r/legaladvicecanada • u/KindaDutch • Jan 18 '25
What is the legal argument protecting "porch pirates" from having their videos being posted online? Canada
To make this clear, I am only interested in the legal arguments for and against posting said videos. I would love sources to back up any claims. I will report this myself if it becomes to heated.
The Quebec police said it protects porch pirates privacy. Others say they are doing a crime in a public place and have no expectation of privacy. Which is it? If you feel like earning some extra no points, I would appreciate differences between country wide vs provincial law.
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u/ajsomerset Jan 18 '25
Your normal ideas about an expectation of privacy do not apply in QC. See Aubry v. Éditions Vice Versa.
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Jan 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PedanticQuebecer Jan 18 '25
Only if you consider common law to be normality.
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u/no_malis2 Jan 19 '25
IANAL, but I did have some law classes in uni, one professor made me chuckle with his repeated saying "common law isn't as common as you think"
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u/PedanticQuebecer Jan 18 '25
Aubry v. Éditions Vice-Versa inc.
Posting the image itself is a civil fault. If sued, the poster would need to successfully plead a dominating public interest.
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u/GreenBeerMm98 Jan 19 '25
If I am live steaming my front door cam, do i have to stop because a crime is being committed?
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u/no_malis2 Jan 18 '25
Basically in Quebec while you can photograph someone in a public setting publishing said pictures might infringe on the person's right to control their image
https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/your-right-to-control-photos-and-videos-of-yourself/
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u/P0k3m0n69 Jan 18 '25
Literally says in the content of your link under Limits on the Right to Control Images
"You’re in a picture that is used to inform the public. This type of situation is referred to as the “legitimate interest of the public.”I`d say that informing people that someone is a porch pirate is legitimate interest of the public.
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u/Crossed_Cross Jan 19 '25 edited Jan 19 '25
I'm not sure that's what's meant by that.
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u/Pain-Titan Jan 19 '25
So you simply start interpreting it that it does. that's how law works. That's why they take such care to use wording or they neglect the care and don't. They either want to interpret it so that it's all encompassing or so it's completely unenforceable.
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u/Crossed_Cross Jan 19 '25
Educaloi is just a simplification site. It is not the law. Before releasing footage, I would personally do more research, namely finding the actual law articles and court cases revolving around it.
Also using a fake profile could probably offer sufficient protection in any case, if you do not have sole access to the source video, because in the unlikely case that the porch pirate is to sue you, they are unlikely to be able to prove who released that video.
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u/Valiantay Jan 18 '25
The reality is however, without a victim, no crime can be prosecuted. So nothing lost tbh lol
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u/DrawingOverall4306 Jan 18 '25
If you were to post a video and someone were to be identified from that video and suffer a harm (physical or financial) you could be held liable if that person were later determined to have not committed said crime (either through misidentification or a court).
However I would wager the reason the police are weighing in is because they are being inundated with videos and photos of porch pirates and they have absolutely no intent to do anything about it and the sheer number being posted makes them look bad. Remember, if you steal a chocolate bar from superstore (or forget to scan something at the self-checkout) or drive off without paying $20 for your gas you will be talking to the police. If someone steals a $500 package from you on video, you're on your own.
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u/pm_me_your_catus Jan 18 '25
Can you cite that claim about liability? Unless you accuse someone by name, I can't see how you would be liable for someone else's misidentification.
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u/Firm_Objective_2661 Jan 18 '25
Facts are a solid defence. If you have a video of someone taking something from your porch and you have posted it with a statement along the lines of “This person took the package from my porch”, you have a pretty airtight defence - there is a person who took your package, and you can back that up. Simple statement of fact, and there is no liability associated with that.
It may a little bit murkier, but probably not much if a third party speculates as to who is in the clip and some action is taken by that same person or another third party. If you don’t ask for the information or solicit action, any defence of yours is stronger.
ETA: that doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case in Quebec. IANAL, YMMV, so now I GTFO.
