on youtube I watched a British reality show about airports and (mostly foreign) passengers being searched for anything illegal.
What I find troubling is that many of these passengers speak very little English and find it difficult to articulate an answer to what officers ask in English. I remember an Indian national who didn’t speak any English that though he had the right visa to work in the UK, only to find he had been duped by an Indian scammer and was refused entry. He started crying and the crew filmed the whole scene.
This is humiliating to say the least and I wouldn’t want this to happen to me if I visit the UK. My questions:
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Should a reality crew start recording me, do I have a right to my image and can I tell them to stop recording me? Do tv crews respect that?
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What about the police? Can they record my face, even if I don’t consent?
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I also have a cultural question: If an officer at a British airport asks you if he can search your luggage and you say no and you ask him if you are under arrest, what happens then?
They violate no law in doing so. There is nothing inherently illegal about simply broadcasting your image without your permission.
The risk is that you can make some sort of claim against them (they promised you money, or they are trying to defame or harass you, etc.). Valid or not, without your explicit consent, they cannot definitively refute your claim.
A judge/jury will ultimately decide based on who seems the more credible party. Since they have little to gain and you have little to lose, the benefits to them of broadcasting your image without your consent are usually not justified.