Going to be quite scant on details but…

I was out and about, and was messaged by two friends independently saying they were surprised to see me in a YouTube video.

Confused, I asked what they were on about. Turns out, a guy I gave advice to had then started recording me towards the end of our interaction without telling me, and has, weeks later, uploaded it as part of a longer video.

I was pretty tired at the time and doing the guy a favour (out of annoyance), and I don’t like a few things, one of those being that he put me online (which, within hours has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times).

What can I do? I have already messaged him to tell him to remove me, but this seems like a ridiculous invasion of privacy.

  • A1kmmAEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    IANAL (and likely neither is anyone here) - and I think the answer would be “it depends” on other details if you asked a lawyer to make a decision on what you’ve shared. So I think that is the only route if you can’t get YouTube or the blogger to do the right thing.

    Some relevant things this might hinge on:

    • Is the person posting this doing making videos as a business venture - e.g. by making videos that they hope to profit from (e.g. by including advertising in it, or through YouTube monetisation)? If this was done as part of a business, that could make a big difference (generally businesses are held to a higher standard).
    • Which country did this happen in? Laws are different between countries.
    • Did they deceive you in any way to get you to do what they wanted for the video?
    • Are you a public figure in any way (prior to the video)?

    Some potential causes of action that your lawyer could consider if they apply:

    • Misleading conduct - if they used deception in the course of their trade.
    • Fraud - if they obtained valuable consideration (your video performance) through deception.
    • Privacy Infringement - if they processed (including collected) your personally identifiable information (e.g. including images / videos of your face, or the identifiable sound of your voice) without consent or another lawful basis / denial of right of erasure. Some of this could apply to Google too - you might be able to submit a Right of Erasure (right to be forgotten) legal request, and at minimum they might need to blur your face and mask the audio so you aren’t identifiable.
    • Copyright infringement - potentially what they recorded counts as a performance and you have a copyright interest in the video. Another one that could apply to Google and be used to take it down.