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by anal_reactor 272 days ago
Eh. These laws exist in DACH area but the result is that when someone's committing a crime, you can't film them in order to create evidence, because that would breach their right to privacy. Someone stole shit from your front porch? Someone broke into your car? Someone pulled an insurance scam on you? Well, tough luck, it's illegal for you to provide film evidence.

In more sensible countries the law says that it's legal to film, but it's not legal to publish videos and photos of people without their consent.
3 comments
AlecSchueler 272 days ago
There are explicit exemptions in Swiss law for the kind of situations you're describing.

https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/24/233_245_233/en#art_28

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sschueller 272 days ago
You can record your own property and you can submit this to the police. However you need to put up notice on your property that you are recording.

Dash-cam footage is a gray area since the video is generally deleted automatically and not publicized. If the crime is severe enough the footage is permitted in court.

Criminals do not just get away just like that. There is a lot of public cameras run by for example the SBB (national train company). These cameras have strict rules as to how long the footage is stored and who has access. The footage will not be posted publicly unless in very very rare cases where the severity of the crime outweighs the privacy of the criminal.

How many innocent people have faced the wrath of the public because of false identification in the US when some grand event occurs? Does anyone remember Richard Jewell[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell

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ninalanyon 272 days ago
> Someone pulled an insurance scam on you? Well, tough luck, it's illegal for you to provide film evidence.

Are you looking at this from a US perspective where illegally obtained evidence is not admissible in court (fruit of the poisoned tree)? At least in Norway this is not the case, nor is it absolutely forbidden in the UK.

See, for instance, https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/commentary-and-opinion/fruit-fr...

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sschueller 271 days ago
Same in Switzerland, evidence is evidence even if optained illegally.
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