Is it illegal to photograph drug dealers?

Is it illegal to photograph drug dealers?

Is it legal to photograph people carrying out illegal activities in the street and post these images on a social network? What are the risks?

JF, Geneva

Personal rights are protected by article 28 of the Civil Code, which generally prohibits any infringement of these rights, unless justified by the consent of the victim, by an overriding private or public interest, or by law.

Personal rights include the right to one's image, which includes the right not to be photographed and the right not to have a photograph published without the consent of the person concerned. However, there is no infringement where the person photographed is not recognisable in the images.

For example, it is illegal to photograph individuals in a public place if they are the subject of the image. Conversely, a photo taken in a public square with passers-by is not illegal as long as it is a crowd and no one is particularly highlighted.

The public interest in information will allow a politician to be photographed in an uncomfortable situation, which will not be the case for an ordinary person, insofar as the public may have an interest in being informed about the behaviour of their elected representatives.

From the point of view of private interest, the victim of a mugging may, for example, photograph his assailant since his interest in finding him appears to be more important than that of a thug in not being photographed.

The public interest in publishing a photo showing unlawful conduct on the Internet nevertheless takes on a different dimension and depends on the interests involved, as well as a priori on the offence committed.

Anyone whose personality has been infringed can ask the court to prohibit the infringement if it is imminent, to order its cessation or to declare it unlawful, which opens the way to an action for damages to compensate for the non-material harm resulting from the infringement.

A court will therefore have to consider whether the citizen action pursued by someone who photographs offenders and publishes their image in a recognisable manner can be justified by the seriousness of the offence committed and remains in acceptable proportion to the resulting violation of the right to one's image. Indeed, prosecuting offences is first and foremost the job of the police, with whom anyone can cooperate without necessarily taking the world as a witness, since all individuals enjoy the presumption of innocence until their guilt is established by the courts...