the necessary angles.  Is anyone talking about therefore making the use of all DSLRs and zoom lenses illegal in public…?

No, of course not.  Most members of the public understand that while those articles can be abused, such abuse is rare, and trust each other not to use our cameras for nefarious purposes.  So, all that I am asking for, is that I am allowed the same level of trust that I will not use my drone to spy on my neighbours, just as they have accepted that I will not train my DSLR at their bedroom window.

At the end of the day, all I am doing is taking selfies, like hundreds of people at that castle all the time, to which nobody objects.  The angry lady will inevitably have been on hundreds if not thousands of selfies, in the background, which got posted all over Facebook, Instagram, and Google+.  Apparently all of that is quite all right.  Yet the only difference to those pictures in my mind is that my selfie camera is capable of flight.