CAMERAS on houses in residential communities, in and around commercial buildings, on traffic lights, or otherwise placed in public places for surveillance and security purposes, record our “to and fro” on a daily basis.

Every now and then, we may be captured incidentally in the background of a selfie or an image in which we were not intended to be the main subject. There are also instances when a person who we may or may not know intentionally records our image for recreational purposes, or sometimes with ill will, to capture an awkward or embarrassing moment, which could end up on social media. Is it that once we are in public, we have no right to privacy? The answer is “No.”

In Jamaican cases such as the 1994 case between the Robert Marley Foundation and Dino Michelle Limited (regarding the unauthorised use of Bob Marley’s image on a T-shirt), and the 2004 case between Georgia Messam and Morris and Williams (regarding the inclusion of Messam’s image in a publication produced for commercial distribution), the Supreme Court acknowledged the tort of misappropriation of personality. This tort, in addition to the tort of passing off, may arise where a person’s image is exploited commercially without his or her consent. Nonetheless, a person’s right to privacy in relation to the unauthorised use of an image can be breached even where there is no commercial exploitation involved.