What the government thinks about taking pictures in public. Via the Register. The attitude to the contemporaneous manufacturing of grubby pencil drawings is unclear, although you aren’t allowed to do it in court.

You can download the revised guidelines from the National Police Improvement Agency here.

One piece of interest from the new guidelines is in the advice to officers about using their powers (page 17) – it is helpfully in bold type.

Every person searched under section 44 should be told explicitly that they are not suspected of being a terrorist.

Which rather begs the obvious question, why search them?

However, there is reassuring news on taking pictures as section 2.8 Photography (page 22) says;

The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority from section 44 is in place.

Phew. However,

Officers should not prevent people taking photographs unless they are in an area where photography is forbidden by other legislation.

So, if you do want to take a picture about ‘news’, know your law.