Public mugshots

August 23, 2023 3:55 PM

The recent batch of Trump-related mugshots had me wondering two things:

1) Which other countries treat police mugshots as public information, and which do not?

2) Has there ever been significant momentum in the US to limit their status as public information?

(Whenever the usual badly-lit, wild-eyed mugshots get published it always seems like a gigantic privacy violation to me, and a pure humiliation ritual)

posted by trig to Law & Government (6 answers total)

Best answer: Not on the federal level, no. Oregon strongly limits the use of mushots, as of late 2021.
posted by furnace.heart at 4:56 PM on August 23, 2023

Best answer: For a long time, some horrible companies profited by sending FOIA/FOIL requests to certain states and municipalities, and then would post the mugshots on their web pages. The people who had their photos on the pages had to pay the companies to take them down.

Fortunately, Google and some of the other search engines started blocking or limiting search results from these companies. And many states amended their freedom of information laws, or caselaw arose in response, such that the mugshots are no longer considered public.
posted by luckdragon at 5:56 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Can't speak to the international question, but there is some movement to ban mugshot publishing websites in particular states- have a look at the incredibly depressing wikipedia page for the mug shot publishing industry
posted by wowenthusiast at 6:16 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Canada does not (generally?) have Freedom Of Information laws, we have FOIP laws, where the P stands for privacy. So releasing any government-held information is subject to evaluating the trade-off between the public benefit and the individual's privacy. (There tend to be ombudsperson type roles in privacy offices of the appropriate level who can make the decision).

So mugshots are generally not released, but there are exceptions where there is a public interest - primarily in cases where a dangerous offender who is likely to reoffend is being released, or cases where the police are looking for a subject and it's important to get the public involved. (Again, note the importance; looking for a suspect in a small-time burglary is unlikely to beat their privacy rights, but someone who is suspected of a violent attack on a random person probably would get released. Suspected criminals and convicted criminals are still people with privacy rights!) (And also ACAB in Canada too and the official policy is not always followed.)

Here's a newspaper describing/complaining about the situation.
posted by Superilla at 7:26 PM on August 23, 2023

Best answer: I don't even think mugshots are taken here in Denmark today, though they were in the past. I tried to google and all articles are about historical images.
posted by mumimor at 5:34 AM on August 24, 2023

Response by poster: Thank you! And I'm glad to learn that some US states have at least some limits, though most of those are targeted specifically at extortion-type websites and not other types of publication.
posted by trig at 11:59 AM on August 24, 2023