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10 Law Text Culture 135 (2006)
The Gentlest of Predations': Photography and Privacy Law

handle is hein.journals/lwtexcu10 and id is 139 raw text is: 'The gentlest of predations': Photography and privacy law Christa Ludlow In December 2004, Peter James Mackenzie, a labourer from the beachside suburb of Coogee in Sydney, pleaded guilty before a magistrate to a charge of offensive behaviour for photographing women who were bathing topless at the beach without their knowledge or consent. He forfeited his expensive Nokia mobile camera phone and the images he had taken. '[The women] were quite horrified by what you were doing ... Women are not objects of decoration for men's gratification,' said Magistrate Lee Gilmour as she fined him $500 (The Sydney Morning Herald 2 December 2004). In a simultaneous outbreak of public concern, steps were taken to ban mobile phones with inbuilt cameras from changing rooms in gyms, pools and sports centres because of fears of their misuse. The Royal Life Saving Society warned that the phones 'allow those with devious minds to record images electronically, or to transmit these images directly onto their personal computer or even the internet'. The Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations announced that parents should have to seek permission from schools to film and photograph their child at swimming carnivals, school plays and other events, saying parents had a right to know who was photographing or videotaping their child (The Sydney Morning Herald 22 February 2005). More recently, in the London bombings on 7 July 2005, closed circuit TV cameras used to keep streets and transport networks under surveillance were used to track the alleged bombers' routes and to reveal Law Text Culture Vol 10 2006 135