Photographers' Rights in the UK: Public Places and Key Questions

Questions about photographing in public places in the UK come up constantly, and the answers that circulate are often years out of date. This page sets out where the main rules actually sit, which powers were repealed and which remain, and where to read the current wording for yourself.

This is orientation, not legal advice. Where a point matters to you, follow the links and read the primary source. Legislation changes, and operational guidance changes more often than the legislation does.

The starting point in public places

There is no general permit system for photography in public places in the UK, and no statute that makes taking a photograph in the street an offence in itself. The practical questions almost always turn on something else: whether a specific power is being used, whose land you are standing on, and what you then do with the images.

That matters because the friction photographers report rarely comes from a law that prohibits photography. It usually comes from a power being applied to a situation it was not written for, or from a landowner enforcing conditions of access rather than law.

What changed in 2012, and why old advice is wrong

A great deal of photographers' folklore still refers to section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the power that let officers stop and search without any suspicion inside an authorised area. It was heavily used against photographers and heavily criticised for it.

Section 44 no longer exists. It was repealed on 10 July 2012 by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. If you read advice that tells you what to do when stopped under section 44, that advice is at least thirteen years old and should be treated with suspicion generally, not just on this point.

Its replacement is section 47A of the Terrorism Act 2000, which is in force. The shape of it is narrower. A senior officer has to authorise it, and to do that must reasonably suspect that an act of terrorism will take place, and reasonably consider that the authorisation is necessary to prevent such an act, that the area covered is no greater than necessary, and that it lasts no longer than necessary. Inside a valid authorisation, a constable in uniform may stop and search a pedestrian or a vehicle, and section 47A(5) says that power may be exercised whether or not the constable reasonably suspects there is evidence of terrorism.

So the suspicionless element did not disappear. It was fenced in behind an authorisation that has to be justified and bounded.

Section 43: the power that needs suspicion

Section 43 is the everyday counter-terrorism stop and search power, and it is also in force. Its wording is direct: a constable may stop and search a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a terrorist. Reasonable suspicion is the threshold, and it attaches to the person, not to the activity of photographing. An officer may seize and keep anything found that they reasonably suspect may be evidence of terrorism.

Photographing police officers

The provision most often raised here is section 58A of the Terrorism Act 2000, inserted in February 2009. It makes it an offence to elicit or attempt to elicit information about a member of the armed forces, the intelligence services or a constable, where that information is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Publishing or communicating such information is also covered.

Two features of the section are worth understanding before anyone invokes it at you. The information has to be of a kind likely to be useful to someone preparing terrorism, which is a high bar that an ordinary photograph of an officer at work does not obviously meet. And the section provides a defence of reasonable excuse, which the accused has to establish.

Operational guidance for forces in England and Wales sits with the College of Policing, whose authorised professional practice covers media relations and reporting from the scene of an incident. The Metropolitan Police publishes its own photography advice for the public. Both are worth reading in their current form rather than through someone's summary, including this one.

Can an officer make you delete images?

This is the question that produces the most heat at the scene. It is also the one where knowing the structure helps most: seizing a device and compelling deletion are different acts, and the existence of a search power does not by itself carry a power to destroy what has already been recorded. Where material belongs to a journalist, additional protections apply to how it may be accessed. If you are told to delete something, the useful move is to ask which power is being used, rather than to argue the general principle.

Private land that feels public

A large share of disputes in London are not about police powers at all. Shopping centres, station concourses, canal towpaths, estate courtyards and many squares that read as public are privately owned or managed, and the owner can set conditions on photography as a condition of entry. Refusing to stop can lead to being asked to leave rather than to any offence under photography law. Knowing which category of ground you are standing on resolves most of these conversations faster than knowing the Terrorism Act does.

Photographing people and what you do next

Taking a photograph and publishing it are separate questions. Data protection, harassment, and the circumstances in which someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy all bear more on the second than the first, and they turn heavily on context: who the person is, where they were, what the image shows and how it is used. The Information Commissioner's Office is the UK regulator for data protection questions and the right place to start on those.

Before you go out

Three habits save more trouble than memorising statute. Know whose land you are on. If you are stopped, ask which power is being used and write it down afterwards. And check the current text of anything you intend to rely on, because the single most common error in this area is repeating guidance that was accurate in 2009.

Demonstrations bring all of these questions together under time pressure: the law on the street does not change, but the room for a calm conversation about it is smaller. You can also browse the talks archive for the photographers whose working practice these questions affect, or read more about photography talks in London.