The capture of Images in privately owned locations - What would you do?

The next exercise "A Public Space" asks for images in an organised public space. Whilst a few suggestions were mentioned I will choose to take some images within a retail shopping centre where I new there would be many people and shops and it would be interesting to see how people react.There has been some interesting articles surrounding people taking images within retail centres. One very controversial incident was as a result of a row of a father taking an innocent image of his daughter eating ice-cream in a Glasgow shopping centre. More details can be found here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15236758What I found very interesting was the fact the security guard called the police and the police advised him that he could have his camera phone confiscated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Whilst this was clearly a valid statement the threat is laughable given what the father was doing, and indeed a copy of the image taken is visible in the above article. It is also excessive to suggest the taking of this images constituted an act of terrorism.However the crux of the issue is that notices in the shopping centre were present advising that no photography was permitted. Whilst there is an argument that does photography include camera phones, the capture of images being prevented was made clear. My view is that the notice is there to prevent some of the bad people in this world capturing images of innocent children and not to prevent the capturing of memories; in this instance a father capturing a happy image of his daughter is not what the rules are intended to prevent. There is for me some element of jobs-worth here and the security guard should have been able to recognise the innocence of the situation and simply pointed out the rule to the father.In fairness to a shopping centre spokesman they did say, and I quote from the above article:

"We have a 'no photography' policy in the centre to protect the privacy of staff and shoppers and to have a legitimate opportunity to challenge suspicious behaviour if required. However, it is not our intention to - and we do not - stop innocent family members taking pictures."

A campaign did start and many shopping centres have since withdrawn notices over photography.The key here for me is that there needs to be balance of what is right and what is wrong on both sides and of course we want to prevent all children, and adults, from exploitation.I know prepare for Exercise 7 - A Public Space and I have chosen a shopping centre in which to take some images. I will detail my experiences and approach in my next post.