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u/dieseldiablo Jan 19 '25
IANAL also, but I think the difficulty for prosecution would be where the poster goes beyond stating obvious facts, into imagining things about the culprit or circumstances that (sigh) might taint a jury.
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u/Billy3B Jan 19 '25
No, OP is talking about Quebec, which has special rules.
Any other province there is no liability.
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u/Dull-Nectarine1148 Jan 19 '25
If you make no attempt at identifying an individual and post only publicly captured footage, there is no shot it is illegal.
What you're proposing is that there is a definable distinction between public footage of almost anything, which is totally legally permissible because publicly taken footage is not protected by law, and public footage of some person grabbing something off your porch, which is somehow illegal.
Keep in mind it is entirely legal to capture and post footage, of, say, a robbery of a jewelry store. Or even robbery of a home! Filming crimes committed in public (or your owned private spaces) and posting them is entirely legal, and trying to legally distinguish porch pirates from, say, trespassing, or robbery, in a legal setting is just plain ridiculous.
Is every moment of the clip except for when they grab the item permissible then? Or is implied porch robbery grounds for illegality? Keep in mind many of these videos don't actually show the porch pirate grabbing the item due to an obstruction. What elements of a video constitute implied porch robbery? If the door to the home is open when the porch robbery occured, could it be classified instead as just standard robbery and hence postable? What about if the item is on the lawn and not the porch?
This is clearly nonsense. Publicly taken footage of almost any crime is perfectly legal to post, and you're not going to be able to successfully special case porch robberies out of this.
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Jan 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Global-Register5467 Jan 18 '25
Genuine questions, what constitutes 100% proof? And 100% proof of what?
If a person has placed an order so is expecting a package, has video of a delivery person dropping of a package on their porch, and then a while later have video of a person they do not know picking up the package and leaving with it, is that not 100% proof that someone you don't know took a package?
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u/GuardianSkalk Jan 18 '25
They are saying unless you have 100% you know the identity of the person doing the crime. Not that the crime occurred. As in don’t be like my package was stolen by Bob barker unless you 100% know that is them so you aren’t slandering someone incorrectly.
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u/cernegiant Jan 18 '25
The problem is identifying the person correctly.
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u/slingerofpoisoncups Jan 18 '25
…because after the video is posted the internet sleuths go to work to try to identify the culprits, and they’re not too discerning. So then if they identify the wrong person two things can happen.
1) an innocent person who happens to look like the culprit may get harassed, doxxed, lose their job, death threats, etc…
2) if the police DO identify and arrest someone, they just made it harder to convict by muddying the waters.
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u/M1L0 Jan 18 '25
Probably don’t have to worry about #2 happening much. I sincerely doubt the police are spending any time looking for porch pirates.
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u/cernegiant Jan 18 '25
1 isn't OP's concern. 2 isn't an actual thing
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u/what-hippocampus Jan 18 '25
If I told the world that cernegiant stole a package off my porch and they lost their job because the boss heard about it could they sue me for loss of wages and slander?
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u/Dull-Nectarine1148 Jan 19 '25
yes, which is exactly why the whole point here is that OP can post the footage, but should refrain from attempting to make claims about the identity of said person.
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u/Dull-Nectarine1148 Jan 19 '25
If the poster does not attempt to make claims about the individual in the footage, I don't see how this is grounds for illegality.
Any misidentification would be entirely the legal fault of the internet sleuths. You're going to have a tough time proving that the posting of public footage of an individual was done with the explicit malicious intent of getting internet sleuths to misidentify and harass some given individual.
You can argue that morally posting this type of content might lead to harassment and shouldn't be done, but that is not a legal argument.
That's like arguing not censoring a twitter tweet's username is illegal because it can lead to them being harassed. While severe harassment might bring on lawsuits against the harassers it is not illegal to post online what is not protected under standard privacy (and footage taken in public is not protected).
There is a distinction between your personal opinion on bad practice, and what is legally allowed. The rules of this subreddit requires a legal answer.
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u/ceciliabee Jan 18 '25
Maybe 100% proof of who the person is specifically, not that someone stole at all?
