GOVERNMENT RELENTS ON PHOTOGRAPHY!

•  Government Relents on Photography! – The Government has moved on from the brush-off that Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith gave the NUJ over the union's concerns about police surveillance of photojournalists. She had appeared to wash her hands of the matter, but now Lord Bassam of Brighton has said the Home Office will meet the NUJ and will contact the Association of Chief Police Officers with a view to drawing up national guidelines on press photography in public, for journalists and police.
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Lord Bassam made the statement in the House of Lords when, as representative of the Government, he replied to a question about the matter put by Lord Richard Rosser. Lord Rosser asked him was he aware photography publications reported photographers, including the press, were being challenged, asked their names and addresses, and filmed by police for taking pictures in public, and that they considered this harassment.

In his reply, Lord Bassam mentioned that his own friends and family had been affected by incidents of that kind, and said he had a great deal of sympathy for the viewpoint expressed. He went on to enumerate the steps the Government would now take toward Home Office-backed guidelines with national applicability, to protect the rights of photographers.

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RESTRICTING PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT LEGAL!

•  Restricting Photography Is Not Legal! – The Home Secretary has said there is no legal basis for restricting photography in public places. Unfortunately the statement was made in a more-or-less stock response to an NUJ letter alleging MET targeting of photojournalists.

The NUJ alleged the Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team were targeting photojournalists covering demos. The Home Office reply didn't really address this. It restated some of their usual statements about photographers' rights to work in public and said the Home Secretary left it to the Commissioner whether to monitor photographers in reasonable circumstances. It suggested the NUJ should address their concerns to him. (They had done.)
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Journalists are pretty miffed about this brush off.

Can the police target photojournalists with undue, persistant and intimidatory overt surveillance when they cover demos? I would say No, not lawfully, no.

Is this the Home Office's problem? – Apparently not.
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NEW MEDIA JOURNALISTS EVALUATE EYE-FI!

•  New Media Journalists Evaluate Eye-Fi! – New media journalists in the UK have begun to evaluate simple consumer wireless video streaming and image upload technologies, such as Qik and Eye-Fi, for whisking breaking news images away from the scene. Qik enables live video casting from a mobile phone via any 3G/GPRS/Wi-fi Internet connection. And Eye-Fi SD cards automatically transmit images from practically any camera, as they are taken.

www. photomart .co.uk tested Eye-Fi as soon as it was released last year. This month they lent a unit for review to freelance photojournalist Christian Payne. You can watch his review on Qik. [expand story >>>]



Eye-Fi is a new consumer technology. It's simple and cheap and will soon be available in Lexar media cards as well as in the original Eye-Fi cards.

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