Is it legal to recording people in public in Ireland?
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Quick answer
Legal position
Current starter summary
Recording people in public in Ireland is not automatically banned, but the Irish DPC says GDPR may apply where identifiable people are recorded and the activity is not purely personal or household in nature.
Conditions
What would need to be true
Consider whether the recording is purely personal or household activity; if not, data protection obligations may apply, especially in public places or commercial contexts.
Exceptions
Known carve-outs or edge cases
A narrow personal or household exemption can apply, but the DPC says it must be assessed carefully and construed narrowly where public space is involved.
Penalties
Penalty snapshot
No penalty summary has been entered yet.
Enforcement
How this may be enforced
The DPC says video and audio recording of identifiable people can amount to data processing and can trigger GDPR duties.
More rules in Ireland
Use the reset build to keep country pages useful even before every row is fully sourced.
download pirated movies
Irish government copyright guidance says the copyright owner has the exclusive right to copy a work and make it available to the public, and that permission is needed before using copyright material. Downloading pirated movies from unauthorized sources is therefore not lawful.
gamble online
Ireland now regulates gambling through a licensing framework and the government has confirmed that the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland can issue licences. Online gambling is therefore not a blanket free-for-all and depends on the licensed regime.
stream pirated content
The official Irish sources reviewed here clearly support copyright enforcement against unlawful IPTV operators and say permission is needed before using copyright material, but they do not provide one clean consumer-facing yes-or-no rule for every ordinary streaming scenario from these sources alone.
buy a brass knuckles
Ireland treats knuckledusters as specified offensive weapons. Government guidance says offensive-weapon offences can apply to manufacture, importation, sale, hire or loan of items such as knuckledusters.
Compare this activity in other countries
This makes the rule page useful for comparison without creating a second data source.
Australia
Recording people in public in Australia is not automatically unlawful but organisations and agencies using security cameras or similar surveillance devices generally must comply with privacy rules and relevant state or territory surveillance laws.
Austria
Austria’s Data Protection Authority says photo and video recording needs a lawful basis and proportionality. Recording people in public therefore depends on what is being recorded, why, and how broadly the recording intrudes on others.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina's data-protection authority says video surveillance is processing of personal data and must meet necessity, proportionality and accountability requirements. Recording people in public is therefore not a free-for-all if identifiable individuals are being monitored.
Canada
Recording people in public is not automatically unlawful in Canada but organizations using overt video surveillance still need a specific justified purpose and should use the least privacy invasive measure that works.
About this row
Canonical dataset status
Official sources
Source URLs attached
Reset rule
Why the page is intentionally light
The new site should show a stable layout, a stable route, and clear source slots before the dataset is scaled up again. That keeps management simple and makes later official-source population safer.