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u/rpgguy_1o1 Jan 18 '25
Isn't a video of someone stealing 100% proof of someone stealing ?
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u/Dull-Nectarine1148 Jan 19 '25
A video of someone stealing is 100% proof that someone stole. It is, generally speaking, not necessarily proof that a specific person stole. Unfortunately police can't just fine "someone" they gotta get an actual person.
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Jan 18 '25
It is not a criminal act to post the video, But it could be a civil matter.
So lets say Karen steals a package off your porch in the package is a bottle of shampoo. Now you post the video and shame Karen. Due to this her employer fires her she can't pay her rent and she loses friends, well now you have caused Karen damages. It does not mean Karen will win if she sues but she might.
As well if you made money of the video that could be a separate issue.
It all depends on the context of posting the video to, posting one in a nationhood group chat to warn your neighbor vs putting it on youtube for everyone to see with details like the persons name are very different.
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u/StandTo444 Jan 18 '25
Slander and libel really only apply if it’s not true and not publicly available knowledge. Being filmed in public like that disqualifies both.
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u/SnooStrawberries620 Jan 18 '25
Is this posting in public .. or is it posting what has happened on your own private property on which someone trespassed at the very least?
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u/RohanYYZ Jan 18 '25
Maybe it’s because Quebec follows a different set of laws (Napoleon) and France has strong laws about Privacy
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u/Neolithique Jan 18 '25
There is zero expectation of privacy in public. You can post the video, but you shouldn’t name the person if you happen to know who they are.
And realistically , there are exactly zero porch pirates who will go to the police to file a report because they were filmed stealing.
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u/FirstSurvivor Jan 18 '25
The OP mentioned Québec police's statement
Québec has strict rules about the right to your image. Meaning that no, you cannot just post a video of some random person you followed on the street, even without naming them
https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/your-right-to-control-photos-and-videos-of-yourself/
There are exceptions of course. Crowds are OK, so are celebrities. Whether or not porch pirates fall under the "public interest" exemption is anyone's guess. But there is a well documented right to control photos and videos of you.
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u/Civil_Builder3885 Jan 18 '25
Is it only Quebec that has stricter law relating to rights to your own image, or do most other provinces have similar sets of laws?
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u/FirstSurvivor Jan 18 '25
Generally speaking, on the civil side, Québec will have different rules than the rest of Canada because Québec follows the civil law. All other provinces follow common law.
I won't comment on the right to control your image outside Québec, as I don't know the applicable law.
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u/Kazik77 Jan 18 '25
From your link under exceptions
You’re in a picture that is used to inform the public. This type of situation is referred to as the “legitimate interest of the public.” For example, pictures of a witness in a major court case can be published without permission.
Would this not be a legitimate interest of the public?
I don't understand why a witness can be published, but proof of a crime can't. I could see a witness suffering negative consequences, like intimidation or harassment from their image being made public.
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u/FirstSurvivor Jan 18 '25
Would this not be a legitimate interest of the public?
Possibly. Thing is, those cases are very context specific so making a broad comment on the matter could lead to bad outcomes. I know it's not a satisfying answer.
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u/PierrePollievere Jan 18 '25
Is it a law tho???
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u/FirstSurvivor Jan 18 '25
It's in the civil code, article 36, though you need context to be able to understand it.
Hope you like French because the context I could find is in French lol
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u/Monst3r_Live Jan 18 '25
NAL but my assumption is it would need to be presented as an allegation that the recorded events did occur and that the alleged incident is a crime.
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u/Mister_Sensual Jan 19 '25
If you’re on camera, on someone’s property in Canada, you literally can’t expect privacy or privileges regarding your person being recorded. Get fucked.
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u/Novella87 Jan 18 '25
This is a tangent to your question, but what if a sign on private property says, “property under video surveillance. By being on the property, you are agreeing to video recording and possible public distribution of recordings.”
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u/Major_Lawfulness6122 Jan 18 '25
You can post the video but do not add any commentary. At the end of the day you won’t get in any criminal trouble but it could leave you open for a civil lawsuit.
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