Getting selfies right

In an article entitled “Sharing explicit selfies without consent may be made illegal“, the Times reports that Social Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli has reacted to the current furore on selfies. Minister Dalli is quoted as saying that “the sharing of explicit material without a person’s consent is a clear breach of data protection”.

It is important to be clear about two aspects here. First of all “selfie” has snapped its way into the dictionary and has a very specific meaning. A “selfie” as the name implies (btw… it’s a “stessu” in Maltese – and that’s semi-official) is a snapshot taken of oneself by oneself. The crucial element in all this is the “self” – it is not a selfie if the person pressing the button of the camera is not the same as the person depicted in the picture. Why is that important? Well, simple really, it stops being a selfie if someone other than the person who took it (and is depicted in it) publishes it. It may sound like pedantic playing with words but in actual fact the point is that you don’t need consent to publish a selfie because technically the only person who publishes a selfie is the same person who took it.

When someone other than the selfie-taker publishes what was originally a selfie then what they are doing is publishing a photo – this falls under a wider category and not necessarily a selfie – of someone else. Who cares? The law might. You see if you are in possession of lewd photos of another person and publish them without his or her consent then chances are high (let’s say close to 100%) that what you are doing is illegal on a number of counts. It is ALREADY illegal.

Which brings me to the second point. I am sure that Minister Dalli’s intention is legitimate and I am also convinced that there might be lacunae that may need to be filled insofar as the Data Protection Commissioner is concerned. There is definitely a need for an educational campaign with regards to the use of private date and publishing thereof. Magistrate Depasquale was reported in the Independent to have referred to the fact that anyone uploading images of oneself that will be available publicly is exposing himself to “fair comment”.

“Magistrate Francesco Depasquale said in his judgement, the accusations were with regard to posts and photos which were openly accessible online. While it is a person’s right to make photos and material public, they should be conscious that this can be subject to people’s comments and ridicule.”

That is a positive development in the sense that our jurisprudence goes on record to remind the citizen the dos and donts at law. Back to selfies though. What the law does not need is complication. It must also be kept simple – Occam’s razor and all. There is already sufficient protection against other people uploading pictures of yourself without consent. It would be crazy to include/add a trend-driven definition such as “selfie” into the equation: it just does not add any value.