IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2014 - 68

the moral theory of policing as the
basis for justification seems to be a
claim of "just-in-case," rather than
a claim grounded in intervention
against a specific harm.
A second less than clear-cut
scenario falls within the emerging
construction of surveillance not as
social control by state agents but as
seeing; as a form of social practice
undertaken by individual citizens.
Is any moral harm incurred by
the individual subject of an image
taken by a citizen rather than a state
agent? If the image is taken without
the subject's consent then there has
been, prima facie, an intrusion of
privacy. But the significance of the
moral harm caused will be determined by the consequences arising
from the image having been taken.
If I take a photograph of a public
place in which strangers happen to
be standing at the time I take the
photograph, those individuals will
be captured on the image (just as
if they had passed through my field
of casual observation had I viewed
the scene without a camera). If all I
do with the image is print the photograph and paste it in an album of
keepsakes to which I occasionally
refer for private pleasure, then it
seems that no significant adverse
consequence has arisen to any persons who happen to be captured
in that image. Their anonymity
remains - I do not and have no
wish to identify them - and their
privacy (founded on autonomy) has
only momentarily been intruded
upon.6 Had they noticed me taking the photograph it would have
been open to them to raise objection with me at the time. If they do
not do so, then I may infer the individual's implicit consent (or at least
absence of objection) to being photographed, in which case no moral
objection on the basis of privacy
6

t is momentarily intruded upon each time I look
at the photograph subsequently, but again to no
significant adverse consequence if I do nothing
with the information in the image other than appreciate its aesthetic value.

intrusion arises. Even if they have
not noticed me, I have still committed a prima facie intrusion.
But suppose I upload the image
to Internet blog pages. In both circumstances I have taken the image
as a recollection of what I saw at
the time, there is no difference in
my primary purpose for taking the
image. But the use to which I put
the image is significantly different.
Via the blog anyone with Internet
capability can access the image.
The intrusion into the privacy of
those persons caught in the image
is more significant because not
only have I infringed their autonomy (and so intruded on their privacy) but so too will anyone else
who looks at the image. The persons captured in the image have no
control over my use of the image or
its information. Neither they nor I
have any control over the copying
and subsequent re-use and analysis
of the image and its information by
anyone who views it on the blogpages. By uploading the image I
have exposed the image-subjects to
a vulnerability of moral (and potential actual) harm of greater significance than if I had pasted printed
photographs into a private album.

The Morally Relevant
Characteristic of the
Image-Taker
The third specific variable is the
morally relevant characteristic of
the image-taker. This is related to,
but remains distinct from, the use
to which image information is put.
To take a familiar example: a
police officer, when acting as such,
does so under the authority of the
position he or she holds. All things
being equal, to the extent that the
officer fulfils his or her proper duties
in the proper manner and according to (morally sound) law, then
proportionate and necessary acts
necessary to achieve this, although
otherwise morally harmful, will be
justified within the moral theory
of policing. This includes taking
and/or using images without the

consent of the image-subject where
it is necessary to achieve (and in the
circumstances is the only means of
achieving) the proper purpose of
policing. (To the extent that other
public servants are called upon to
take mages or make recordings pursuant to their lawful roles, the same
principles seem to apply.)
Individual
citizens
taking
images of others without the
explicit consent of those others
cannot call upon the authority or
purpose of state agency as a justification that overrides the prima
facie intrusion. What alternative
claims are available to them?
A claim of civic duty justification presents itself in two forms,
the stronger of which is the evidential claim. In the notorious cases
of rodney King and Oscar Grant
the images of police using force
against King and Grant were taken
by citizens (without the consent
of anyone they were imaging) and
used as evidence in prosecutions:
consistent with the moral theory
of policing even though the imagetakers were not police officers.
A second civic duty claim
(arguably weaker because it does
not concern evidence used in the
prosecution of serious crime) is
that citizens are justified in filming/
photographing police officers as the
latter go about their duties in any
case. This claim rests on the public accountability of the police. In
this way the power of surveillance
as a mechanism of state social control (police using exclusive official
powers) is counter-balanced by
sousveillance as a form of social
control of the state (police being
held to account by the policed).
Civic duty also overrides any
intrusion harms where citizens
record other citizens committing
crime with the intention of passing
the images to the police as evidence.
But where individuals take images
of other individuals with the intent
of pasting the photographs in an
album there seems to be no obvious justification that overrides the

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